Abstract: Leila (2017), Prayaag Akbar’s dystopic novel can be viewed as a text where the state and nation have a faceoff. The power of the state machinery, which operates vertically, is opposed by the resistance mounted by individuals and horizontal solidarities forged between citizens. Akbar moves away from the ahistorical superstates of traditional western speculative fiction, by locating his novel in a hyper-local imaginary city in India. This is achieved primarily via imposition of sectarian walls and institutionalised “purity.” The exploration is primarily elucidated through the functioning of the city’s walls as Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses, indicating that they act not merely as physical barriers but as instruments of interpellation and subject formation. Akbar examines the boundaries of state control through Shalini, situating her character as a central locus of resistance; she consistently rejects complete interpellation or subjugation by the regime. Drawing on Judith Butler’s notions of subject formation and Michel Foucault’s analysis of visibility, the paper traces the small, often silent ways in which characters resist state control. These moments of ethical witnessing and quiet solidarity suggest the persistence of an ethical agency within the margins of a totalising system. Finally, by applying Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space to the child Leila’s identity, this paper argues that the novel finds a form of intimate resistance in the refusal of fixed categories, showing how love and memory persist as counter-narratives to the state’s demand for absolute purity. 

Keywords: Leila, Prayaag Akbar, Interpellation, Third Space, Postcolonial Speculative Fiction, Indian English Dystopia.