From destination to nation and back: The hyperreal journey of Incredible India

This article argues that, despite the granting of political independence to most colonized places around the world by the 1960s and the academic criticism of the attitudes that furthered colonial intervention, there is a continued propagation of the idea that the West needs to intervene in the East. In contrast to traditional media where such articulation is immediately challenged, the medium of computer games provides a backdoor entry for such interventionist roles, which largely go un-noticed and unchallenged. This article argues that India has always been imagined as an exotic destination ripe for intervention by the West. This depiction has been carried forward to the virtual world of computer games. In these games India is seen as a passive, feminine destination for the exploits of the western traveller who must intercede to ensure the existence of India. The threats to India are shown to be often due to the nature of India itself, an irrational, magical space, wild and illogical, requiring the iron hand of the western traveller-adventurer. The western travelleradventurer appropriates the symbolisms associated with power in the local culture and establishes not only a lasting rule but also an ambience of continued influences even after the disintegration of the empire. The article argues for the need of rigorous intervention in the digital world of computer games while linking such portrayals to the continued neocolonial and neo-imperealist designs of the West.