Volume VI Special Issue V June 2026

Name of Author : Shaina P. Dhulapkar, Dr. Mukul Joshi

Title of the paper : Queering Indian Masculinity: Negotiating Desire, Silence, and Social Norms in Contemporary Indian Cinema

Abstract: This paper evaluates the representation of queer masculinity in contemporary India cinema through a close visual reading of two landmark Hindi language films Hansal Mehtas Aligarh 2015 and Sachin Kundalkars Cobalt Blue 2022. Drawing on Judith Butlers theory of gender performativity and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwicks concept of the closet as an epistemological structure, the paper argues that both the films construct queer desire as a site of contested social meaning, where silence functions not merely as absence but as a politically charged mode of self preservation and resistance. Through a comparative analysis of narrative strategy and the representation of institutional and familial violence, the paper also demonstrates that both the films articulate distinct but complementary visions of what it means to inhabit a queer body within the patriarchal and heteronormative landscape of Indian modernity. Looking withing the broader context of post Section 377 cinematic culture and argument that their formal choices are based on realism in one case, lyrical ambiguity in the other, constitute political acts in their own right. Finally, contemporary Indian queer cinema does not simply reflect social change but actively participates in the cultural labour of queering normative masculinity.

Keywords : Queer Masculinity, Gender Performativity, Epistemology of the Closet, Contemporary Indian Cinema, Silence and Resistance Institutional Violence

DOI :

Page Number : 234-240