I recently went to the University production of Medea, interested by the promise of South Asian representation and cultural fusion. The concept itself — reimagining Medea in colonial India — was a compelling narrative choice, rich in cultural collision and an exploration of the decisions a woman makes.
The actors delivered convincing performances, grounding the tragedy in emotion. As Medea’s husband abandons her, the weight of her sacrifices become clear: leaving her homeland while betraying both her brother and father in the name of love. The intensity of the ending, shaped by Medea’s devastating final choice in pursuit of revenge, lingered long after the curtain fell.
But I still left frustrated, not because of the story itself, but because of how little anyone behind the scenes seemed to know, or care, about representing South Asian culture accurately.
The actors in the play spoke Hindi, which might have reinforced the grounding of the play in Jaipur. Except the accents were British-inflected Hindi, delivered with the confidence of someone reading from Google Translate. This may have been acceptable in a school production in remote Sweden but in London, you could not only find a native speaker, but also a specialist in Hindi if you cross the road to SOAS. But no one thought to hire a language consultant, or even ask someone what words actually sound like when spoken naturally.
The missteps continued on stage. The dance was supposed to be Rajasthani due to the play being set in Jaipur, but what we got was Kathak (a completely different classical tradition from a different part of the country) performed to the wrong Rajasthani song instead.
Furthermore, the sari was simply wrong, draped in a North Indian Delhi-style instead of the Jaipuri or Rajasthani way that would have made sense. And to top it all off, we had the chorus cast as mostly white women. The narrative this implied was that white women supported brown women, whereas, white women in colonial India were rarely, if ever, allies. They reinforced the very structures that oppressed us.
What frustrated me most, however, wasn’t these mistakes — it was that they could have been easily avoided. All it would have taken was the presence of people with the knowledge to guide, correct, or contextualise.
And that’s where the bigger problem lies: the UCL Indian and Hindu societies are rarely made up of students studying literature, history, or any of the humanities. STEM, business, and other “practical” degrees dominate the committees. Students actually taught to think critically about culture, history, and narrative are almost entirely absent.
This isn’t an accidental phenomenon, nor is it unique to UCL. For many South Asian families, prioritising financial stability over intellectual curiosity comes from a very real history of deprivation, colonialism, migration, and economic insecurity. Choosing ‘safe’ degrees is often a quiet inheritance of fear and restraint, rather than a lack of imagination.
But when these fears become institutionalised within our societies, it leaves us culturally inequipped and unable to challenge appropriation or misrepresentation. Especially when our histories are flattened or quietly rewritten.
Due to this system, South Asians remain largely absent from the very creative spaces that attempt to tell stories about us.
How can a society claim to protect and celebrate culture if it’s never staffed by people with the actual tools to understand it?
Indian and Hindu societies love to host events about cultural appropriation, but when a production actually misrepresents our traditions in front of a paying audience, I see them looking the other way. Glancing at their committee members, none of whom are studying humanities, it’s easy to see why: who’s going to call out a mistake when they aren’t familiar with the history or literature?
So when productions like this misrepresent South Asia, there’s no one within our own communities who can intervene meaningfully. We talk about cultural appropriation at panel discussions and on TikTok, but when it actually matters — when our languages, dances, costumes, and histories are at risk of being flattened into someone else’s idea of India — our voices are wildly absent.
Until we start putting people with some critical knowledge in these roles, we’re just spectators watching other people tell our stories (often very badly) while our own societies stay comfortably silent.
