Author(s): Preethy Mary George, Dr. Surya K.

Abstract: Modern Indian English fiction presents children and childhood in a manner that goes beyond conventional notions of innocence and offers complex readings of a rapidly changing society. One thing that immediately stands out is that modern portrayals show a child protagonist who is a perceptive commentator on a world that, from their simple perspective, contains contradictions, deficiencies, and deficiencies that cause anxiety. Such narratives also use childhood as a location that presents struggle and adjustment, often addressing issues related to communal riots, poverty, gender, and inequalities. Modern storytelling also places emphasis on the capability and activeness of children, who, far from being mere sufferers, demonstrate how they can challenge and redefine existing notions and constructions of society. Collectively, these readings show that a figure representing a child in modern Indian English literature uses that presence as a metaphor that captures the challenges as well as hopes that a modern era possesses, and therefore, this study shall exemplify that through selected readings on narratives that try to make sense of various readings on depictions related to childhood. In addition, the paper would also aim to investigate the representation of the child in the Indian popular media in an attempt to grasp the level at which commercialization of childhood is used as an ideological device in an attempt to transmit cultural meanings of childhood and its positioning in terms of the ideology of normal society. In this process of investigation, there would be an attempt at understanding the strategies and techniques involved in building particular imagery and meaning in terms of childhood in the given instances of popular culture.

Keywords: Childhood Studies; Socio-cultural Construction of Childhood; Agency of Children; Indian English Literature; Popular Culture; Commercialization of Childhood; Gender

Article Info: Received: 08 Jan 2025; Received in revised form: 04 Feb 2026; Accepted: 08 Feb 2026; Available online: 12 Feb 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.111.38