The Politics of Segregation in Prayaag Akbar’s Leila

Abstract

The concept of identity is as much political as it is personal. Though exhaustive research has already been done on the notion of identity and its political entanglements, a conclusive stand on it has become nearly impossible. It varies in conjunction with the parameters of space and time.  It is malleable and can be moulded into any form by the agents of the politically powerful. This paper will explore Prayaag Akbar’s dystopian narrative Leila in order to examine the extent to which totalitarian regime overreach and contorts the identities of its inhabitants through the media of brutal force and digitized urban space. Citizens of dystopia under totalitarian government are usually given collective identities which are rigorously guarded by the State. The novel warns against a divided society where the sense of difference among people is used by governments to exercise control and even perpetuate hate towards certain groups by building physical and metaphorical walls between them. The paper also aims to identify and discuss the instances in which segregation is structured by the establishment in order to exercise their power and the strategies adopted to employ them. The ultimate aim of this analysis is to outline the various responses to such oppressive systems and to assess the significance of the genre in critiquing the age-old villain of humanity, casteism.