UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE OF SURROGACY IN INDIA THROUGH SELECT HINDI FILMS

This article investigates Indian encounters through films about ‘surrogacy’ as a process. Surrogacy is where a woman carries a baby for a couple or a person who is, otherwise, unable to do so. Surrogacy has turned into an extremely questionable subject in the recent past after the new Indian Surrogacy Bill in 2016, and some celebrity profiles currently opting for it. The surrogacy Bill makes it accessible only to heterosexual married couples and bans commercial surrogacy. This article tracks films from Doosri Dulhan (1983) provoking an unnecessary element of competitiveness and seeding insecurities in a wife from the surrogate mother to tinting moral judgments in Chori Chori Chupke Chupke (2001) and from misrepresentative Filhaal (2002) to the problematic Mimi (2021). Through critical discourse analysis, this study analyses the surrogacy arrangements in Indian films and their impact on society.