Who Said We Need Approval From The West?

This week, Kolhapuris made it to the Prada runway. A few months ago, the humble dupatta reemerged as a so-called “Scandinavian scarf” on TikTok, dividing opinion and erasing legacy.

And now, Danny Boyle, Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire, has admitted that he would “not even contemplate” making the film today because “everyone is culturally aware now" on a podcast.

It’s a strange mea culpa that arrives over a decade too late and raises a fundamental question: must we wait for the West to “become aware” before reclaiming our own narratives? Who really gets to tell these stories?

Boyle’s comment isn’t a revelation. In fact, it is a reflection of the long overdue reckoning with how certain stories—especially Indian ones—have historically been consumed: filtered through a lens of exoticism, trauma, and often, pity.

IMDB

When Slumdog Millionaire was released in 2008, many hailed it as gritty and “real.” But for those within India and for the diaspora, it was always more complicated with many have diverse opinion on the film to the extent that the author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie critiqued it as "patently ridiculous conceit".

The film was called out—then and still is—for romanticising poverty and reducing Mumbai’s vibrancy to a Dickensian caricature. The term “poverty porn” wasn’t thrown around lightly.

For anyone wondering if this is an example in isolation; wait. This isn't only with the storytellers. It’s systemic. Indian textiles, traditions, and artistic practices continue to be rebranded, recontextualised, and reintroduced to the world—only to be met with applause when repackaged by Western arbiters of taste.

That checkered shirt you so love? Madras print. Golden Milk that went viral during the pandemic? Turmeric and milk. Kohl liner instead of Kajal pencil. Even muslin and its origin - the list is exhaustively endless.

When our crafts surface in elite fashion circles, they’re suddenly “innovative.” When our stories are told by others, they’re suddenly “universal.” We are repeatedly asked to be flattered by the recognition. But when does admiration stop being a compliment and start becoming erasure?

Golden MilkPinterest

Boyle’s belated acknowledgment of cultural appropriation is perhaps better than silence but it also feels safe, offered now when the tide of opinion has already shifted. The deeper question remains: must change always be reactive? Are we only allowed to interrogate a problematic lens after the culture catches up?

The West’s relationship with the East—especially with India—has too often been one of consumption more than collaboration. Until Indian creatives are seen as the narrators of their own stories and not just subjects of curiosity or fashion inspiration, we will continue to live in cycles of aesthetic splaining, creative discredit, and selective acknowledgment.

But it’s not just about Kolhapuris or Boyle or TikTok trends. It’s about power. Who gets to define culture? Who gets to claim ownership over stories, styles, and symbols that have existed here long before they were “discovered” elsewhere? Beyond the conversations around validation, around cross-cultural transfers and kitsch, the shift we need isn’t one of optics or acknowledgment. It’s perhaps one of authorship, of storytellers and the gaze.

Years ago, the American literary legend Toni Morrison who has authored The Bluest Eye and Sula, offered an instructive parallel for the very question posed: Who gets to tell these stories. In an interview where she was asked why she wrote explicitly from within the Black experience, refusing to indulge in the “white gaze" or tell stories of white people.

In fact in one of the reviews of her novels, the reviewer argued that eventually Morrison would end by writing about the white experience, to which she retorted, "I didn’t want it to be a teaching tool for white people… I wanted it to come from inside the culture, and speak to people inside the culture. What I’m interested in is writing without the gaze, without the white gaze… it was always about African‑American culture and people… for me, that was the universe.” 

Morrison insisted that Black stories should emerge from interior truths rather than external expectations—a refusal to explain or justify for outsiders.

When a British chef travels across India, ends up falling in love with the Jhal moori and puts up a stall in London practicing the same style of making the chaat recipe (with hands), its loved by all- even called "authentic". But the very style is looked down upon on the internet and criticised for being "dirty" when made by locals.

So, when local becomes global only once legitimized by an “elite” or Western lens, the authentic voice is sidelined. Our foods, crafts, and stories are endlessly recategorised: seen as quaint, exotic, or aestheticised—until they are “adopted” by outside powers.

We deserve more than retroactive validation. Whether in textiles, cinema, or literature, the shift must be proactive—centering Indian creators without needing Western endorsement. The fight isn’t for acknowledgment; it’s for authorship. And that requires claiming our own narrative, on our own terms.