Digital Realism: How Social Media and WhatsApp Culture Enter the Narrative Structure of Indian and Pakistani Novels

Abstract

This paper examines how digital realism transforms the narrative structures of contemporary South Asian fiction, with particular focus on Fatima Bhutto’s The Runaways, Ratika Kapur’s The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma, and Arundhati Roy’s Azadi. Using narrative criticism and digital culture studies, the analysis demonstrates how WhatsApp chats, online profiles, and social media activism are increasingly displacing older epistolary forms such as letters and diaries.The novels show how digital platforms operate as both narrative devices and ideological spaces: Bhutto’s work highlights online radicalization, Kapur’s novel explores intimacy and deception through texting, while Roy’s hybrid prose situates social media within the political struggle for freedom and dissent. Collectively, these texts reveal how Indian and Pakistani fiction not only reflects but also structurally absorbs the fragmented rhythms and immediacies of digital communication. By foregrounding this shift, the paper contributes to emerging scholarship on postcolonial digital realism, arguing that South Asian fiction is at the forefront of global literary adaptation to the digital age.