Lopesh Chandekar

Leila – The Saga of hidden agenda and Hindu Phobic Propaganda? Netflix in India recently has become notoriously famous for coming up with shows which are Anti Hindu and it has faced criticism from the social in the past for coming up with Anti Hindu shows such as sacred games and Ghoul and the a new show to make it to the list of the propaganda of Netflix is Leila which was been released by Netflix on 14th June, 2019 . Before I go on to analyse the series it would be noteworthy to mention that the series is an adaption of the novel written by Prayaag Akbar who is son of M J Akbar who served as the Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs until 17 October, 2018 when he had to step down due to a number of sexual harassment allegations against him from numerous women who had worked with him over the years, and rape by NPR business editor Pallavi Gogoi. Prayaag Akbar in his various interviews about this book “Leila” has stated that the idea behind Leila was to write about how huge political changes can go above our heads and have a devastating impact on people's lives but sadly the writer fails to adopt a neutral approach in penning down his thoughts and comes up with a story where Hindus have gained political power and in this state dystopian Hindu State where people are discriminated on the basis of religion and the women in such state are tortured and declared “doosh” for marrying men of different religion particularly Muslim and men of lower caste. The book and the series is completely silent as to the reaction of Muslims to this and does not show the other side of the story as the writer choses to be really selective in bringing the social issue touching human lives and gives full freedom to his imagination in imagining a state where Hindus have come into Power and tries to create a Hindu Phobia in the mind of the readers and the way the show has direct references to the government and Hindus in particular clearly is blatant anti-Hindu propaganda with political motivations considering the current state of the country. ‘Liberals’ are suffering from ‘Modi Derangement Syndrome’ and the show appears to be a testament of the fact. The social media as predicted did not quite like the show and the show has been facing a lot of criticism over twitter but secular Hindus once again declare the show to be a product of freedom of speech and expression and fail to realize the hidden agenda and propaganda which is being spread against their own religion. As a Hindu I would like to question Netflix and the secular brigade of the country if they would have tolerated such a book or video on the concept of Gazwa-e-Hind and would have appreciated the show if the content would have shown a Muslim State gaining power. I guess it is time we raise our voices against such content and make companies like Netflix realize that such content which hurts the sentiments of Hindus would not be liked by the Indian Audience.