What is "selective nostalgia"? Discuss how the portrayal of the past in mass media shapes present-day social hierarchies.

Selective nostalgia is a longing for an idealised past that remembers the experience of a privileged few as the experience of everyone. In 1983, 44.5% of Indians (about 323 million people) lived below the poverty line [1]. Yet today's viral "80s aesthetic" shows chiffon sarees, Ambassador cars and studio portraits. When mass media turn that narrow slice into a shared memory, old hierarchies gain fresh legitimacy.

Selective nostalgia: meaning and features

• Archive bias: Cameras, films and magazines of that era belonged mostly to urban, landed, savarna households. The rural poor and Dalits were rarely photographed.
• Erasure of conflict: The decade saw caste atrocities such as Karamchedu (1985), and Parliament passed the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 [2]. The "golden age" imagery leaves all of this out.
• Aestheticisation: Hardship is turned into a style or a filter, with no note of who was left out of the frame.

How media portrayals shape present-day hierarchies

• Normalising dominance: Films and advertisements often show upper-caste homes as the default "Indian family". This makes privilege look natural and neutral.
• Stereotypes carried into AI: Generative AI learns from these skewed media archives and reproduces caste-linked stereotypes about who does which work. MeitY's India AI Governance Guidelines (2025) therefore include "Fairness & Equity" among their seven principles, to reduce bias and exclusion [3].
• Amplification at scale: Algorithms promote the content that is shared most. A skewed past is then mass-produced as the "memory" of millions of users.
• Policy complacency: A past remembered as harmonious makes reform seem less urgent. Yet 2,87,694 Atrocities Act cases were pending trial in 2024, and the conviction rate in SC-related cases was only 33.9% [4].
• Counter-memory: Media can also correct the record. Films such as Asuran and Kaala, and Dalit digital archives, put marginalised pasts at the centre. This shows that media are a contested space, not a fixed one.

Skewed archive → media/AI reproduction → "shared" memory → legitimised hierarchy

Selective nostalgia is not harmless sentiment. It decides whose past counts, and so whose present is valued. Several steps can help. Archives can be made more inclusive. Media and AI can be audited for caste bias under the Fairness & Equity principle [3]. Dalit storytelling can be supported. Together these can bring collective memory in line with the Constitution's promise of equality and the abolition of untouchability (Articles 14 and 17), and with SDG 10 (reduced inequalities).