Echoes of The Past: How Indian Horror Cinema Diagnose OurDeepest Anxieties
- Hindu College Gazette Web Team
- Jan 12
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 2
Indian horror cinema is a cultural diagnostic tool. This article argues that the genre's evolving monsters—from the melancholic chudail to the capitalist curse in Tumbbad—are not mere ghosts but potent metaphors for India's postcolonial anxieties, social injustices, and the psychological toll of rapid modernisation.
We tend to regard horror as low-quality popular entertainment, a fairground of jump scares and supernatural silliness, but to do so overlooks one of our most powerful forms of social critique. Horror films, particularly in the Indian context, function as cultural diagnostics: fever dreams that show us a psychological temperature of the nation. The monsters do not appear spontaneously. They are grown from specific soil, watered by the history, trauma, and ambiguities around rapid change. They are, in their essence, walking, screaming metaphors for everything we bury. By tracing the evolution of these monsters, we can diagnose the most uncomfortable psychic truths—from identity crises and postcolonialism to pressures of neoliberal capitalism—that continue to shape the modern Indian psyche.
The Colonial Wound: Monsters as Instruments of Othering
The Western Gothic tradition arrived in India with the East India Company. An early version of Anglo-Indian writers and colonial administrators appropriated and often misrepresented local folklore. In this colonial scenario, as scholar Patrick Brantlinger points out, 'the native' was represented as naturally superstitious and irrational, shackled by primitive superstitions—a potent rationale for the 'civilizing' mission of the Raj.
The archetypal contexts were either the decaying zamindar haveli or the 'haunted' plantation bungalow—spaces where the old order was disintegrating and the new was terrifyingly uncertain. The monster was nearly always the external "other"—the mysterious thug, the entranced fakir, or the dead Indian ghost who sought revenge against the British colonizer. The monster became a projection of colonial anxiety—a real supernatural manifestation of apprehension regarding the control one could exert over vast amounts of 'unruly' land and subjects. The horror was exogenous, an alien concept or object that was to be harnessed or vanquished, much like the colonial political project.
The Postcolonial Shift: The Monster Within
After gaining independence, the source of horror underwent a massive transformation. The external colonizer was gone, but internal fissures remained—caste hierarchies, patriarchal structures, and the unwritten trauma of Partition. Indian horror cinema—from the 1960s to the 1980s—began a critical repurposing of the horror trope. The monster was no longer an external invader; it became an internal symptom.
Take the chudail (witch). In classics like Woh Kaun Thi? (1964), the female ghost, while she may appear to have monstrous and malicious traits, is rarely pure evil. She is almost always a wronged woman—a victim of betrayal, greed, or patriarchal violence. The monstrousness she embodies draws directly from social crime that has gone unpunished. She emerges from the well or the palace because justice has not emerged from it. She is not the problem; she is the consequence. The horror genre has created a safe space for people to explore the dark underbelly of family and society and make visible the violence that polite society expects to remain invisible.
The bhoot, the ghost in Bengali cinema, as in Satyajit Ray's Monihara (from Teen Kanya), is also a spectre of an unresolved past and a reminder of the memory that the new and modernizing India was trying, and failing, to forget. The horror becomes psychological, reflecting on guilt and a historical burden.
The Neoliberal Nightmare: Monsters of the New Economy
The economic liberalization of the 1990s created a new India, brimming with opportunity but also unprecedented anxiety. Today’s new wave of Indian horror has sharpened its metaphorical function to critique these contemporary issues with breathtaking clarity. The monsters now reflect the fears of a consumerist, rapidly urbanizing society.
• Tumbbad (2018) and the Curse of Capitalist Greed: This film is an example of economic horror at its finest. The ancient god Hastar, a gluttonous god buried in a womb-like cavern overflowing with gold, serves as a perfect representation of unchecked capitalism and its colonial roots. This curse is not limited to a family; it is a curse on the collective mentality of wanting more than one needs, to live to excess. The film approaches greed as a disease, less as a moral failing. Greed is a virus and parasite, and when a host consumes it, it becomes monstrous. It is a visceral critique of the moral decay that accompanies a single-minded pursuit of wealth. This film serves as a profound critique of the darker aspects of India's economic ascent.
• Stree (2018) and the Politics of Fear and Consent:On the surface, Stree is a comedy-horror about a ghost who abducts men. But its core is a brilliant social inversion. The monster (“Stree”) only preys on men who call out to her disrespectfully (“O Stree, come tonight”). The horror is triggered by patriarchal entitlement. The solution, the film posits, is not to remove her but to endeavor to comprehend her tale and, most importantly, preserve her self-determination. The monster serves as a medium for a discussion of consent, fear, and the consequences of entrenched misogyny, a topic vehemently pertinent to contemporary Indian conversations about gender.
• Films such as Ragini MMS (2011) or 13B (2009) have shifted horror from the gothic mansion of the traditional narrative to the modern apartment or media-saturated home. Fear is derived from isolation and the disruption of community, as well as the uncanny infiltration of non-territorialised and currently alienated life, which is aligned with media, technology, and the past, into what we think of as our most private and "safe" space. The monster is the alienation of urban life itself.
Conclusion: Listening to the Warnings
The evolution of the Indian monster—from a colonial technology of othering to a postcolonial vehicle for social critique and finally to a diagnostician of neoliberal anxiety—also shows the astonishing power and agency of popular culture. Our horror films are our national subconscious, laying bare our most profound anxieties about progress, identity, and justice on a grand, cinematic stage. They show us that the best way to encounter the real horrors of society—oppression, inequality, and historical trauma—is sometimes to first provide them a face, a form, and a fang. To understand the Indian monster is to undertake a journey into the anxious soul of modern India itself. The next time a ghost wails on screen, listen closely. It isn't just trying to scare you; it's trying to tell you something. It's a warning, a lament, and a story we’ve all been trying to forget.
By Salim Shaikh
Salim Shaikh is an Assistant Professor in English at Agasti Arts, Commerce, and Dadasaheb Rupwate Science College, Akole, with nine years of experience, his scholarly expertise spans Gothic studies, eco-horror, and transmedia storytelling. A dedicated scholar, he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in English, specializing in film studies, adaptation theory, and the intersections of horror literature with visual media.
References
¹ Brantlinger, Patrick. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
² Sen, Meheli. Haunting Bollywood: Gender and Genre in the Hindi Horror Film. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017.
³ Tumbbad. Directed by Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi, and Adesh Prasad. Mumbai: Eros International, 2018.
⁴ Stree. Directed by Amar Kaushik. Mumbai: D2R Films, 2018.
⁵ Woh Kaun Thi? Directed by Raj Khosla. Mumbai: Guru Dutt Films, 1964.
⁶ Halberstam, Jack. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
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