Power, in 2025, did not always announce itself loudly, nor did it seek instant legitimacy. Across cinema, poetry, activism, performance, pedagogy, and cultural memory, The Daily Eye’s writers identified a different register of influence—one shaped by ethical clarity, resistance to simplification.  

The Top 20 Powerful People of 2025, as selected by the writers of The Daily Eye, are not united by profession, ideology, or visibility. What binds them is a shared refusal: to be reduced, hurried, instrumentalised, or erased. They embody power not as dominance, but as authorship over one’s own trajectory.

This year-end curation brings together the critical voices of Khalid Mohamed, Vinta Nanda, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, and Utpal Datta—each of whom, through sustained engagement rather than episodic commentary, mapped how power actually operates when stripped of spectacle.

Khalid Mohamed: Power That Survives Time

At the centre of this constellation stands Khalid Mohamed, whose interviews form the backbone of The Daily Eye’s Powerful People archive. Mohamed does not pursue immediacy; he excavates longevity. In a media ecosystem obsessed with velocity, his writing insists that power reveals itself most truthfully only when observed over time.

His conversation with Preity Zinta exemplifies this philosophy. Freed from tabloid shorthand, Zinta re-emerges as one of the few mainstream actors to exercise sustained agency—testifying against the underworld during Bollywood’s most compromised phase, stepping away when alignment dissolved, and returning with Lahore 1947 entirely on her own terms. At fifty, she is not a comeback story but a continuum. Power, here, is the right to withdraw without vanishing.

That same ethic of refusal defines Mohamed’s engagement with Pravesh Sippy. Son of the legendary N.N. Sippy, Pravesh chose interrogation over inheritance. Moving from big-budget cinema to independent, socially conscious filmmaking, he critiques corporatised production models, collapsing single screens, and algorithm-driven OTT economies with unflinching honesty. His power lies not in scale, but in principled dissent.

Persistence, rather than momentum, anchors Mohamed’s portrait of Manika Sharma. Her journey through advertising, independent cinema, and deeply personal storytelling resists the industry’s obsession with speed. In Dipanita Sharma, Mohamed locates strength in restraint. Her career—measured, uncluttered, and devoid of strategic noise—asserts dignity in an industry addicted to excess.

Confrontation from within defines Mohamed’s conversation with Richa Chadda. Speaking candidly about motherhood, body politics, toxic work environments, and professional risk, Chadda asserts authorship across Masaan, Gangs of Wasseypur, Madam Chief Minister, and Heeramandi. Her transition into production with Girls Will Be Girls marks a decisive shift—from participation to control.  

Lifelong commitment becomes the measure of authority in Amole Gupte. Mohamed traces his journey from FTII to Stanley Ka Dabba, from collaborations with Smita Patil to his unwavering belief that children deserve cinema with dignity, not condescension. In an industry obsessed with market size, Gupte’s insistence on sincerity is quietly radical.

Cultural preservation becomes political in Mohamed’s engagement with Danish Husain. Through Qissebaazi, Husain revives Urdu dastangoi not as nostalgia but as living practice. His refusal of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award during the Award Wapsi movement situates storytelling firmly within ethical alignment. Stories, he believes, must travel slowly to survive.

Perhaps the most intellectually audacious figure Mohamed engages with is Kamal Swaroop—provocateur, teacher, and eternal outsider. His AI-assisted, 1,500-page meditation on Dadasaheb Phalke refuses linear biography altogether. Power, here, lies in the courage to remain illegible to systems that demand consumption-friendly clarity.

Contemporary female authority finds articulation in Huma Qureshi, whose performances in Delhi Crime Season 3 and Maharani build ambition and moral ambiguity from instinct rather than imitation. Craft, not approval, anchors her confidence.

That craft reaches lyrical restraint in Saba Azad as Raj Begum in Songs of Paradise. Mohamed’s interview reveals an actor deeply attentive to silence, refusing spectacle in favour of quiet resistance. This restraint finds resonance in Soni Razdan, whose portrayal of the older Raj Begum embodies continuity rather than comeback. Razdan’s reflections—on theatre, Shyam Benegal, Aparna Sen, and understatement—reinforce Mohamed’s central thesis: staying power is built on conviction, not volume. Anchoring both performances is Danish Renzu, whose aesthetic of restraint restores dignity to female creativity by allowing silence, music, and interiority to carry history.

The arc culminates in Mita Vasisht—actor, educator, filmmaker, and unyielding force. Speaking candidly about patriarchy, awards, spirituality, and survival, she refuses institutional validation. She continues—not as a veteran, but as resistance itself.

Vinta Nanda: Power as Ethics and Circulation

If Mohamed charts endurance across decades, Vinta Nanda maps power as ethical movement. Her writing identifies individuals who reshape systems rather than merely inhabit them.

In Gopika Dahanukar, daughter of Prafulla Dahanukar, Nanda examines legacy without reverence. Gopika dissolves boundaries between sound, movement, canvas, and community, transforming art into shared process. Power becomes generative, expanding outward through collaboration.

Leadership is reimagined in Nanda’s engagement with Shenali Rajaratnam, whose work across climate action, AI ethics, and women-led governance proposes a new grammar of influence—parallel creation rather than confrontation.

Cinematic vulnerability becomes strength in Yassa Khan, whose journey from graphic design to filmmaking transforms personal trauma into luminous storytelling. Here, honesty is power.

Listening itself becomes authority in Sathya Saran—editor, translator, cultural interpreter—who privileges resonance over closure and nuance over certainty.

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri: Power as Witness

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri expands power into the poetic realm through his conversation with Amy Singh. Writing across Punjabi, Hindi, and English, Singh’s Singing Over Bones frames poetry as survival and resistance. In a culture of accelerated expression, her belief in poetry’s slow, unsettling impact feels radical. Bearing witness becomes strength.

Utpal Datta: Power in Doubt

The emotional core of this selection is shaped by Utpal Datta, who insists that power often speaks through hesitation and self-scrutiny. His conversation with Jahanara Begum—physician-actor and National Award Special Mention recipient for Anur—rejects triumphalism. Balancing medicine, family, and late-blooming artistry, Begum embodies power as constant reassessment.  

Power as Continuance

In a year defined by noise, acceleration, and spectacle, these were The Daily Eye’s Most Powerful People of 2025—not because they dominated the moment, but because they refused to be diminished by it.