02 August,2026 08:02 AM IST | Mumbai | Akshita Maheshwari
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When George Orwell wrote 1984 (1949), he could've hardly imagined that he was setting up the domino effect that'll get us Lock Upp and Alliance today. The novel is set in a dystopian world where Big Brother is constantly surveilling all the inhabitants in his dictatorship.
In 1999, Dutch producers, inspired by 1984, would first develop the Big Brother IP, which involved a group of people living together in a house outfitted with over a 100 HD cameras, recording their every move 24x7. In India, among 60 other countries, it would take the form of Bigg Boss, which became an instant hit since the day it aired in 2006.
Two decades have passed and Bigg Boss is still arguably one of the most successful Indian reality IPs of all time. In fact, it paved the way for the new renaissance of reality television we're currently experiencing - the OTT era.
"Though OTTs had been dabbling with non-fiction content, the big gamechanger was when Netflix got Kapil sharma onto their platform with The Great Indian Kapil Show," says Fazila Allana, the co-founder of Sol Productions LLP. Over the years, the house has produced shows such as Follow Kar Lo Yaar (2024), Social Currency (2023), Koffee With Karan (2004-), and Rakhi Ka Swayamvar (2009). "OTT platforms still command a relatively premium audience but reality TV is a good way for them expand their audience base to penetrate within tier-2 and tier-3 audiences, and increase subscribers," Allana says.
Reality TV is globally known to have high return on investments. They're relatively cheaper to produce that fiction with a single location, minimal wardrobe costs, fewer writers, and such. All that for an almost-guaranteed audience that is highly engaging. "In India, however, non-fiction can be more expensive sometimes because of how dependent it is on celebrity participation," Allana says, "But at the same time, those same celebrity appearances bring in bigger sponsors and more viewers."
Reality shows are an especially good fit for the social media age. "They're abundant in âbytes'. They spark water cooler conversations make for the perfect clips that can be cut and run on social media, which brings in even more viewers. It's relatively harder to cut clips on fiction," Allana says.
This writer would categorise reality shows into two broad categories: talent-based IPS like Indian Idol, Masterchef India, and Khatron Ke Khiladi, and then confinement-based IPs like Splitsvilla, Bigg Boss, Roadies. The largest reason behind an OTT renaissance is the death of television. All the abovementioned IPs have been created by Sony Entertainment, Colours, and MTV, who have all found their footing in the OTT world now with SonyLiv and JioHotstar.
This opened up a market for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which up until recently had very little presence in the non-fiction world. Netflix entered the market with Dharmatic Productions with the highly successful The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Lives (2020-), which made up for the third category of reality: the docu-reality IPs. Prime Video made its offering with Follow Kar Lo Yaar.
But what opened the floodgates open was Traitors (2025-). Up until then, confinement-based shows, although immensely successful, were looked down upon as "crass". Traitors' cast, which included the likes of Apoorva Mukhija, Uorfi Javed, and Maheep Kapoor, were already familiar names to an Internet-first audience. It was also an update to the confinement IPs, with an incredibly fresh concept, which helped it move a step above just kalesh.
The basic formula of every reality show is the same: confine strangers in a house, cast "big" personalities that are likely to clash, pit them against each other in "tasks". In the early aughts, when reality TV was first taking shape in the country, it already drew criticism around the "tactics" used by producers to create drama. Isolation from loved ones and the outside world, manufactured scarcity for food and resources, producers nudging contestants with twists, all make contestants more volatile on the set. On top of that, narratives are built on the editing table, often labelling contestants "heroes" or "villains".
Dr Sheela Dang, who has been a consulting psychologist for some Bigg Boss contestants, says, "Everybody comes with some baggage. There are various reasons why one would join the show: some for the sake of entertainment, for fun, for experimenting, for a financial crisis, and so on. Some people behave in a volatile way when provoked and some handle it with a lot of grace and patience. And when we are in shows like that, you tend to be isolated into groups. There will be groupism, labellings, verbal and emotional abuse, and outbursts. These are not normal circumstances and needs to be checked on, no matter what the show concept or framework is."
Contestants would regularly check in with Dr Dang. "A lot of contestants would come with anxiety and a lot of concerns, including how they would survive without normal food, any communication with the outside world, or even a screen. Some of them were already on medication. So, in terms of emergencies, if needed, I was there."
Veteran of the reality world Pooja Mishra was on Bigg Boss Season 5 (2011). She gave the world the iconic "Pooja, what is this behavior?" byte. "The reality television format is tough, and there's a lot of drama that the other contestants create around you to give you a certain image - an image that you're far away from," Mishra says, "I'm actually a very calm, jovial, happy-go-lucky girl, who found herself in a zoo with all these animals bouncing at me which were my co-contestants."
"They call it âcut short', when you are being shown in a certain way, which might not be who you actually are. I was shown darker than I am. I felt that it was manipulated and played around with, and manhandled a bit," Mishra says.
On the infamous clip, she says, "There was a fight because they [other contestants] wouldn't let me cook, clean, or even enter the kitchen. Eventually, it blew up into a fight. It's like they put you in a pressure cooker. And then they heat you up. And then, when the cooker whistle blows, so does the mask. But then, eventually, you get used to it."
The meme is a double-edged sword though. "Of course, it reached international fame. It was viral in the UK, Dubai, and so many places. And I'm grateful for it," she says, "But the good came with a lot of bad. A lot of parasites just open accounts with my profile picture and put up stuff about me because people overseas want to know, âWhat is she doing?' And they open so many troll accounts. A lot of nonsense happened, and I'm really upset about it."
Would she ever go through that again though? "There are forks and instigations to get you to react in a certain way. I know that now. So yes, I would do it. I don't think they'll be able to play with me anymore this time because I'm smart. Back then, I was a little baby," Mishra says.
In 2023, Netflix aired Social Currency, where eight social media influencers were put to the test in the real world without their smartphones, handles, and online followers. When we call up the winner, standup comic Aakash Mehta, we get the feeling that the show was a fluke in his career. "I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why anyone would want to put themselves in this kind of situation. So, I went just to know what it's like," Mehta tells us candidly.
Mehta himself has never really seen reality shows. "I don't understand the premise of any reality show, to be honest. There's so much reality around me, 24x7, that I am constantly absorbed by. Why are we then manufacturing reality?" he asks.
The hardest part for him was being under camera surveillance 24x7. "You have to really give it to [regular] reality contestants. They can really perform, from waking up to sleeping. Which I cannot do. At some point, I just gave up," he says, "I think that's also what they [producers] hope for, that you just give up and become yourself. But I don't know if everyone did that. Maybe they did. Maybe that was the version of themselves that is deep inside, which is even scarier."
We ask him how scripted the show actually was. "Not a lot. There is obviously manipulation in the sense that they will pit you against somebody you like, or that you're in a team with somebody you don't like," he says, "But at no point were we sort of coached to say a certain thing."
If he, as winner of one, doesn't watch reality shows, we ask Mehta: what draws in viewers to follow the lives of relative strangers? "It's voyeurism. This is my personal theory: People's lives have not gotten better in the last 10 or 15 years. And my generation, especially people in their 30s and 40s, feel a little lost in life. When is it going to get better? And so reality shows become junk food, but for your brain," he says, "It's like when I have a rough day, I'm tired - and for absolutely no reason - I'm still ordering a burger at 12 in the night. It is to satiate a deeper hunger."
Dr Dang also adds, "A lot of time when we watch reality television, we're trying to validate how we would be if we were in the same situation. You will often hear from viewers, âI wouldn't do something like this.' As a viewer, this is a free ground to project all your judgments without any consequences."
Ex-contestant of Traitors and Lock Upp, Sufi Motiwala adds, "Because we've all become detectives. Everyone thinks they can spot who's fake, who's acting, who's lying, who's manipulating. Reality TV lets people play psychologist from their couch, and apparently that's our favourite hobby now."
A lawyer explains the intricacies of show contracts
When there are wars on food, resources, or fights within the contestants, "there'll be a contract that contains clauses that govern these issues. It's not like you're picking up someone from the street and imposing these conditions on them. It's happening willingly, for a price, with full openness, understanding, and transparency," says Xerxes Ranina, renowned IP and entertainment lawyer.
The shows are not without restrictions though. "There could be some restriction on religious or political statements. It's a very controlled environment, even though it looks like it's a free-for-all."
Reality shows are no strangers to physical confrontations too. "No contract can allow you to do something that is illegal. Let's say somebody punches someone. The person who got punched is within their rights to file a case," Ranina says, "Having said that, I know in some contracts that I had read around reality shows, it was built in that said if someone is provoked unreasonably, then there could be physical violence in self-defence. But then, that's also subjective. Was it self-defence or an act of aggression?"
Newer age shows have also been discussing sensitive subjects like LGBTQIA+ sensitisation and sexual abuse. "Whenever you talk about or mention suicide, then you've got to give helplines for suicide prevention. In other subjects, trigger warnings and helplines are good hygiene, but they're not mandated."
Viewers and contestants talk about the complications of queer representation on reality shows
Noel Vaz has been watching OTT's latest reality offerings avidly. "We always see this in a lot of reality TV, including Bigg Boss, where they'll always bring someone who is very evidently from the [LGBTQIA+] community. But they're also very limited in representation. Whereas there's a huge chunk of the community that doesn't resonate with that representation, isn't very out there with their dressing, and is very much like the general public. So we do get put into a box," he says.
What was fresh, though, was Lock Upp contestant Akanksha Chamola. "I was very impressed with the fact that they brought a woman who was bisexual. We do not get to see that on Indian television," he says, "But then the very next second that took a U-turn when she kept changing her sexuality."
Reality shows have had a long history of casting queer contestants for their "entertainment" factor. At the same time, they're not provided with safe spaces on the same show. In Lock Upp, queer contestants were constantly faced with homophobia, with contestant Harshad Chopda even saying that he's "scared of gay men" and Ram Kapoor kissing another male contestant without his consent.
"I'm proud of them to an extent, but then I also think that they could have filtered out a lot of things to maintain the sanity of the community," he says, "Coming from a marketing background, I know why they did that and how they wanted to raise their TRPs."
We ask Sufi Motiwala, who's been a contestant on both Lock Upp and Traitors, about his thoughts on queer representation, "I think we're getting there, but I don't think we should clap just because queer people are finally being cast. Representation isn't a participation trophy. I don't want to be âthe queer contestant'; I want to be a contestant who also happens to be queer. There's a huge difference," he says, "The day sexuality isn't the most interesting thing about someone on a reality show, I'll say we've actually made progress."
The good thing is, Fazila Allana says, "These shows are being watched by parents and children alike. If a platform can sensitise and generate conversations which are generally so tough to have, then I would say it's a good thing."
