‘Leila’ is Netflix’s brilliantly executed new concoction about a dystopian India starring Huma Qureshi.
‘Leila’ terrifyingly mirrors a dark reality, with its dystopian take on a racially segregated India reigned by a right-wing government set to cleanse impurity – by any means necessary.
While ‘Leila’ has been called out by some for its Hinduphobia story, most have lauded the show for its ruminative telling of present-day India; with Islamaphobia on the rise and Hindu extremists attacking Muslim minorities in the country (the worst we’ve seen under Modi’s regime), ‘Leila’ is reality’s harrowing reflection.
If you’ve seen ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’ then you’ll draw some parallels between the HBO show and Netflix’s Indian dystopian drama.
Deeply disturbing circumstances have molded a segregated, 2050 India – Aryavarta – where women who marry outside of their community are kidnapped, suppressed and reconditioned to be ‘pure.’ Hindu-Muslim marriages are seen as impure, and the Aryavarta governance sends hooligans to crack them down; Shalini (Huma Qureshi) and Rizwan Chowdhury (Rahul Khanna) are a married couple with one daughter Leila – Shalini married a Muslim man, and is kidnapped after her husband is killed and daughter taken away (a mystery for Shalini in the years to come).
The uncomfortable bleakness and bitter truth that real-life India holds these days make ‘Leila’ far too real to be passed on as just entertainment.
Shalini is drugged every morning so as not to rebel, and the women are tested on their purity – those who are pure enough may be allowed to return to their homes. And for those who fail the test, they’re sent to labor camps for the rest of their lives. ‘Leila’ has been adapted from Prayaag Akbar’s novel of the same name, with showrunner Urmi Juvekar penning it for the screen.
Source: Netflix
The rawness of terms used like ‘doosh‘ for lower castes, to chaste Hindi and crass classism, ‘Leila’ already foretells a very close India in the near future.