India, March 28 -- Prayaag Akbar's highly anticipated second novel, Mother India, is about the country's two largest forces and concerns: its youth and social media. The book attempts to address the ambitions of ordinary young people in present day India, and the dizzying anxieties around the reach and powers of the internet.

Twenty-something Mayank works at a propaganda kitchen, a dingy basement office of a YouTube influencer, where he uses AI to cook up dramatic videos targeting Muslims, liberals, leftists, all the people that his boss Vikram Kashyap deems as the enemies of Mother India - "PhD-waale. Jihadis. Khalistanis. Maoists and missionaries" - because "if they dared to disrespect our mother, they're going to have to pay." And so,...