POROUS BODIES AND CHEMICAL ENTANGLEMENTS: READING THE DISCOURSE OF ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICITY IN SELECT POST-MILLENNIAL INDIAN NOVELS

Abstract

Ecocriticism’s contestation of Anthropocene and Anthropocentrism over the last few decades has opened doors for interdisciplinary studies of the environment and the material world. The thesis takes the concept of ‘toxic discourse’ by Lawrence Buell and tries to trace how postmillennial Indian fiction critically analyses the violence caused by toxic chemicals. Through a deep historical analysis of the increasing global use of toxic chemicals, the thesis investigates the chemical infiltration into our daily spaces in addition to the larger catastrophic instances of warfare, chemical disasters, oil spills, etc. The historical underpinnings of global toxicity lay the foundation for a literary introspection of increased human contact with hazardous substances. To conduct this study, the thesis takes up four novels- Animal’s People (2007) by Indra Sinha, Gift in Green (2011) by Sarah Joseph, Swarga: A Posthuman Tale (2017) by Ambikasutan Mangad and Leila (2017) by Prayaag Akbar. Each of these novels offers a different perspective on our chemical proximities, such as being exposed to a chemical industry leak, living in the vicinity of an aerial pesticide spraying, witnessing the slow environmental death of a backwater community and imagining a future with a heavily polluted environment, with each narrative plot based on actual incidents or our uncertain environmental futurities. Beginning from Rachel Carson in the 1960s, the thesis attempts to strike a broader conversation in ecocriticism by examining the Indian response to toxicity and how it offers a different perspective on ecological relations, factors that exacerbate violence, the experience of suffering, and also how these authors represent and respond to the crises. To accomplish this, the chapters of the dissertation focus on the representational challenges and strategies employed to narrate a chemical violence, how it affects bodies, and how these texts evoke the discussion of environmental justice. By employing Rob Nixon’s concept of “slow violence”, the thesis examines how Indian fiction maps the corporeal harm inflicted by chemical disasters that otherwise elude popular attention. Drawing from this concept, first, the thesis seeks to look at the narrative strategies employed to represent ‘slow violence’ and discuss the harm it inflicts on humans and nonhumans alike. Second, by underscoring our entanglement with toxic environments, the thesis will look at the chemical’s persistent nature and how they continue to be a threat by foregrounding the permeability of human and nonhuman bodies. To enhance this argument, the intersection of disability studies and medical humanities with ecocriticism is explored to study bodily harm and intergenerational toxicity. Finally, the thesis investigates the concept of environmental justice and argues that the politics of toxicity—from a Global South perspective— need rethinking from the temporal and spatial dimensions of the violence. The thesis contends that the crisis of toxicity is not merely iii ‘local’ or ‘immediate’ in space and time, respectively, but global and continuing, considering the involvement of giant corporations, international waste flow and the chemical’s capacity to cause genetic mutations in the affected bodies, thereby underscoring the chemical’s ability to transgresses temporal and spatial boundaries. By analysing the literary representations of chemical violence in these selected texts, the thesis aims to offer a small contribution to the global literary study of environmental toxicity.