Integration of Film and Fiction: A Transformative Approach towards Cultural and Literary Education

In recent years, literary and cultural education in India has been compelled to respond to rapid social change, curricular reform, and the renewed emphasis on holistic learning. This has been particularly articulated in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Within everyday classroom practice, traditional discipline-bound approaches often prove inadequate for engaging students with questions of identity, ethics, history, and social inequality. This paper emerges from such pedagogical contexts and argues for a transformative approach to literary and cultural education through the sustained use of fiction and film. Drawing on constructivist, transformative, and experiential learning theories, the study treats fiction and cinema not as supplementary teaching aids but as central cultural texts that actively shape students’ interpretive and ethical frameworks. Indian literary works and films which are rooted in regional realities, historical experience, and social conflict, enable learners to critically engage with issues of caste, gender, nationalism, development, memory, and belonging. Classroom engagement with these narratives encourages reflection, dialogue, and the questioning of inherited assumptions. By foregrounding Indian fiction and cinema within literary and cultural pedagogy, the paper demonstrates how narrative-based teaching can move beyond rote textual analysis towards a more reflective, inclusive, and socially responsive educational practice. It ultimately positions this approach as a meaningful response to the challenges and possibilities of contemporary Indian higher education.