Critics see this genre as a right-wing fantasy, but as I wrote some time ago in Foreign Affairs, that view is shallow, and the popular rediscovery of India’s civilizational heritage is better understood as a generational process of decolonization from a British-Mughal view of Indian history. Heroes are rarely preordained prophets or avatars, but ordinary human beings who struggle to earn their place. Women fight, speak up for their rights, and authority is constantly questioned. The important thing about this genre, and this is evident in Baahubali too, is the the evocation of modern and liberal sensibilities in the social world of their characters. The genre stormed the market in 2010 with the runaway success of the Shiva Trilogy by Amish Tripathi. Its popularity has to be understood in relation to not only the timeless tradition of the Ramayana and Mahabharatha, but also in relation to a newer pop culture genre in India of historical fantasies inspired by the epics. Baahubali is an audacious celebration of being not just Indian, but being Hindu.
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