This dissertation is a rhetorical analysis of the ideological interventions ofIndian Middle Cinema, in the lives of the 1990s postcolonial, middle class Indian.Marked by economic liberalization and satellite television, 1991 was a criticalmoment for India. Middle Cinema is a specific filmic formation which refers toserious, commercial films that capture the experiences of Indian society in transitionand the attendant anguish of such change. The dissertation asks: what are theanxieties represented in these films? How do these films participate in publicdiscourse on the issues they seek to represent? How do the films use language,symbols, and strategies to resonate with a middle class audience? Whose interests arearticulated and preserved/challenged through these films? Through a rhetorical studyof Middle Cinema, this dissertation sheds light on the experiences and anxieties ofpostcolonial, middle class Indians. The theoretical framework draws from ideologicalcriticism of popular culture, postcolonial theory, and studies of Indian cinema.Middle class ambivalence about contemporary crises is articulated through narrativesabout women, youth, and the city. The films in chapter 4 recognize and legitimatefemale desire albeit within the parameters of conventional marriage. This can be apositive example for middle class women whose imaginations and freedoms can beseverely curtailed by familial duty. Chapter 5 examines the hybrid Indian youth,within the current milieu of globalization and MTVization of Indian society.Confusion and disillusionment lead the youth to search for authenticity throughmarriage, careers, sexuality, and terrorism. Chapter 6 explores crime andcommunalism in Bombay in the wake of liberalization and Hindu nationalism. Thesefilms exhibit middle class ambivalence about the retreating role of the state in civiclife. This research follows the call of, and contributes to, the growing body of criticalcommunication theory that interrogates the marginalizing biases of mainstreamtheory. Postcolonial theory and criticism facilitate greater degrees of academic selfreflexivity,to understand how our academic practices reproduce neocolonial patternsof domination. This study is ideological from a theoretical and pedagogicalperspective, in its attempts to situate postcolonial insight within the rhetorical canon.