Inside Delhi's Zine Scene: How Indie Creators Are Leading a Literary Rebellion

In the sprawling urban heart of Delhi, far from the gloss of mainstream publishing and literary festivals, a quiet but potent uprising is unfolding. Zines — handcrafted, self-published booklets that embrace the personal, the political, and the experimental — have found new life in the hands of indie writers, artists, and students.

What began as small, self-funded endeavours has now grown into a thriving underground scene. In the age of endless scrolling and algorithm-driven reading, Delhi’s zine-makers are carving out tactile, rebellious spaces for creativity — ones that prize vulnerability over polish, community over clout, and authenticity over perfection.

From Love Letters to Protest Chronicles: Why Zines Matter

For both Billy Pop Zine and the Delhi Zine Collective, the turn to zines was as much an emotional impulse as a political one — a yearning for slower, more intimate storytelling.

“We have always been fascinated with the idea of magazines,” shares the team behind Billy Pop Zine. “In an increasingly digital world, the preoccupation with tangible media still feels relevant. Zines, from their making to their curation, remain a deeply personal process — easy, accessible, and freeing. That’s exactly what we were looking for.”

For Borishan Ghosh and Rinchan Lyall Robert, co-founders of the Delhi Zine Collective, zine-making emerged from a desire to reclaim magazine culture on their own terms.

“A zine is extremely doable,” Rinchan says. “Unlike a blog post or an Instagram story that disappears in seconds, a zine sits in someone’s wallet or backpack. People actually read it cover to cover because they’ve paid for it — and that’s very rare today.”

The personal and the political, they emphasise, are inseparable. As Billy Pop Zine explains, “It’s in the vulnerability of telling stories directly — without any interference — that zines become political. They don't need to be manifestos; small personal stories themselves become acts of dissent.”

For Delhi Zine Collective, this has meant creating zines that document campus protests, address sexual violence, support Palestinian solidarity efforts, and celebrate the small, unnoticed observations of everyday life.

“We’re inherently political simply by existing as independent creators in this landscape,” Borishan reflects. “If you buy a zine where someone has reviewed Kill Bill, you’re still supporting resistance movements. Everything is interconnected.”

Creativity, Chaos, and the Labour of Love

While both collectives cherish the political weight of zines, they are equally committed to the creative chaos that defines the medium.

Billy Pop Zine often describes their projects as playful experiments in identity, growth, and collective memory. “The most fun we’ve ever had was at a zine-making workshop,” they recall. “It was a messy, beautiful reminder of the importance of co-creating identity — of dipping your fingers into glue and making something that feels like you.”

At the Delhi Zine Collective, the process is gloriously anarchic. Contributions come from all corners — friends, strangers, classmates — often drawn out through impromptu creative prompts.

“We’ll just tell our friends: ‘Draw everything on your desk right now. No erasing allowed. Just send it to us,’” Borishan laughs. “It’s about radical noticing — making something out of the smallest moments of observation.”

Printing, assembling, and distributing the zines is an intensely physical labour. “Our biggest challenge isn’t ideas or finances — it’s the number of paper cuts we get folding hundreds of zines by hand,” Rinchan says wryly. “Each zine costs just a couple of rupees to print, but hours of folding, stapling, and trimming go into each one. It's proper Marxist labour.”

Despite the strain, the collective spirit remains buoyant. The Delhi Zine Collective has raised close to Rs. 20,000 for charity through zine sales, supporting causes like disaster relief in Palestine, while consistently giving away free zines to anyone who cannot afford them.

“It’s never been about making money,” Borishan insists. “It’s about making sure that no story goes unread just because someone couldn’t pay.”

A Future Written in Folded Pages

Looking ahead, both collectives are deeply hopeful about the future of zine culture in India — even if it remains decentralised, scrappy, and under the radar.

“We imagine a future where zines become even more intersectional, politically charged, and decentralised,” says Billy Pop Zine. “We want to see zines emerging from the margins — speaking across caste, gender, sexuality, and class divides. Not polished, not corporate, but messy, vibrant, and alive.”

For the Delhi Zine Collective, the dream is even more radical — a literary world without celebrities, without gatekeeping, without polished Instagram aesthetics.

“We don’t want famous writers anymore,” Borishan declares. “We want every locality in Delhi to have their own Marcel Proust — someone brilliant, local, forgotten by the mainstream, but unforgettable to those who find them.”

Their vision extends beyond print. From single-sheet zines tucked into wallets to elaborate handmade calendars, every artefact they produce carries a call to attention — a refusal to let our stories evaporate in the constant churn of the internet.

“We want people to get a zine slipped to them in real life, to read it through in one sitting, and to walk away with something that lingers — not a post you forget in ten seconds,” Borishan says. “Attention is all we need.”

As Delhi’s zine scene continues to expand, one thing is clear: this isn’t a fleeting trend. It’s a quiet, stubborn revolution — one folded page at a time.