Eco-aesthetics: Transnational Perspectives 2h5d18

Eco-Aesthetics: Transnational Perspectives

Candy D’Cunha, Editor Ken Saldanha, Co-Editor

Eco-Aesthetics: Transnational Perspectives

Candy D’Cunha, Editor Ken Saldanha, Co-Editor

Academica Press Washington London

Library of Congress Catag-in-Publication Data

Names: D’Cunha, Candy (editor) Title: Eco-Aesthetics: transnational perspectives | Candy D’Cunha Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2021. | Includes references. Identifiers: LCCN 2020952315 | ISBN 9781680531022 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781680539080 (ebook)

Copyright 2021 Candy D’Cunha

Contents

Introduction

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1

Naturescapes in Indian Women’s Poetry in English

K. V. Raghupathi

Notes

Works Cited

Chapter 2

The Politics of Climate Crisis: A Critical Study of Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement Climate Change and the Unthinkable

P.V. Laxmiprasad

Conclusion

Works Cited

Chapter 3

Australian Aborigines and Eco-spirituality

G. Srilatha

Works Cited

Chapter 4

Eco-consciousness in Mahasweta Devi’s Short Fiction

Palakurthy Dinakar

Works Cited

Chapter 5

Eco-critical Perspectives in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Neelima Choudaraju & Leela Priyadarsini Chirumamilla

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: The Argumentative African Ecology:

Pre-colonial land of Umuofia: Wild forest and rituals:

Missionaries and environment:

Huggan and Tiffin in Post-colonial Eco-criticism:

Okonkwo and land:

Environment and text:

Conclusion

Works Cited

Contributors

Introduction

Eco-criticism, as explored in this volume edited by Sr. Candy D’Cunha, begins with the concept of imagination, in other words, eco-aesthetics through which the power of words, stories, images, essence, and meaning are directly applied to environmental problems that afflict planet earth today. On the other hand, ecocriticism also concurs with the other branches of environmental humanities in the realm of history, ethics, anthropology, religious studies, and humanistic geography, among others. Arising from developing world perspectives, these fields harmonize environmental phenomena to comprehend the array of environmental concerns through a transnational perspective. In addition to these, the honest depiction of the harm done to the environment is to enable human to rethink and reorient themselves for radically transforming the present ecosystem.

Foreword

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

Andhra Loyola Institute of Engineering and Technology (ALIET) is a sister Institution of the reputed Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada a well-known autonomous college, and awarded the Status College with Potential for Excellence (E) by the UGC. Both these Institutions are ed under the Loyola College Society, Guntur-Vijayawada. In accordance with the Jesuit Vision of higher Education, ALIET imparts technical education in the realm of higher education with integral formation which involves academic excellence, spiritual growth, social commitment and value-based leadership. The mission of Jesuit Education at ALIET is to form ‘Men and Women for others’ and mould them as global citizens with competence, conscience, and comion commitment. The Jesuits show special concern towards socially and economically marginalized students. ALIET has unique features to help students attain intellectual, psychological, mental and spiritual growth through personal discipline and value-centred education. ALIET has the most beautiful green campus in Vijayawada. 70% of the campus is covered by a lush greenery of trees, plants and flowers. The college uses natural resources like solar energy, trip irrigation, water treatment plant through backwaters for irrigation and flushing. Given this beautiful and ecologically balanced backdrop, the college offers a conducive and peaceful atmosphere that promotes vigour, enthusiasm and a holistic education to students, especially to the poor and more deserving youth of the State. The college also has an eco-club which promotes green practices. Given this general scenario of the college, this piece of literature project explores the various areas of Literature and Environment, encouraging serious reflection which will lead to awareness, reorientation and concrete action. The co-editor for this project is Dr. Ken Saldanha. Dr. Saldanha holds a PhD

from the University of Toronto and is presently an associate professor at Eastern Michigan University, USA. His research and practice interests are homelessness, marginalized youth, migrant farmworkers, behavioural health, culturally relevant practice, and contemporary qualitative research methods. This project is carried out by Dr. Sr. Candy D’ Cunha, Associate Professor of English, Andhra Loyola Institute of Engineering and Technology. The purpose of this project is to bring the finest ecologically -minded scholars to submit essays and articles towards the publication of this book by Indian scholars on the International stage. In recent times, eco-criticism in English literature has emerged as a highly captivating theme. It studies the relationship between man and nature. They are inseparable. Man lives with nature and learns from it. Nature teaches him the mysteries of the world. Eco-criticism believes in the inter-connection of all life forms which exist on this earth. They also assume that human culture is intimately interlinked with the human world. Various writers across the globe, through their creative works have expressed their thinking on ecological crisis. These concepts are realistically presented by them using their creative imagination which helps to trace ecological ethics from a global perspective. The main aim of this project is to foster stability which is the fundamental basis of ecology. Geographically it is termed as ‘harmonious relationship.’ By exploring the works of various eco-critical writers, the need for rethinking and reorientation in this area can be enhanced. Thus, the openness to embrace the healthy and right way of being, thinking and acting can lead to a more harmonious and beautiful relationship between the Creator, Cosmos and mankind. It is a strong invitation to ecologically minded scholars to contribute to the achievement of a true Ecological Justice, where everyone, especially the marginalized and the powerless, will be able to live in a society based on harmony and equilibrium, as designed by the Creator. To this end, a volume of Essays on Eco-critical Literature from various areas are presented in this volume. I heartily welcome the academic enthusiasm and the vibrant initiatives exhibited by the Indian academicians on an International stage. I am confident that this

project will widen the horizons of environmental thinkers to pursue their research effectively.

Fr. Dr. A. Francis Xavier S. J.

Secretary & Director

Andhra Loyola Institute of Engineering and Technology

Andhra Pradesh -Vijayawada

INDIA

Preface

The existing ecological problem is not a socio-economic problem of a small hamlet alone, but even more importantly, it is a global problem which is faced by all humans and non-humans at various levels. The serious problems that arise from the ecological crisis are extinction of species, draught, rising of sea levels, melting of glaciers, extinction of wild life, cutting down trees, air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, disappearance of water bodies etc. The freedom that we possess which is a supremely important gift has also unfortunately made us greedy and irresponsible. The truth is that the earth can exist without human but human cannot exist without the earth. Human cannot exist without the earth simply because the mother earth is the dwelling place of mankind. Across the globe, many ecological thinkers have been trying to propose different solutions to the ongoing ecological crisis. Creating an academic awareness that leads to eco-consciousness can strongly contribute towards this process. In the past, many poets have expressed their love for nature through their poetic presentations centred on the flora and fauna. In their poetry, visual images were projected vibrantly. Rabindranath Tagore employed nature images in his Gitanjali to demonstrate the overwhelming power of Nature. Other poets like William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, W.B. Yeats, Sarojini Naidu, Toru Dutt and Mahashweta Devi exhibited their supreme awe and respect for the supremacy of Nature. Dilip Chitre’s “The Felling of the Bunyan Tree” and Keki N Daruwalla’s “Boat-Ride Along the Ganga” are poems deeply rooted in ecology and environment. Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, a classic book on Ecocritical literature, presents several important burning concerns of global level. All the calamities are of unusually alarming magnitudes. Margaret Atwood, a Canadian writer and novelist has voiced out her concern for environment through her famous sequel The Testaments, for which she received the Booker Prize in 2019. This book portrays the struggle of women in a political regime where environmental concern remains at the centre of the story. Her other works, especially The MaddAddam Trilogy have powerfully explored the over usage of science and technology on the world. Humans seldom pay heed to this truth in spite of knowing how the natural habitation is totally dependent on this planet for their sustenance and survival.

In the later phase, eco-critical literature has gained momentum and more works of writers can be read under the school of eco-criticism. Of late, there has been a growing concern all over the world about the importance and urgency of preservation and protection of Nature. The study of eco-criticism is an inter-disciplinary area which connects the entire environment representing one’s own cultural, socioeconomic and political norms. Hence, being an umbrella term, eco-criticism includes a wide spectrum of these beliefs wherein environmental problems are discussed and solutions are proposed for the ongoing environmental crisis. Environmental criticism is also known as green criticism. It links humans with the physical environment. Literary response to the ongoing ecological crisis can be analyzed from different perspectives and it can bring in new innovative ideas to the field of literary studies. Literary history plays a predominant role if we desire to understand the contemporary attitude towards the environment. The fundamental objective of eco-criticism is to understand the mindset of individuals in the society especially in relation to the ecological aspects. Against this background, I have taken up the critical volume on Eco-Critical Literature. The response to this initiative has been extremely positive. In all, twenty papers were received from various contributors and are brought out in a set of four volumes under different titles of Eco studies. The papers reflect some multi-dimensional perspectives of eco-critical literature from all over the world. There are papers on Indian Eco-literature, British Eco-literature, American literature and African Eco-literature. All the contributors have come to the same conclusion that Eco-critical literature attends to the urgency of addressing some of the crucial problems, challenges and struggles of life in the universe. This is where this work assumes great importance and could hopefully become a powerful invitation to all people of good will to preserve our common heritage.

Dr. Sr. Candy D Cunha

Editor

Associate Professor

ALIET, Vijayawada

Dr. Ken Saldanha

Co-Editor

Associate Professor

Eastern Michigan University, USA

Chapter 1

Naturescapes in Indian Women’s Poetry in English

K. V. Raghupathi

Nature has been pivotal in all the continental literatures. The tradition of nature writing in English is a mere depiction or description, and hence may be considered a kind of monologue. Umpteen poets in all languages in the past as well as in the present, have either adored and deified the beauty of nature or used her as a symbol in their poetry. The English Romantics especially celebrated the element of beauty in their own inimitable manner. John Keats celebrated beauty as truth, truth beauty, Shelley simply saw revolutionary spirit in her, William Blake divinised her beauty, Wordsworth realized the Spirit of Wisdom pervading her, and Coleridge idealized her as real and realized her as ideal. The present paper examines how Indian Women Poets writing in English have used and reflected Nature in their poetry. No specific theory has been employed here to study various poets’ responses to Nature. As the scope of the study is large, it has been confined to the select six women poets representing four phases of Indian English Poetry as schematised by Makrand Paranjape. Nature was a dominant theme in the early Colonial phase of Indian Poetry in English. It was one of the humble perspectives towards Nature. It was largely “pastoral” in spirit, to use Terry Gifford’s term¹. Several poets expressed their profound love for nature and portrayed her in a sensuous and picturesque manner. To begin with, Toru Dutt treated as the first woman poet writing in English in the “Phase of Colonialism,” (Paranjape, 7) had a great penchant for nature. She used nature as a symbol to convey a subtle philosophy. “Our Casuarina Tree” (Paranjape 42) is both tree and symbol, in it are implicated both time and eternity. In these eleven lines of five stanzas, she captures the beauty of the tree.

In the first stanza, like the English Romantics, she says:

Like a huge Python, winding round and round The rugged trunk, indented with deep scars Upto its vey summit near the stars.

The “giant” tree, its flowers are hung “in crimson clusters” and the sweet song form the tree over flowing the silent dark night echoes Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.” One can see the echoes of Shelley, Collins and Gray. The poem on the whole has wonder, nostalgia, melancholy, love and hope – the dominant traits of the Romantics. “Lotus” is another sonnet which celebrates the principle of beauty as expressed in flowers. The poet imaginatively presents the superiority of lotus over the rose and the lilly, as it combines the subtleness of the lilly and the beauty of the rose. Heavily influenced by John Milton, ‘The Tree of Life’ (Souza, 108) is a brilliant vivid description of images of nature and perhaps the best example of an of those daylight visions which come to mortals, but rarely. Biographically, it is of interest as the last poem written by her. The opening line is vividly suggestive:

Broad Daylight, with a sense of weariness!

It describes how, as the invalid lay with her father’s hand in hers, in that intimate, voiceless communion which the two knew and loved so well,

Suddenly, there shone

A strange light and the scene as sudden changed.

In the midst of an illimitable plain stretched out before her eyes, the visionary saw

A tree with spreading branches and with leaves Of diverse kinds, -- dead silver and live gold.

Beside the tree stood an angel, who plucked some of the leaves and bound them round the poetess’ brow, till its wild throbbing ceased. So wonderful was their effect that she pleaded for some to be bound round her father’s brow also.

One leaf the Angel took, and therewith touched His forehead, and then gently whispered ‘Nay!’

After Toru had gazed awhile, she opened her “tear-dimmed eyes” upon the world again, to find the vision gone, and her father still sitting patiently beside her, with her hand held fast in his. Sarojini Devi was a major potent voice in the phase of “Nationalism” (Paranjape 13) who presented her unerring sense of beauty and melody. Like the English Romantics, she loved the sights and sounds in nature with the wonder and excitement of a child. She often turned to her for relief form the humdrum of city life for repose and consolation. For her, nature was a sanctuary of peace. In “Summer Woods” she says:

O, I am tired of panted roofs, and soft and silken floors,

And long her wind-blown canopies of crimson gulmohars O, I am tired of strife and song and festivals and fame And long to fly where Cassia-woods are breaking into flame.

Her nature poems are coloured by psychedelic quality suggesting perhaps that the poet celebrates herself to a higher consciousness leading to transcendence and mystic elation. In the following lines in the poem “The Magic of Spring,” she depicts the cheering sights and sounds of the spring season in the following landscape:

The kimshuks burst into dazzling flower, The seemuls burgeoned in crimson pride, The palm-groves shone with the oriole’s wing, The koels began to sing The soft clouds broke in a twinkling tide…

Her “Indian Dancers” is a fine example of images drawn from the world of nature:

The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter And die in the maze of their gem-tangled hair, And smiles are entwining like magical serpents The poppies of lips that are opiate-sweet,

Their glittering garments of purple are burning Like tremulous dawn in the quivering air, And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle And tread of their rhythmical, slumber soft feet

Both Toru and Sarojini were lyricists instinctively. Toru’s career was purely artistic, while that of Sarojini, her girlish ecstasy ended when she plunged into politics. She however lifted politics to artistic sphere. K.K. Mehrotra commented thus, “there is no deep emotional conflict or spiritual upheaval” (88). She was moved by the scenes and sounds around her which she turned into lovely lyrics. Unlike Toru, she is very subjective:

Hide me in a shine of roses Drown me in a wine of roses Drawn from every fragrant grove! Bind me on a pyre of roses, Burn me in a fire of roses, Crown me with the rose of Love! (“The Time of Roses”)

Thus, in the first two phases of pre-independence, women poets treated nature in a profoundly ideal-romantic vein, as a sacred and solitary retreat, not only for meditation and mystic communion with the imprint, but also as an escape from the “strife and song and festivals and fame” and from “the toil and weariness, the praise and prayers of men.” Nature emerges as a symbol of delight in the human consciousness which seeks everywhere evidences of beauty, love, harmony and radiance.

By contrast, the post-independence Indian women poets are not particularly fascinated by nature for its own sake. Nature is not their primary subject. They have dismissed such poetry as purely romantic and ideal which is not an answer to their own plight and many social problems. They have responded to nature in different ways. According to Singh (114), the male poets have employed various objects of nature as images and symbols to signify social and cultural contexts. Their depiction of nature is relatively more distanced from personal emotion. On the other hand, he says, “The female poets’ nature imagery and symbolism are more drenched in subjective emotion, pathetic fallacy and empathy than the male poets are” (114). Many of these women poets have urban sensibility. Unlike the women poets of the pre-independence, women poets of the postindependence have used nature in a limited sense as vehicles of expression of human experience. But unlike their male counterparts such as Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, R. Parthasarathy, K.N. Daruwalla, and Jayantha Mahopatra who have extensively used things and objects in Nature as symbols to articulate the complexity of human life in a far objective way, the post-independence women poets are comparatively less objective. Their poetry is full of pathetic fallacy². They have used nature as vehicles for their personal conditions and contexts, thoughts and feelings. Among the women poets in the “Modernism” phase (14), Kamala Das has used things and objects in nature in several of her poems to convey her condition. “The Suicide” recapitulates how she revelled in her childhood days in an environment blessed with nature’s bounties. It is a poem about the loss of the simplicity of life and the depravity of love in life.

In the bright summer months I swam about and floated I lay speckled and gold In all the hours of the sun

In the poem “Rain,” the poet uses nature as a cause for leak in the new house

only to show that human condition is the same despite the differences in places and times. In another poem, “There Will Come Soft Rain,” Das simply captures her beauty in the beginning in pure romantic spirit:

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white, Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And this beauty is contrasted to human condition

And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.

“In Love” poem “the luring month/of sun, luring in today’s/sky” is contrasted to her “unending lust” and “the need for love.” In “Forest Fire,” hunger is compared with “forest fire that consumes and with each killing gains a wilder,/brighter charm, all that comes my way.” Kamala Das does not approach nature like a romantic or a pantheist. Nature is an organic presence in her poems, interacting with people and interfering in their lives. The poem “For Cleo Pascal” is a striking example:

Only the trees seen glad to see me As if I were their kith and kin I take on their characteristics As the days one after another by While I wear this land as an over coat Warming my breasts and belly I begin to look like its trees My skin dries like the dark of birch My hair smells of spruce

The cultural alienation and segregation that prevail among people vanish in the lap of nature and a fresh realization arises:

Of one thing I came certain the forest and I we have something in common we do not speak French

She asserts that human race may be divided on the basis of religion, caste, race, etc. but nature is common and no separation can be created between nature and human being. The ultimate merger of man with nature is quite unique in her process. The longing for home and the longing to go back to nature for solace and comfort is ever present in her poetry. The sea is another powerful symbol used in the poem. The sea was very close to her when she was with her

grandmother, in her childhood. But it was separated as she grew up. At the end of her life, she again longs for the ‘sea.’

All I want now is to take a long walk into the sea and lie there resting completely uninvolved

She wants to “dissolve” in it, which we accept ultimately at the end. In “No Noon at My Village Home” she reminds us of the loss of the natural habitat. The poet ultimately wants to “stay” (“I must stay”) with nature and experience her bliss and peace. “Evening at the Old Nalappat House” is yet another poem of longing for home. “The House” in the poem is an object of nature where both man, animals and birds co-exist. In “The Annamalai Hills,” the hills are contrasted with the puny behaviour of man:

No longer seeking comfort in human speech. The mountain seems deaf-mute, but the flesh of her spirit is but its flesh, and her silence, despite the tumult in her blood, its destined hush.

The woman is comforted by the hills. The words of the mountain, “I was alone, I am alone, I will be alone” establish the continuity of nature. The mountain is also an internal mountain; the presence of the gentle warmth of nature in the mind of the woman: “Within my heart, the mist ascends, the mountain/awake.” Nature is an active participant in her poetry. The inalienable relationship between man and nature arose from her close association with her home in the

village, its rituals, customs and serene surroundings. The poem “High Tide” is also identical with nature. Here, the sea is analogous to the rising ion within her.

It is only the wind knocking at the door, the sea Is wild this morning, there is perhaps a high tide on. (“The Old Playhouse”)

In the poem “The Joss Sticks at Cadell Road,” the sea becomes a receptacle of “the poor men’s bodies” which burn like Joss’ sticks. In the poem “Convicts,” through the sea, the poetess evokes the image of the postsexual experience in the dark room. Kamala Das also uses the four natural elements in her poetry “the fire, the earth, the water and the air” as integral parts of her imagery. In the poem, “The Flag” she employs the element “fire” brilliantly and powerfully (from “Summer in Calcutta.”)

The orange stands for fire, for fire that eats Us all in the end… (21)

Her poem “Seashore,” shows it in its role as the destroyer of human ion. Unlike Sunita Jain, a bilingual poet, who glorifies nature as a blessing of God, Kamala subjectifies it. Gauri Deshpande, another bilingual poet who writes in Marathi as well as in English, too finds correspondence to her painful sentiments in the objects and sights of nature. She articulates her pangs of separation from the beloved

through the image of dull and dry trees that “refuse to fruit or flower/And birds don’t rest in them.” In “We Hadn’t the Guts,” she equates her agony with the setting of the sun: “To us is given the hollow task/of watching the sunset in a frame of tears.” She responds to nature as per her varying moods and emotions. She sometimes eulogises nature. In “Between Births,” she presents several picturesque and sensuous floral images. She reflects on a poplar tree thus:

The Indian poplar a giant coquette Weaving-whispering delighting denuding always beckoning

Her aesthetic sense is revealed in poems like “Jasmines” where she views an all alluring beauty and fragrance: “The jasmines that start as younglings/grow into stately matrons pervading/The world with their strong smell.” The “vast banyan” to her appears “a king tree” full of arrogance, inflated ego and a bully that “s his expanse with disdain/And is thunderous in his decline.” The mango tree looks like “the emperor,” who with his “ripe maturity fills our mouths/And runs in saffron-rivers down/Our summer-soaked …” In the poem “On a Lost Love,” Deshpande uses earth and rain as metaphors to represent the act of consummation. She writes:

I am earth Vast deep and black And I receive Yellow daisies burst out On my breast and thigh At its every tough.

Quest for love, fulfilment in love, sex and failures in relationships are basic themes in their poetry. Both believe that love for a woman is much more than what it is for a man. The difference in experience of love for man and woman is succinctly brought out by Kamala in the following lines in her oft quoted poem, “Introduction:”

In him… the hungry haste of rivers, in me… the ocean’s tireless waiting

Here, man’s love is compared with river, while woman’s with ocean, suggesting that ocean is much deeper than river. Unlike Kamala Das and Gauri Deshpande who were obsessed with love and sex, and unlike Margaret Chatterjee who deals with philosophical themes, Monika Varma, a well-known poet, a critic and a translator, is purely romantic. She is mainly a poet of nature and the direct impact of William Wordsworth on her is palpable. Her poetry is subsumed with grace, balance, melody, aesthetic satisfaction and artistic beauty. The motifs of love, however, appear only intermittently, and juxtaposed with nature. Like English Romantics she celebrates the beauty of nature. She may even be called as “Nature Poet” as each of her seven volumes are replete with the charming descriptions of objects and scenes and activities of nature. In spite of her early poems that seem to lack a dynamic relationship between nature and her, the ionate involvement could be seen in her later poetry. In the poem, “In This Loud World,” she says:

Why should I grieve There is laughter in a silver thread of breeze.

The poet defines her faith in the joy of life through the medium of ‘gold’ when she bursts out ecstatically:

O give me gold: the gold of sunlight the gold of pollen-drenched flowers the gold encrusted by a thousand genes that glitter across (Green Leaves and God, “Gold” 34)

She is not interested in being too sentimental or naked in her display of her anger and frustration as her most women poets seem to have done. She rather hails the beauty of morning and the stars. This is evident in “Glad Light Green” and “This Gift of a Morning.” However, she does not feel shy of talking love and ion using things and objects in Nature.

My reluctant sight, victim of the falcon rose, plummets earthwards; and the sun whispers: Will it be the falcon or the dove? Vexed. I answer: Give me love. (“The Question…” 14)

She negates her personal self for the sake of nature. While Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Keats have identified with nature, Varma suffers from strange detachment. Her metaphysical approach to life is counterbalanced through nature:

Death, heron, I The season that never change their way And the flowers wait. (Alaknanda, “Once Again” 35)

Green Leaves and Gold, a poetical collection of 26 pieces dedicated to P.Lal, is full of splendid natural descriptions which remind us of William Wordsworth in their precision and fullness. Poems such as “Autumn Mood” and “Mountain Mood” are full of charm, energy and enthusiasm. The volume itself is symbolizing, in that green autumn becomes a symbol of her ‘life’ and her ‘breath’ (Green, 10), and gold that of her ‘love’ (Gold, 34-5). She calls ‘swallows’ her ‘sisters, brothers, lovers and love’ in the poem (“Detrition,” 28). Her metaphysical awakening is evident in “Autumn Mood:”

Ko jaarita? Who is awake? It is fearful Autumn moon to night (Green Leaves and Gold 12).

She even captures her distinct nostalgic love using images from nature. “GoldMulched Hours” and “My Loves” are excellent love poems of arresting imagery. She recapitulates,

Gold mulched hours

those days of rain, I you, my love beside me held in your arms, loves, but now the sombre clouds hide

my gold-mulched hours … (Quartered Questions and Queries, “Gold Mulched Hours” 40).

The sombre mood is captured through sombre clouds. In another poem “My Loves,” she universalises her love using images drawn from nature.

My loves are strewn upon the ground: birds and leaves, seeds and song, my love the heron’s flight a shadow upon the ground, swift running of dog the blue jay’s accepting mood. (41)

She juxtaposes her love with “birds and leaves,” “seeds and song,” “heron’s flight,” “swift running of dog” and “the blue jay.”

In the poem, “You and I” she casts her motherly love and compares her hands “softer than petals dust.” In the poem “Sun, Do Not Grieve,” taken from the collection (Past Imperative, 10) for the lover whose lusty kisses are imprinted on the cheeks and ‘heart’ of the beloved; it is a metaphor for the expression of her love and ion. In “Across the Vast Spaces” comprising 27 odd pieces dedicated to Rita, nine poems are about the sun, the gold, this land or foreign land, rocks, and sky the spaces and the market days, and the birds and the beasts. In the poem “Hammering Heart of Our Summer Sun,” her melancholic mood is captured in a romantic way.

Like the earth I, too, am exhausted by hammer heat. I am parched. I call Give me love, Give me rain.

Monika is at her best in maintaining balance between changing seasons and the varying moods of love. Certainly, she is different from Das and Gauri in maintaining notable equilibrium between sound and sense, nature and the mundane. She shuns treading on slippery grounds of love and sex. She seeks to interpret nature in the light of her joy. Her poetry is free from sexuality but not from love. Most of her poems present us a feast of vivid and captivating images, delightful natural scenes and sights. Her poems, Srinivasa Iyengar says, reveal, “a glowing sensitiveness to English speech and rhythm” (680). She confirms, “I have no frustration to proclaim, get rid of, etc. No past to linger over sadly, no cherished memories to chew and spew up” (Naik, 192). Unlike Gauri and Kamala, she does not use poetry as cathartic release from the tension of sex and love relationship. She clarifies her position thus,

There is a rage in creating, and I say. Stop… cease your lamentation doves there is more to it than this (“Words” 8)

In “Gita Govinda,” Monika Varma depicts spring as the power of arousing the feeling of love.

…the soft breeze of spring shivers the hearts of flowers For the ion-filled hum of honey-gathering bees… (9)

For her, spring simply rejuvenates life and sustains it.

The branches swell with bud that will bloom soon And those that bloom fill the air with scent And maiden the breeze (9)

She celebrates the season of rain in the poem, “Clouds” thus: … clouds rear swell bellow advance Curl and curdle one into another Break and hold out hands

Pull toward each other meet dissolve Sparrows, lie lolling, spread, scatter Run, jostle… (“Clouds” 29)

Her minute and meticulous observation of clouds is scientific.

Triangular, piece upon piece, each layer, built upon another Slabs of shade… Geological in count of man’s time-caught-sight Mathematical in rule, shape and form (“The Monsoon: Clouds” 10)

In “Clouds,” she compares them with kaajal: “lamback kaajal clouds” (Collyriem applied by Indian women in their eyes). Her Keatsian sense is revealed in the poem “Autumn Mood.” She panegyrizes the beauty of “green/pinnate-pointed leaves” and treats it as a season of “fruitfulness” of “the savour, flavour, /the scent of life” (Autumn Mood Green Leaves and Gold, 1). In the vast firmament, she finds a repository of multiplex hues and harmonies: “Folded within the sky, great symphonies hide/A brilliant orchestration of colour” (35). In “Gold” she emphasizes the all-encoming illumination of the sun, and longs for its gold: “O give me gold:/the gold of sunlight” (35). In “Sun, Do Not Grieve,” she converses with the sun, symbolizing her ionate lover. The river forms an important motif in Varma’s poetry as well. She makes Alakananda river as a potent symbol of her inner turmoil and usages. She captures her movements picturesquely.

Running over rocks, under snow-bridges pushing at stones Foam hides, her toes, she leaps runs, on, on… No one can stop her, No one can stop her, Alakananda runs, free, gay (Alakananda, 32)

“The Gift of a Morning” attests her spirit of perennial hope:

What nights, what grief, can make its once remain When morning light falls soft as child’s first laughter (Dragonflies Draw Flame, 12)

Like the Romantic poets, she records the beauty of nature in her verses. She renders music to her poems by resorting to poetic devices such alliteration, and assonance. Laxmi Kannan, another distinguished woman poet writing in the postindependence phase uses things in nature extensively as symbols of contrast to the plight of a woman. In “She” (Exiled Gods, 16-18), comprising three sections, Laxmi presents elaborate description of the external attributes/circumstances of the woman’s existence against the background of nature. In the concluding section, the woman’s inner chaos are contrasted with the orderliness of the “back garden” and the “lengthening shadow” of her person. The mango tree is in full

bloom with the sudden appearance of “glossy leaves” that shine like copper on the branches. Then, there is the “sweet-throated” song of the birds. In the midst of so much joy all she can feel is the “pealing stillness” and “the pain of memories” of a once pleasant past. To heighten the woman’s predicament, Laxmi suggests that while nature s growth and renewal, the woman has remained static – virtually living in a limbo. The only visible growth about her is the lengthening of her shadow. In the concluding lines of the poem, the woman is seen as looking at the eagle “soaring above in circles” with its “shrill notes tearing” the vast expanse of the blue sky. This spectacle of total freedom of the unfettered life of the creatures of nature highlights by contrast the slavery of woman. For example, the eyes of the kite are “frankly red and angry” as it cries out at some injustice or loss, but the woman suffers silently. Even the note of protest is muted. Laxmi Kannan’s finest collection is Unquiet Waters in which she uses water as a metaphor that holds out the hope of reunion as the rivers merge in the sea and lose their identity. The river symbolizes the essence of womanhood that is inexorable in its flow. The collection encapsulates cycle of birth, growth and death and is represented in three sections: “Mirrored in the Waters,” “Tideway” and “Towards Visarjan.” In this collection, woman and water are seamlessly, inextricably blended together into one image. The first section is synonymous with creation. In the very first poem, “For Arun,” the poet shows the umbilical cord between woman and that of creation, that she is the symbol of creationand without her, no creation is possible. It is represented in “A droplet of water/on a lotus leaf/is said to symbolize detachment,” (109) yet the inextricable relationship is brought out in the last part of the poem, “Water and leaf/jewelled together/even in their separateness.” (109). The image used is powerful: “River Ponni flows as usual/ing/how the women once buried their faces/in the silky folds of/her shining water/seeking adventure, seeking life.” (129) In the title poem “Unquiet Waters” she says that a woman is trapped like water in pitcher. The protagonist longs and speaks: “If you can but break the pitcher’s just once/and set me free/I would flow as to the stream, gurgling, I’ll catch the sun/in a jewelled glitter.” Among the post-modern phase women poets writing in English, Menka Shivdashani, a well-travelled journalist by profession, having roots in Sindhi language and culture, is a force affirming her immense faith in individuality and freedom, using highly striking imaginative images. The world that she depicts is full of abuses by men, scandals and misadventures. Surrealistic to the core, she

makes expressionistic and confessional remarks. Though her literary output is limited, unlike Romantics, she diligently channelizes her emotional outpouring, questioning patriarchal society and intensely longs for freedom. While questioning and depicting the plight, she carefully draws images from nature to buttress her argument. The poet juxtaposes nature with the woman’s anguish, longing and isolation. Nature always serves as a bastion to contrast to the plight. The calmness and beauty stand in contrast to the disorderliness in human world. Nature not merely represents beauty, but also freedom. In the poem, “Bird Woman,” the bird is the symbol of freedom, and the poet wants to make friends with the birds instead of with her fellow beings.

I am making friends with the birds now and have discovered my talons too, which sink perfectly into the eagle with his beady eyes. (Safe House, 2)

“My talons” refer to the grip, being ready to fly. The longing is taken to represent in “the gulls careen, and kites soar unseen/and the wild wind skims along.” (Safe House, “Every Woman is an Island,” 3) There are no inhibitions and restrictions in nature. Nature epitomizes freedom. In human world, this unlimited freedom is absent. Hence, the existentialists and the absurdists argue that man is always condemned to be free. Though man is given a choice to exercise freedom he cannot exercise it. Woman faces this predicament much more than her male counterparts. The crack symbolizing pain “is waiting deep within the womb” of the earth (Safe House, “Waiting” 5). The birth always is in

pain, freedom remains fleecy. However, the crack and its contours are beautifully captured, presenting mind gobbling images.

Beneath the many layers There is the slight Shifting of the soil A worm, disturbed By the motion Of wind and dust above. Roots lie hungry Gnarled and twisted.

The surrealistic image is further heightened.

There is danger then, and the snail Shrinks into its shell Midway up the crumbling wall Moss-covered, alight With bougainvillea flame The leaves run wild Flowers sit smug inside their pots.

In another poem, “Earth Mother” the roots of tradition imposing all restrictions on women in the society are taken as “forty-five rings/on the palm tree that has grown/out of the full fat earth inside you” (6). “Forty-five years is a long time,” the poet says, “and the roots go deep, /snaking through the soft and airy/spaces beneath the ground.” (6) On the “River Bank,” she searches for freedom: “I stepped into history/and looked for lost homelands, /soothing breezes, aromatic, alive, /steeped in wine, fragrant/with folklore and mist?” (25). In “Wings,” she wants to create “an original pattern/that morphs into bird or flower, /vibrant, delicate, /forgetting the many stages/of tree and wood, /bark and axe, /pulverizing of pulp, /the mush that led/to this final stage/on which the world imprints itself.” (39) Laxmi Kannan’s poetry is always “highly imaged” (King 313). She is a significant voice in the post-modern phase of Indian poetry in English. Her poetry is thick in surrealistic imagery. Nothing can be more horrendous than the powerful imagery that she uses in her poetry to convey the imbalance in her perceptions, and longings and the reality. Behind the dense imagery her agony lies. One needs a sharp insight to understand the nuances of the language/expression. Her compressed imagery conveys horror. She has evolved complex surrealist images for suffering, oppression and denial. Her tone is one of anger, protest, and frustration, her mood is of complaining, and her attitude is subtly regrettable. She is never apologetic in her tone. In the early phase, the attitude of women poets towards nature is that of pastoral impulse, an aesthetic appreciation of nature or a philosophical and mystic attitude. Besides, they portrayed Indian milieu, culture and heritage with romantic exuberance and lyrical poise. Their poetry does not reflect any conflict of gender. While in the post-colonial context many women poets, baring Monika Varma, have depicted their self, are concerned with their feminine sensibility and have articulated in a candid manner their sense of anger against gender discrimination. In addition, they have not written poetry in the sense of recovering the land, environment, etc. unlike several post-colonial poets in the west, such as Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, Judith Wright, G.D. Roberts and Archibald Lapman who wrote about their own natural landscape and environment. This feature is discernible in the north-east Indian poetry. The mainland Indian women poets however depicted, “the loveliness of the

Indian scenes and the freshness of vision with which it is perceived” (Gokak, 31). They have refrained from portraying the gradual deterioration of the earth’s environment and ecology. Their poetry by and large is anthropocentric in character, carried the element of “scriptotherapy” (Henke, xi-xxii). This concern for the earth’s ecology and environment can be traced in a few Indian English poems written by male poets such as Dilip Chitre’s “The Felling of Banyan Tree,” Gieve Patel’s “On a Killing a Tree,” Baldoon Dhingre’s “Factories are Eyesore” and K.N. Daruwalla’s “Boat-ride Along the Ganga.” These poems are eco-centric and transnational. Unlike the poets of the main land, poets from the north-east India have expressed their anger and deep concern at nature being exploited by multi-nationals, the government and smugglers. These north-eastern poets have written in the sense of recovering the beauty of the land. Their poetry needs to be examined in the backdrop of the rapid industrialization and urbanization. Their attitude seems to be anti-pastoral. What characterizes the poetry from north-east India is the tone of urgency to save nature from being destroyed and the fear of cultural extinction due to this and a strong realization that nature is essential for the existence of their indigenous culture. These poets are from different ethnic backgrounds, trying to search for “common ground in chronicling their subjective realities and the particular predicament of their people” (Nongkynrih, “The Poet Chronicler”). Nature is an overwhelming presence in their poetry. The antipastoral images used by these poets in their poetry highlight the present economic, political, cultural, technological and ecological factors which disturb traditional identity and the different forms of exploitation of their culture, land and beauty. This fright and frustration, anger and anxiety are reflected through harsh and jarring words expressed in a mocking tone, violent imagism and tensile style, exposing contradictory realities of the people and their cultural life. Since this is a vast subject that requires separate space for discussion, it does not constitute part of this paper.

Notes

1. Terry Grifford (1-12), a prominent literary theorist, defines pastoral in three ways in his critical book, Pastoral. The first way emphasizes the historical literary perspective of the pastoral in which authors recognize and discuss life in the country and in particular, the life of a shepherd. This is summed up by Leo Marx with the phrase “No shepherd, no pastoral.” The second type of the pastoral is literature that “describes the country with an implicit or explicit contrast to the urban.” The third type of pastoral depicts the country life with derogative classifications. 2. The phrase pathetic fallacy is a literary term used for attributing human emotion and conduct to all aspects within nature. It is a kind of personification that is found in poetic writing when, for example, clouds seem sullen, when leaves dance, or when rocks seem indifferent. The British cultural critic John Ruskin coined the term in his book, Modern Painters. Ruskin coined this term to attack the sentimentality that was common to the poetry of the late 18th century, and which was rampant among poets including Burns, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats.

Works Cited

Das, Kamala. The Summer in Calcutta. Kottayam: D.C. Books, 2004. Print.

Das, Kamala. The Old Playhouse and Other Poems. Orient Blackswan, 2004. Print.

Deshpande, Gauri. On a Lost Love. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1970. Print.

Deshpande, Gauri. Between Birth. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1968. Print.

Gokak, V.K. (Ed.), The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglican Poetry 1828-1965, New Delhi: Sahitya Academy, 1965. Print.

Grifford, Terry. Pastoral. The New Critical Idiom London, New York, Routledge. 1999. Print.

Kannan, Lakshmi. Exiled Gods, New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1985. Print.

King, Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English. OUP, 2013. Print.

Mehrotra,K.K. “The Poetry of Sarojini Naidu” Essays and Studies. Allahabad: Lokbharti Publications, 1970. Print.

Naik, M.K. Perspectives on Indian Poetry in English. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1984. Print.

Nongkynrih, Kynopham Sing. “The Poet as Chronicler: An Overview of Contemporary Poetry in Northeast India.” Poetry International Rotterdam. 21 Mar 2005. Web. I Sept. 2016. Print.

Paranjape, Makarand. Indian Poetry in English. New Delhi: Macmillan, 1993. Print.

Suzette, A.Henke. Shattered Subjects: Trauma and Testimony in Women’s Life Writing, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.

Shivdasani, Menka. Safe House. Mumbai: Poetrywala, 2015. Print.

Singh, Kanwar Dinesh. Contemporary Indian English Poetry: Comparing Male and Female

Voices, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd. 2008. Print.

Souza, de Eunice (Ed.). Early Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology 18291947. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

Varma, Monika. Dragon Flies Draw Flame. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1962. Print.

Varma, Monika. Gita Govinda and Other Poems, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1966. Print.

Varma, Monika. Past Imperative: A Collection of Poems 1953-64. Calcutta: Writers’ Workshop, 1972. Print.

Varma, Monika. Alaknanda, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1976. Print. Varma, Monika. Green Leaves and Gold. Calcutta: Writers’ Workshop, 1990. Print.

Varma, Monika. Quartered Question and Queries. Calcutta: Writers’ Workshop, 1971. Print.

Chapter 2

The Politics of Climate Crisis: A Critical Study of Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement Climate Change and the Unthinkable

P.V. Laxmiprasad

Our forest, our life, our environment, our breath, our ecology, our survival

Concern for the environment is a global phenomenon. It has become the interest of academia, research, and industry. There is sensitivity about ecology and environment among the common public, but a sort of civic sense is lacking among them. Climate crisis has captured global attention over the last one and a half decades. We have witnessed natural calamities around the world. There were recent disasters such as the floods in Chennai, and Kerala, India. Apathy, indifference, and callousness of our surroundings could likely be the factors responsible for these calamities that are considered unprecedented. This situation has alerted us to the irreparable damage caused to the ecological balance. The environment has been destroyed to the extent that future generations could be deprived of the means for their survival. We have failed to give credit where credit is due. In recent past, we have discussed the implications of increasing global warming. Even the extinction of species seems imminent in the near future. It is against this backdrop I have critically evaluated “The Great Derangement” of Amitav Ghosh, one of India’s greatest writers. Ghosh awakens readers to the great dangers of our future. The Great Derangement is originally a study of non-fictional work depicting the

most burning problem and challenge of survival. He has studied these problems and divided his book into three parts: “stories,” “history,” and “politics” in order to express the (unprecedented) scale and violence of climate change. Climate change also results in a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when it lasts for an extended period of time. It is caused by factors such as biotic processes or variations in solar radiation received by the earth and volcanic eruptions (Web). Cyclones are rare during the monsoon season because the wind in the Northern Indian Ocean is not conducive to their formation during that season. However, those patterns are now changing in such an unmatched manner as to increase the likelihood of cyclones even during and after the monsoons. It is a fact that cyclonic storms now occur in India in October too. The entire Indian sub-continent and its surrounding waters are reeling under the cloud of dust and pollution. There is an increase in cyclonic activity in the sub-continent, the result of human activities causing ongoing climatic changes. This is referred to as global warming. In fact, climate change is largely human induced. Human beings are solely responsible for such changes. According to Ghosh, ‘Humans have become geological agents, changing the most basic processes of the earth’ (Ghosh, 12). According to Ghosh, the extreme nature of today’s climatic events makes us particularly resistant to contemporary imagination. In literature, hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes are simply too improbable for the novel and are automatically consigned to other genres. In the writing of history too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications. Ghosh looks at politics, much like literature, as a matter of personal and moral reckoning rather than as an arena of collective action. His arguments come alive in the true spirit of an ecologist with a literary pursuit. The Great Derangement serves as a brilliant summons to confront the most urgent task of our time. For a long time, climate change was discussed in of a scientific discipline. Now, it has become the topic of the common man. Ghosh has cleverly moved out of the narrow corridors of science and taken his readers into the wide precincts of culture, politics, and power. He has re-written the destiny of the earth. He has evaluated and re-evaluated the alarming dangers and placed them before the readers. The future of all living species is at stake. The concerns are growing but the actions are very limited. Life is a rope that often swings us through hope. There is no hope of life for man without nature. As an optimist, Ghosh analyzes climate change and presents his arguments in a graphic of each global calamity. There has been a loss of life and property and the death

toll has been increasing following the calamities and disasters. Sometimes, these are seasonal and at other times, unseasonal. Unseasonal disasters are unpredictable. Unseasonal cyclones in the Indian sub-continent, wildfires in USA, Australia and Canada, perennial drought conditions in Africa are a few contemporary examples of climate change. The Great Derangement consists of three parts, namely I) Stories II) History III) Politics. These three parts make up his non-fictional work on climate change. I have critically evaluated the place and role of politics in climate change. Man and politics go together in Amitav Ghosh’s Climate Change. There is no politics without man and there is no man without politics. Man uses natural resources for his survival. Politics plays a decisive role in his everyday affairs. One such element that influences both man and politics is undoubtedly climate crisis. Climate change is an important global issue affecting everyone. As Amitav (postulates) man enjoys freedom, and the hope is that he could escape injustice, oppression and inequality caused by others. In fact, non-human forces are systems which face all kinds of cruelties caused by human beings. This merits attention in the context of freedom as enjoyed by different forces in the universe. Ghosh refers to the twentieth century writers and thinkers, such as “They cared for the abstract world but not for the concrete world. They did not care about global warming. Their work was the outcome of such catastrophe. The First World War represented one such escalation, the rise in industrial and military activity by an enormous output of literature much of it was explicitly political.” He holds that writers (for example, xxx) associated themselves with political movements such as socialism, communism, anti-facism, nationalism, and antiimperialism. For example, “Narmada Bachao Andolan” by Medha Patkar in India rifted the politics and the politicians in its march to save the dam from future dangers. Sardar Sarovar Dam was constructed after a series of protests by environmental activists that included Medha Patkar, Arundhati Roy, and Baba Amte. Their long-drawn agitation evoked nationwide attention. Legal suits were filed in the Supreme Court. Similar protests were made against the construction of dams, energy plants and factories that emit carbon related gases in the world. Life came to a deadly halt because of climate change as seen in Congo in 1988, when a great cloud of carbon dioxide burst forth from Lake Nyos and rolled into the surrounding villages, killing 1700 people and an untold number of animals. Ghosh argues that climate change is not a significant political issue in the Indian sub-continent, even though its impacts are certainly felt there, through extreme summers, tsunamis, and floods. He writes: “Not only in the increasing number of

large-scale disasters, but also in the form of slow calamity that is quietly but inexorably destroying livelihoods and stoking social and political conflicts. Instead, political energy has increasingly come to be focused on issues that relate, in one way or another to questions of identity, religion, caste, ethnicity, language, gender rights and so on” (Ghosh, 169). The politics of climate change according to Ghosh is an illustration of the ways in which the combination of the moral-political can produce paralysis. He defines climate change as a moral issue. Highlighting it from a moral standpoint has become the plea of last resort; other appeals have failed to produce any concerted action on climate change. Political positions will be judged in of climate change when questions like individual conscience, sincerity and consistency become the inevitable touchstones. Ghosh leans on M.K. Gandhi in the following lines:

The industrial, carbon-intensive economy cannot be fought by a politics of sincerity. Gandhi invested himself, body and soul, in the effort to prevent India from adopting the Western, industrial model of economy. (Ghosh, 181)

Gandhi was an example of a politics of moral sincerity. No politics exists without morality. Gandhi was successful in dislodging the British from India but failed to steer the country along a different economic path. Ghosh holds that there are many factors responsible for the politics of climate change, in particular the role the Anglo-sphere plays in the world. A group of five nations like USA, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand formed an alliance that undergirds the world’s current security. The fact is that laissez-faire and Free Trade ideas are still dominant within the Anglo-sphere which is central to the climate crisis. The Opium War of 1839-42 was the first important conflict to be fought in the name of free trade and unfettered markets. Obviously, capitalist trade and industry cannot thrive independently unless backed by access to military and political power. Ghosh observes that American and Australian politicians speaking of climate change pose a threat to our way of life; they follow the same script used by Ronald Reagan to refer to the reduction of the use of oil as an assault on what it means to be American. Climate change has become enmeshed with the politics of self-definition. True to this observation,

extreme weather events such as, floods, droughts, and heat waves will inevitably disrupt food and energy markets, forcing human migrations and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism. According to Ghosh, In short, in the United States, climate activists are now among the prime targets of a rapidly growing surveillance industrial complex. The British military posture is similar (Ghosh, 188). Ghosh places climate crisis as a result of the onslaught of global capitalism in developing countries dwarfed by an expanding European empire. It has acquired an international status when statistical figures reveal the alarming rise in the levels of pollution in countries like India. The larger question, of course, is whether the coastal states have equipped themselves for an even bigger event, such as an event similar to the super cyclone that hit Odisha in 1999 that killed about 10,000 people. “Coastal states in India must focus on reducing the hazard through policies that expand resilient housing, building better storm shelters and creating financial mechanisms for insurance and compensation” (The Hindu, Nov 2018). Ghosh vividly recalls how nature’s fury brought about an unprecedented disaster in Mumbai in 2005:

One such event occurred on 26 July 2005, when a downpour without precedence in Mumbai’s recorded history descended on the city: the northern suburbs received 94.4cm of rain in fourteen hours, one of the highest rainfall totals ever recorded anywhere in a single day. On that day, with catastrophic suddenness, the people of the city were confronted with the costs of three centuries of interference with the ecology of an estuarine location. The remaking of the landscape has so profoundly changed the area’s topography that its natural drainage channels are now little more than filth-clogged ditches. The old waterways have been so extensively filled in, diverted and built over, that their carrying capacity has been severely diminished. And the water bodies, swamplands and mangroves that might have served as natural sinks have also been encroached upon to a point where they have lost much of their absorptive ability. A downpour as extreme as that of 26 July would pose a challenge even to a very effective drainage system: Mumbai’s choked creeks and rivers were wholly inadequate to the onslaught. They quickly overflowed causing floods in which water was mixed with huge quantities of sewage as well as dangerous industrial effluents. Roads and rail tracks disappeared under waist-high and even chest-high floodwater. On weekdays, Mumbai’s suburban railway network transports close to 6.6 million engers; buses carry more than 1.5 million. The deluge came down on a Tuesday, beginning at around 2 p.m. Local train

services were soon disrupted, and by 4.30 p.m. none were moving. Several arterial roads and intersections were cut off by floodwater at about the same time. The situation worsened as more and more vehicles poured onto the roads. In many parts of the city, traffic came to a complete standstill. Altogether 200 kilometres of roads were submerged; some motorists drowned in their cars because short-circuited electrical systems would not allow them to open doors and windows. Thousands of scooters, motorcycles, cars and buses were abandoned on the waterlogged roads. At around 5 p.m. cellular networks failed. Most landlines stopped working too. Soon much of the city’s power supply was also cut off: parts of the city would remain without power for several days. Two million people, including many school children, were stranded, with no means of reaching home; 1,50,000 commuters were jammed into city’s major railway stations. Those without money had been knocked out as well. Road, rail and air services would remain cut off for two days. Over 500 people died: many were washed away in the floods; some were killed in a landslide. Two thousand residential buildings were partially or completely destroyed; more than ninety thousand shops, schools, health care centers and other buildings suffered damage (Ghosh, 60-62).

To add to this unprecedented calamity was the Tsunami waves that struck the Nagapattanam and Cuddalore coasts in Tamil Nadu, India in 2004 that left many a haunting memory with heavy death tolls. The tornado that struck in Delhi in 1978 was about 50 meters wide and covered a distance of five kms. in the space of two or three minutes which the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) termed as the first of its kind in India and a rare phenomenon. Ghosh describes ‘the freakish weather events of today in its extreme improbability: flash floods, hundred-year storms, persistent droughts, spells of unprecedented heat, sudden landslides, raging torrents and freakish tornados’ (Ghosh, 32). Elsewhere in the world, Hurricane Sandy, the storm that hit New York in 2012, was another highly improbable phenomenon. The word unprecedented has never figured so frequently in the description of weather events. The storm, according to Ghosh, reached a height that exceeded any in the region’s meteorological history (33). Hurricane Katrina in USA and Hudhud in Vizag in India left a heavy death toll and loss of property. These tragic events are still ed. It took a long time to rebuild these cities. Climate crisis is potentially reordering the global distribution of power, as well as wealth and health. Power sources are largely dependent on the corruption of fossil fuels. The world’s most powerful countries

are OPEC countries. Without the energy they derive from oil, as pointed out by Ghosh, their current forms of political and economic lives would not exist. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991 is an example of the politics of power and domination. The continents of Asia and Africa are other examples of internal war, where people had to undergo poverty and starvation deaths. It is because power politics holds the key to this problem. The struggle for power and supremacy left the nations in doldrums. Ghosh recalls: We live in a world that has been profoundly shaped by a dominating empire and its disparities. Differentials of power between and within nations are probably greater today than they have ever been (Ghosh, 196). The power distribution in the world lies at the core of climate crisis which is indeed one of the obstacles to mitigatory action. Food distribution systems are complex in the Western countries and small breakdowns could lead to cascading consequences that could culminate in complete collapse. Power supply is uninterrupted in the West and whereas in Asia, it is always a failure. Power failures are so rare in developed countries that if they occur they often cause great disruption whereas power breakdowns are a way of life in the many parts of the global South. Climatic impacts could lead to systemic stress among the poor countries whereas in the West, wealth and habits are based upon efficient infrastructures. Ghosh presents statistical data of global warming:

Acclimation to different conditions may itself produce certain sorts of resilience especially in regard to one of the most immediate effects of global warming, extreme heat. Thus, for instance, the European heat wave of 2013 resulted in 46,000 deaths, while the 2010 heat wave in Russia had an estimated death toll of 56,000. These figures are far in excess of the toll of the 2015 heat wave in South Asia and the Persian Gulf region which ed in index readings of as much as 72.8 degrees Celsius (Ghosh, 198).

However, it is not the middle classes and the political elites of the global south that would bear the brunt of suffering but rather the poor and the disempowered. This would favor the elite classes. Climate change recorded extreme weather events: a strong El Nino that caused havoc upon the planet. We have witnessed devastating floods and droughts, tornadoes and cyclones and finally

extraordinary temperatures around the globe. A major breakthrough came about when the Paris Agreement was signed by all the nations on 12th December, 2015. It is both binding and universal. It brings all nations into a common cause based on their historic current and future responsibilities. Ghosh finds that the “Paris Agreement” is stark. It does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation. He contends: “Man is spirit and will, but also nature” (Ghosh, 213). Eventually, human beings are solely responsible for climate crisis whether they are political, religious, or social. He points out that there is growing involvement of religious groups and leaders in the politics of climate change. All religious heads have voiced their concerns. They are spreading a sense of urgency among the public. Although Pope Francis is the most prominent example of calling out environmental destruction, some Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and other groups and organizations are also working on this global issue. Ghosh hopes that if religious groupings around the world can hands with popular movements, they may be able to provide the momentum needed for the world to move forward on drastically reducing emissions without sacrificing equity considerations (Ghosh, 215-16). To add, we have witnessed nuclear tests all over the world. They have resulted in climate change. Nuclear testing and climate change for fatal radiation and these radiations have affected the inhabitants very badly. Human inhabitation is unsafe in many parts of the world. One such great threat that humanity has ever faced was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. These two cities have remained symbols of destruction that still haunt our memories. The neighboring countries have expressed concerns and fears when North Korea conducted nuclear tests. Political climate eventually resulted in climate crisis. Rapid and expanding industrialization of Asia’s most populous nations has brought the climate crisis once again to the forefront. Political vulnerability is said to be the main obstacle for negotiations between two warring nations. One such effort was seen when President Donald Trump and his North Korean counterpart Kim signed non-proliferation treaty and denuclearization of zones. Mumbai is one of the few cities that have a nuclear plant, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay. To its north, at Tarapur, 94 kilometres from the city’s periphery, lies another nuclear facility. Ghosh writes that both these plants are located right upon the shoreline, as are many other nuclear installations around the world. Deforestation is the destruction of forests in order to make the land available for

human habitation. It takes place unabated in the world. It is estimated that 18 million acres of land are lost to deforestation every year. The earth loses 18.7 million acres of forests every year. Climate change is a result of deforestation. It is calculated that 15% of all greenhouse emissions come from deforestation. In the summer, India records abnormal temperatures every year with mercury touching more than 55 degrees celsius in some areas. Nuclear tests, acid rains and deforestation bring about climate crisis. Next to Indonesia, India is the worst hit country because of deforestation. Low-lying areas in India are subject to water logging during floods. This is a common occurrence all over the country, especially in the context of urbanization. Still, no proper mechanism has been framed to safeguard the interests of the flood victims. Politics comes to play in the relief and rescue operations dictated by decisions made by political parties and organizations. Water logging leads to the spread of communicable diseases. Water-borne diseases are a cause of concern. Evacuation of flood victims has become a major challenge. Water pollution, soil erosion and air pollution are the results of climate crisis. When nature is under threat, climate changes, and with it, crises develop; this is what is going on in the world. The accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere is rewriting the destiny of the earth. Ghosh’s conclusions are not all doom and gloom in relation to climatic destruction and what can arise from the ashes. It is a sign of hope and promise just at a time when the formal political structures of our time are incapable of confronting this crisis on their own. Questions of power and geo-political rivalries represent the negative side of the issue. Ghosh optimistically concludes with a firm conviction: “The struggle for action will no doubt be difficult and hard-fought, and no matter what it achieves, it is already too late to avoid some serious disruptions of the global climate. But, I would like to believe that out of the struggle will be born a generation that will be able to look upon the world with clearer eyes than those that preceded it; that they will be able to transcend the isolation in which humanity was entrapped in the time of its derangement; that they will rediscover their kinship with other beings, and that this vision, at once new and ancient, will find expression in a transformed and renewed art and literature” (Ghosh, 217). Every human being who has ever lived has played a part in making us the dominant species on this planet, and in this sense every human being, past and

present, has contributed to the present cycle of climate change. To quote Ghosh, “The climate events of this era, then, are distillations of all of human history; they express the entirety of our being over time” (Ghosh, 155).

Conclusion

I firmly hold that Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement is an outstanding work on global warming and environmental protection. It makes for an enriching reading. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He has examined the most contemporary problem facing the globe today. His narration, description and interpretation of events, incidents, and happenings are very relevant and applicable to our times. He voices his concerns like a writer rather than like a scientist underscoring the premise that literature, history, and politics hold the key to the very survival of all living species. Climate crisis is dangerously alive. Imperialism and capitalism are largely responsible for such chaos and crisis. Ghosh interrogates the politics of sincerity and commitment. When future generations look upon the Great Derangement, they will certainly blame the leaders and politicians of this period of history for their failure to address climate crisis. The crisis is reduced to individual preferences. “The Paris Agreement” has ushered in an era of hope and optimism. Ghosh strongly condemns the undue and unjust intervention of politics of exploitation and attrition and politics of domination against neighbour countries. His contributions on climate change are an important addition to the growing concerns related to the environment. The richness and diversity of themes are remarkable and this work has become an important study for scholars and critics to work on ecological consciousness. He calls for concerted efforts from all stakeholders across the globe in reducing global warming. As a writer, Ghosh has awakened readers to the glaring realities of eco-consciousness and impending dangers and the challenges of human survival which is vital for mankind. Only moral reckoning would ensure the safety of the globe. This is where his work assumes significance in the larger interest of the globe.

Works Cited

Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Gurgaon: Allen Lane, 2016. Print.

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org//

https//unfcc.int/news/finale-cop-2

www.thehindu.com, November 19, 2018.

Chapter 3

Australian Aborigines and Eco-spirituality

G. Srilatha

Australian aborigines are probably among the oldest races in the world. In 1788, the aboriginal population was around 3,00,000 when the first European settlers arrived in Sydney. There were 300 languages and specific dialects, coming from 600 language groups. Besides the language spoken every day, the Aborigines in some areas had special languages for use in sacred rituals, songs, and for talking to their close relatives. Ceremonial ritual dominated the life of the men. Introduction to beliefs, songs, and ritual began at an early age and instruction continued throughout a person’s life. Australian aborigines lived a hunter-gatherer life style. They never became agriculturalists or settled in one place. They moved from one place to the other for food, thus the environment shaped their economic life. They had intimate knowledge of the land. Their love for the land is expressed in oral songs. These oral songs show a spiritual as well as an economic relationship with the land: the land not only gave life, it was life. The focus of this paper is to explore perspectives of eco-spirituality in Australian aborigines and how they can inspire a shared ethic to care for the earth in the present time. Eco-spirituality advocates that an ecology-based religion which focuses on the nurturing and healing of the earth as necessary to modern society. Ecospirituality has sprung from a reaction to materialism and consumerism. The human self and environment are focused on as material resources in the modern perspective. Eco-spirituality is defined as a manifestation of the spiritual connection between human beings and the environment. Irrespective of the faiths of people, the central claim is that there is “a spiritual dimension to our

present ecological crisis.” Eco-spirituality is all about helping people experience ‘the holy’ in the natural world and to recognize their relationship as human beings to all creation. This research is focused on bringing awareness among academicians about ecospirituality and the importance of the self and environmental consciousness. It is the need of the hour to understand the common thread that binds all of us in our commitment to custodianship of the earth. Thomas Berry, one of the leading voices on “eco-spirituality” says “There is now a single issue before us: survival. Not merely physical survival, but survival in a world of fulfilment, survival in a living world, where the violets bloom in the springtime, where the stars shine down in all their mystery, survival in a world of meaning” (Spiritual Ecology, 17). According to Berry, there is a spiritual dimension to our present ecological crisis. Indigenous people have understood that our relationship to the earth is spiritual as well as physical. Indigenous people express their relationship to the earth through their rituals and prayers in their day to day life. A study on the life of Australian Aborigines would reveal their eco-spirituality. Winona La Duke, In the Time of the Sacred Places comments on sacred places:

Since the beginning of times, the Creator and Mother Earth have given our peoples places to learn the teachings that will allow us to continue and reaffirm our responsibilities and ways on the lands from which we have come. Indigenous peoples are place-based societies, and at the center of those places are the most sacred of our sites, where we reaffirm our relationships.

Everywhere there are Indigenous people, there are sacred sites, there are ways of knowing, and there are relationships. The people, the rivers, the mountains, the lakes, the animals, and the fish are all related. (Spiritual Ecology, 87)

Australian Aborigines live in communities. Caring and sharing are important parts of their life. At the heart of the Aboriginal spirituality is an emphasis on caring and sharing. While these values are important for the children, they can also remind adults of their own role which is to look after others in the

community. As part of a collective culture, the responsibility to care for others is central to one’s identity. The Aboriginal children are taught the way of ing on the spirit of the Aboriginal culture. They have a practice according to which the father of a family describes how his children learn about Aboriginal cultural values through his extended family network, by having his children spend time at their grandparents, with their nieces and nephews. Sharing cultural knowledge through traditional activities is an important way to “culture” down to the children. Aboriginal spirituality is instilled and reinforced at a very early age through a wide range of social relationships. Spirituality helps aboriginal children to identify the place they hold in the family, the local community and in the broader society. Spirituality can instil positive values in aboriginal and non-indigenous children, including caring for and sharing with others, and taking responsibility for their own actions. Spirituality provides a healing framework to help children build resilience and coping abilities. Engaging in spiritual or religious practices has been shown to have positive effects on individuals and families. Aboriginal spirituality is the holistic notion of the inter-connectedness of the elements of the earth and the universe, animate and inanimate, whereby people, plants and animals, are inter-related. How and why this inter-connectedness exists is expressed in sacred stories. The creation stories describe the shaping and developing of the world as people experience it through the activities of ancestors. These ancestors created order out of chaos, form out of formlessness, life out of lifelessness; they established ways in which all things should live so as to maintain order. They also laid down not only the foundations of life but also the role of people in maintaining the inter-connectedness. The law of interconnectedness ensures that each person has responsibilities for other people, water sources, landforms, the species, and other relationship with the ancestor spirits. Grieves defines spirituality as:

Spirituality is a feeling with a base in connectedness to the past, ancestors, and the values that they represent, for example, respect for elders, a moral/ethical path. It is about being in an Aboriginal cultural space, experiencing community and connectedness with land and nature, including proper nutrition and shelter,

feeling good about oneself, proud of being an Aboriginal person. It is a state of being that includes knowledge, calmness, acceptance and tolerance, balance and focus, inner strength, cleansing and inner peace, feeling whole, an understanding of cultural roots and deep well-being (Grieves 2006 a: 52).

When aboriginal people say they have a spiritual connection to the land, sea, water, the species and plant life, their connection exists through the law developed at the time of creation. Thus, each person or plant or place is linked to the spirit of its creation. The Aborigines consider their land as sacred, but today they have made a map and cut it up into six states. In aboriginal communities, where traditional cultural practices continue to thrive, the spiritual connection to the Dreaming is as relevant to the daily life of aboriginal people today as it was to their ancestors. The holistic nature of aboriginal life applies to aboriginal communities all around Australia. Yet the Dreaming, as a religion grounded in the land itself, is subject to the local rules of a particular country. Aboriginal spirituality is a highly abstract and experiential notion, and the Dreaming is impossible to relay in words. For these reasons, spirituality is explored in of how it is ed on to children to help them cope with life’s challenges, and to keep the spirit of aboriginal culture alive for future generations. Aboriginal poets and artists represent their Dreaming in the form of art. Archie Weller, a poet and playwright from Perth, Australia its his love for the land as:

I’m interested in relationships, not just human relationships – but also relationships to do with land. Love for the land, that’s a recurrent theme all the way through. Another theme is being a loner because there’s quite a few lonely people out there – you can go to parties anywhere in the world and you finish up meeting the old fella as in the pub with their middy and they sit on that middy all day and there they are lonely people. (Aboriginal Voices, 35)

Peter Skipper, an artist, paints the living water, sand hills, the soaked water, the

caves in the hill, and all the trees. He says: “I became a man in the desert. My mother and father showed me everything: they showed me snake and little goanna, every animal there in the desert. My mother and father taught me everything” (44). The artist, thorough acquaintance with the land and desert, is evident from his works.

I paint every morning and every afternoon. I paint about the stories from early days, from what happened walking around with the early-days people. My story comes from the desert not from the station. I paint from my mother and father and grandfather and grandmother, in the desert always. I don’t paint from the station, no, that’s the way I draw. I draw my country. (Aboriginal Voices, 48)

Geoffrey Gordon Lindsay is an artist and his images have a distinct, graphic quality, drawing both from traditional stories and incorporating traditional beliefs. The poet’s eco-spiritual element is shown through art. According to the artist:

There’s no quality in European culture, there’s no peace within life itself, it’s a struggle. And once you get up there, there is nowhere else to go. I can’t see European culture as being something worth following. I still see the days when I was a kid, having a swim in the river, eating, fishing and sleeping and enjoying life, experiencing nature around me. My culture has a deeper feeling than Christianity. (Aboriginal Voices 81)

Teaching traditional language is important for imparting knowledge about aboriginal culture, even if the children don’t recognize the significance of such knowledge at the time. The children listened carefully to their Elder, because of the respect they had developed as younger children. Aborigine experiences say that engaging in spiritual practices is associated with improved physical and mental health. Some of the physical benefits from engaging in spiritual practices are improvement in the immune system function, lower blood pressure and lower rates of heart disease, stroke and kidney failure. Mental health benefits

include a greater sense of responsibility, increased self-control and greater tolerance. Trevor Nickolis writes:

My paintings are my Dreaming, my personal view of Dreaming. Looking at my paintings is like looking at my dreams. I relate very strongly to trees and birds. In a lot of my paintings there are birds – because birds are the only thing we hear in this Machine time. Aboriginal society is based on its relationship with nature, and the white man has made a mockery of that. The Dreamtime was a very structured society based on the Laws of nature. Sure, there was good and bad – like there is in every society – but to me it seemed like a more balanced, respectful, dignified society than the one we have now. (Aboriginal Voices, 104)

While the creation stories connect the elements of the earth, the weather patterns, the species, plant life, land forms and people, they also show the sacred law and the penalties for not following that law. The aboriginal writers are inspired by spirituality. The poems reflect the deep feeling of the land. Bill Neidjie writes in his poetry:

I belong to this earth. Soon my bones become earth….all the same. My spirit has gone back to my country….my mother. Now my children got to hang onto this story…. I hang onto this story all my life. My children can’t lose it. This law,

This country, This people, All the same…. Gagadju (Neidji 2002: 13).

For aboriginal families, spirituality is a key cultural characteristic that embodies the inter-connectedness of life’s dimensions. The sacred connection to the Dreaming provides guidance for families and communities in raising children and helps to instil the shared values of inter-dependence, group cohesion and community loyalty. These qualities help to provide a safe environment for raising children and help both adults and children to understand the importance of caring for and protecting one another. The aboriginal poem Who are We? by Richard G. Kennedy is about the loss of the aborigine’s identity, because when the white settlers came they tore apart their world.

Where in the world do we feel free, When born into life as an Aborigine? Our lives changed forever when the white man came. An idyllic lifestyle never to be the same.

Oneness with nature since the beginning of time. Now reduced to poverty, no identity, and crime. They conquered our paradise and tore it apart. Now our mother is bleeding minus her heart.

Spirituality is considered to be the essence of aboriginal life. Aboriginal spirituality is strongly influenced by animistic beliefs where all of nature and the environment is imbued with spiritual forces. They have a holistic world view. The concept of spirituality pervades everything; it is ever-present in the physical and material world. All spiritual practices teach about the power of intention, which inevitably leads to action. Spiritual traditions also teach that to be healthy we must live a harmonious life. Harmony within creates harmony without. Kenneth Jacob from Wellesley Islands writes:

Our law is not like whitefly’s law. We do not carry it around in a book. It is the sea. That is why things happen when you do the wrong thing. That sea, it knows. Rainbow knows as well. He is still there. His spirit is still watching today for law breakers. That is why we have to look after that sea and make sure we do the right thing. (Grieves 2006a: 38)

Thus, this paper illustrates how the Australian Aborigines represented their culture in the form of art and literature. The study portrays the eco-spiritual aspects of the Aborigines. In the present times, the sacred dimension of creation and the sacred rituals are neglected. We need to connect the dimensions of the sacred and the soul. It is essential for us to work together to understand the power of our divine nature. When we live a spiritual life, we restore harmony, thereby reducing the violence and destruction taking place in our society. It is our duty to love the earth for a safe life. It is only by awareness of the sacred within creation, and its relationship to our own sacred nature, that we can begin to redeem the primal imbalance that lies at the root of our present predicament. To conclude, scholars around the globe are working on ways to keep everything balanced. In all spiritual traditions they reflect that whatever manifests in the physical world starts in the invisible realms of the spirit. We expect change to happen magically. But the real change must come from within. We need to ensure spiritual practices in our life. We are part of nature and we must that we are connected to all of life on this earth. From the ecospiritual perspective, God, Spirit or the Divine is not just the source of creation,

it is very much also a part of creation. Eco-spiritual perspectives can be found in all the world’s religious traditions. Eco-spirituality helps us to gain greater insight into the wonder of reality. Aboriginal people rarely spoke or referred to Dreaming or spirituality. Instead, they spoke about culture, values, beliefs, and traditions inter-changeably to describe how a sense of spirituality is ed down to their children. Thus, many of the writings, art and songs of Aborigines exhibit eco-spirituality.

Works Cited

Broome, Richard. Aboriginal Australians: Black Responses to White Dominance 1788-1994.

Allen & Unwin Ltd, Australia, 1982. Print. Edwards, W.H. Recovering Spirit: Exploring Aboriginal Spirituality. Charles Strong. Memorial Trust, University of South Australia. 2002. Print.

Grieves, V. “Windschuttle’s Fabrication of History: A View from the Other Side” Labour. History Journal at http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/lab/85/grieves.html.

Grieves, V. 2006a, Indigenous Wellbeing: A Framework for Governments’ Cultural Heritage. Activities, NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, Sydney.

Kennedy G. Richard Who Are We? “Where in world do we feel free:” Creative Spirits, 2000; Koori Mail, 26 January no. 4932011; (25). Print.

www.CreativeSpirits.info

Neidji, B. Story About Feeling. Magabala Books. Marlestron, SA: Broome. 1989. Print.

Gagudju Man. Marleston, SA: J B Books.

Thompson, Liz. Aboriginal Voices: Contemporary Aboriginal Artists, Writers and Performers. Simon & Schuster, Australia, 1990. Print.

Vaughan-Lee and Llewellyn. Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, The Golden Sufi Center, 2013.

Chapter 4

Eco-consciousness in Mahasweta Devi’s Short Fiction

Palakurthy Dinakar

‘Eco-consciousness’ is the catch phrase in recent times in literature and other allied areas. People are paying more attention to environmental issues due to the threat to the environment and the ecosystem. The tag ‘eco’ is very much associated with every discipline. Urbanization and modernity are two threatening issues for the destruction of the eco-system. Ruthless capitalists are manipulating the eco-system for their own selfish needs and promoting a thoughtless exploitation of nature and its resources. This indiscriminate destruction throws a challenge to the environment which results in an environmental apocalypse. The destruction of nature works as a catalyst for a new genre in literature, ‘ecoconsciousness,’ an essential part of ‘eco-criticism.’ It tries to establish a bond between literature and the environment. It also encourages creative writers and critics to look at literature through a green lens. So, literature goes green and demands a critical look at nature and the environment and concentrate on the exploitation of natural resources by the greedy in the name of development that results in catastrophic ecological loss. The concept of ‘eco-criticism’ was proposed by Cheryll Glotfelty, USA. He defined eco-criticism as “the study of the relationship between environment and literature” (The Eco-criticism Reader 1996: xxi). He considered the area as an earth-centered approach. William Rueckert explains it as an “application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature.” (1978). It is also considered as a branch of criticism or an umbrella term which ramifies into ‘ecoconsciousness,’ ‘green studies,’ ‘eco-feminism,’ ‘deep-ecology,’ ‘green writings’ etc. Their prime concern is to concentrate on the genuine relation between man and nature. It tries to represent nature in literature. Eco-criticism gives ample

importance to nature rather than to the theme or to characters. It also throws light on the importance and preservation of natural resources and is critical of the harm being done to ecology by human beings in the name of development and modernity. It has emerged out of the pressing need to heighten man’s awareness to stop the continuous pillage of ecological sanctity and sustainability.

Eco-criticism is unique amongst contemporary literary and cultural theories because of its close relationship with the science of ecology. Eco-critics may not be qualified to contribute to debates about problems in ecology, but they must nevertheless transgress disciplinary boundaries and develop their own ‘ecological literacy’ as far as possible. (Garrard 5)

The study of literature from the point of ecology and environment emerged in the late 19th century and during 1960s it got momentum. Indian literature, irrespective of the language, gives enough importance to writing about nature, right from the classical times, as Indians were worshippers of environment, flora and fauna. Most gods in the Hindu mythology are represented either by a bird or a beast. “Around the world too there are many writers – to cite a few examples from India: in Bengali, there is the work of Adwaita Mallabarman and Mahasweta Devi; in Kannada, Sivarama Karanth; in Oriya, Gopinath Mohanty; in Marathi, Vishwas Patil” (Ghosh). Mahasweta Devi (1926-2016), through her writings could evoke ecoconsciousness among her readers. She was a political activist, diplomat and a popular fiction writer. Her family background exposed her to a rich amalgamation of literature and fine arts, which sensitized her to the plights of the less fortunate in the society. Both her parents were social activists working for the betterment of the poor and the downtrodden. The women in her family devoted a great part of their time to promote literacy among the poor. Her grandparents made it a point to see that their grandchildren did not wear any expensive clothes but only what the poorest of the poor in the village wore. “If one were to sum up in a word, the recurring of Mahasweta Devi’s works and the motive force of her life, it invariably would be: Fight Against Exploitation.” (Arya 80)

Mahasweta believed that every writer should have a social conscience and should be answerable to society and nature. Throughout her life, she penned extensively on the liberation of the down-trodden and raised her voice in defense of the environment and tribal rights. The present paper tries to analyze her stories - Arjun, Chotti Munda and His Arrow, The Hunt and Madhu: A Fairy Tale from the view point of eco-criticism. The story Arjun is about deforestation and the extreme weather conditions caused by the undue intervention of man in destabilizing the harmony and balance of nature. The tribes of Purulia go to jail many a times for cutting down the jungle for (planting) the paddy crop of the landlords. Tribes are sent to jail and the landlords collect the profits from the felled trees. The tribes do not ever question their predicament as they feel that it is their duty to serve their master. If you were born in the Shabar tribe of Purulia, you had to cut down the trees. And you had to go to jail. It could be no other way. If one Ketu was in jail, and something needed to be done, Haldar could always find another Ketu. Nothing lost – except that, the woman in the house had to go looking for work. (179) Bishal Mahato, the landlord orders Ketu, the shaber to cut down the Arjun tree, which is considered a manifestation of the divine by the local people. So, Ketu’s mind goes blank and he is not ready to cut it down as it is the only surviving relic of the Bandihi jungles from the Zamindari era. There is one more reason for Ketu, as he is not interested to go to jail again. The tribes have a special liking for the Arjun tree and they go around it beating their dhol-dhamsas during festivals and weddings. After a certain wish had been granted, the tribes made the ritual sacrifice of their hair and buried it under the tree for good luck. After much contemplation, Ketu with his friends decides to involve all the tribes including Santhal, Khedia, Shohish, and Bhumji in the protection of the tree. All gather under the Arjun tree and recollect their experiences with it. They strongly believe that their lives and fate were inextricably linked to it. They used to offer prayers before going on hunting expeditions believing that the Arjun tree would protect them from all kinds of dangers. Finally, they sketch a plan and decide to execute it before Bishal Mahato’s arrival from the town. On his arrival, Bishal hears the sound of the dhol-dhamsa-damak, a huge crowd gathers around the Arjun tree and its trunk is covered with aakondo garlands. He was informed that Diga, a tribe had a dream in which Bishal had instructed and gave some money to him in order to build a concrete base around the trunk. So, they follow

Bishal’s orders and consider the Arjun tree as gram devata, village goddess. All the tribes gather around the tree with their offerings and organize a mela. Diga had a dream, it seems. You paid him money in the dream and instructed him to build a concrete base around the trunk. People from all the tribes – Santhal, Khedia, Shohish, Bhumij – have now gathered to make their offerings. (187) The story explains the inseparable bond between the tribes and environment. It also explains the resistance by the tribes in the form of a plan to save the tree, which they consider as the manifestation of God. Through this story, Mahasweta could develop eco-consciousness among the readers and focus on the relation between the tribes and the eco-system. The tribes of Purulia could protect the Arjun tree as they could not lose their faith in it. Chotti Munda and His Arrow is another story which evokes eco-consciousness among the readers. The protagonist, the Munda tribes are selfless and ecoconscious living in harmony with nature and maintaining ecological balance. They consider themselves as children of the forest. They try to protect their mother. When the river Chotti dries up, they believe that they are going to die of thirst and finally of hunger. Chotti Munda advises the tribes to dig the river up and when they did so, the river sprang up with water and they were very happy. Unlike the modern man, they try to protect the eco-system. They don’t want to contaminate the water and they use the river water judiciously. When the water springs from the river, Munda says, “Don’t dirty this water with dirty clothes or baths, said Chotti. Precious water.” (101) A major problem for the tribes is ‘displacement,’ which is a great threat to forest ecology. When they are displaced due to any reason, they are supposed to cut down the forest but at the same time, they try to maintain the ecological balance. They try to plant hundreds of plants in the vicinity. It shows their ecoconsciousness. They hunt birds and animals for their livelihood unlike the modern man who kills them for sport. They have their own ethics even in hunting. They don’t hunt female birds and animals. The Hunt narrates the relentless efforts of tribes to save their lives and to stop the threat of ecological devastation. Mary Oraon, the tribal girl smells the danger and puts an end not only to her own oppression but also the threat to her entire community from the landlord. The story is set in a place called Albeit

Kuruda, a Sal growing region and a coal mining area. The contractors and developers try to manipulate the resources of Kuruda’s forest mercilessly for their selfish needs. The protagonist, Mary Oraon, works in the estate of Prasadji at the Dixon Bungalow. Everything goes smoothly until the arrival of Tehsildar Singh, a contractor of timber in the village Kuruda. He was invited by Prasadji’s son Banwari Lal, for negotiating a deal regarding the cutting and selling of the Sal trees on Prasad’s estate. The Tehsildar is greedy not only for timber but also for Mary, who refuses his lustful proposals and rebuffs his advances without much success. On the day of the annual hunting festival, Jani Parab, she resorts to violence in order to put an end to the matter by hunting down the Tahsildar. In the annual hunting festival, there is a theme of gender reversal, which explains that men will hunt for the first thirteen years and then the women will get their turn. It was the women’s chance to hunt during the hunting festival which provided a wonderful opportunity for Mary to translate her idea to become the hunter and hunt down the Tahsildar. It was Jani Parab, the women’s hunting festival day. She resurrected the real meaning of the annual hunting festival day by dealing out justice for a crime committed against the entire tribal society. (Imaginary Maps xviii) Mary strongly believes that the killing of the Tahsildar is the only solution to two problems - one is saving her modesty and another one is saving the Sal trees from his greedy desire. She doesn’t want to become a prey and avenges her oppressive plight by killing her assailant. She s the women folk in the celebrations of the hunting festival after killing her enemy. She enjoys the celebrations and finally leaves the village for a better life with Jalim, her prospective mate. She was like any other aboriginal who felt that the giant Sal trees provide food and cultural stability to the Oraon community. But, the contractors like the Tahsildar with one stroke, try to destroy the organic growth, which will certainly turn the fertile land into a barren one, leading to an environmental devastation. The aboriginal’s life is intrinsically bound to the forest. The cunning acts of ‘internal colonizers’ would destroy their environment that results in catastrophic ecological loss. The story is about the gradual and systemic annihilation of aboriginals and their way of life. It tries to describe the deforestation and the environmental disaster. The modernization even destroys age-old tribal traditions that are closely bound

with the land. Mahasweta strongly argues that resistance to this exploitation is very essential not only to conserve the environment but also the tribal culture. She chooses the protagonist Mary as a symbol of resistance and as a savior not only of the environment but also of the entire Oraon community. Big money is involved in the furniture that you see in Delhi or Hyderabad, or Calcutta. The local political worthies, local police, local istration is bribed. The railways cooperate by carrying this illegally felled timber. Illegal sawmills come up everywhere. There are bosses in the cities felling the sandalwood in Karnataka. All over the world governments protecting the environment is nonsense. (Imaginary Maps, p xxix) The forests and their self-sustaining economy signify the tribal life and its cultural continuity. The misguided notion of national “development” ravages the pristine land, robs it of all its beauty, thus endangering the ecological balance of the region and depriving the local inhabitants of their means of livelihood (Gupta 33). The tribes in India struggle to protect the virginity of forests from the capitalists and smugglers. They maintain harmony with nature by getting their sustenance from forest resources and preserving the immaculacy of the forest. They carry a unique environmental consciousness which is yoked with the culture. Madhu: A Fairy Tale, is a narrative of environmental degradation and outright destruction of the forest eco-system. It predicts an imminent catastrophe leading to the gradual extinction of Korjus, a kind of tribal community. The story portrays the gloomy effects of development-sponsored environmental collapse on a forest-based community of peoples and their silent protest. The Korjus are forest-dwellers whose survival was largely dependent on the forest resources. They respect nature and the ecosystem and their geo-centric perception of life was so genuine and strong “that if you lift the eyelids of a dead Korju, you will find the imprint of the old saga forest on his or her eyeballs” (98). Their life was disturbed by the so- called development and deforestation. Korjus, who were food gatherers, became a condemned people…. Their brains ceased to function when the forest died (98). The whole of the Korju community is on the verge of extinction as a result of their “in-built resistance against progress” (100). Korjus, hitherto sustained by the forests, first became homeless and then their very existence was devastated. Physically alive, they felt they simply did not exist. They were like drifting, lost kites with their strings cut off (102).

Mahasweta narrates beautifully how the so-called uncivilized eco-centric ways of living of the tribes, could in truth be understood more about how their identity and culture are integrally related to their symbiotic relationship with nature. Her stories are characterized by a mode of resistance on the part of the exploited against the exploiters. But, in the present story there is “an in-built resistance” (100), “a silent satyagraha” (101) against the exploiters who try to devastate their life. Mahasweta criticizes modern civilization for misunderstanding the feelings of the tribes, the environment and their co-existence. Instead, they use Madhu, a Korju, as a specimen for conducting experiments “research on nutrition balance in order to unravel the mystery of death due to chronic hunger” (104). Through the episode of the unnatural transformation of Madhu from a man into a superhuman creature, Mahasweta criticizes the imperialists, neo-colonizers and the bureaucrats. The system’s attempt to change the life-style of a forest-based community ultimately results in the existential catastrophe of the entire city. Madhu was thrown into this position because of the destruction of the forests. The writer blatantly attacks the environmental collapse that leads men like Madhu either to die in utter desolation or to become a specimen to experiment within a scientific laboratory. “His eye balls mirrored a tall saga tree resplendent with leaves and blossoms. Madhu laughed like a child. Freed” (108) are the shocking and closing words at the end of the story. Reading and writing the body of literature through ‘eco-critical’ or ‘green lens’ shows the responsibility of the people who are associated with literature. It not only magnifies the damage that is being done to ecology and the environment but also creates an awareness among people. It is evident that regional literature and Indian writing in English focus more on eco-critical literature and the writers possess greater eco-consciousness. Mahasweta Devi, through her short stories Arjun, The Hunt, Chotti Munda and His Arrow and Madhu: A Fairy Tale, tries to portray an eco-dystopia where development-sponsored environmental collapse led a forest-based community of tribal people to die in utter desolation. They convey a very serious message to human civilization as a whole through the apocalyptic endings and by warning the entire human society. Arjun is about Shabars, a tribe of Purulia district that saves the Arjun tree, which they consider as the manifestation of the divine, against the will of the landlord. The Hunt is about the inter-dependence of environment and human beings. It also narrates how the oppressed will react to indiscriminate exploitation by the capitalists. Mahaswetha warns the human society of the relentless deforestation through the

apocalyptic ending in the story Madhu: A Fairy Tale. Chotti Munda and His Arrow explains the tribe’s ethics in hunting and their steps to maintain ecological balance.

Works Cited

Arya, Shachi. Tribal Activism: Voices of Protest (With special reference to the works of Mahasweta Devi). Jaipur and New Delhi: Rawat Publications, 1998. Print.

Devi, Mahasweta. Imaginary Maps: Three Stories by Mahasweta Devi, translated and introduced by Gayatri Spivak. London & New York: Routledge, 1995. Print.

“Arjun.” Trans. Mridula Nath Chakraborthy. The Wordsmiths. Ed. Meenakshi Sharma. New Delhi, Katha. 1996. Print.

“Madhu: A Fairy Tale.” The Politics of Literary Theory and Representation: Writings on Activism and Aesthetics. ed. Pankaj K. Singh. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2003. Print.

“Chotti Munda and His Arrow.” Trans. Gayathri Chakravorty Spivak. New York: Blackwell Pub. 2003. Print.

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Chapter 5

Eco-critical Perspectives in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Neelima Choudaraju & Leela Priyadarsini Chirumamilla

In the current age, ecological literature evokes a serious argument about environment, humans, and their relationship with one another before and after colonization. Contemporary writers concentrate on humans’ expression, behaviour, and their influences on the environment. Their immediate concern is how literature addresses some burning issues. This is the feature of ecological writing in multi-cultural literature that merges society and environment and it discusses the two concepts. Humans, non-humans, and the land are all intrinsic parts of nature and environment. With anthropocentric nature, post-colonialism studies human behaviour towards non-humans as an important subject. It replies to the cultural and ideological effects of colonialism. This rejoices the historicity of events, art, music and people. It condemns slavery, economic and physical exploitation of natives and their resources. It creates space for the marginalized where cultural, linguistic and identity discourses are formed. Theoretically, environmental studies never emphasized post-colonialism but it made us understand how human culture is shaped by imperial power. None can deny the fact that imperialism impacts people and places to a great extent. The environment begins to be operated by the imperial power. So, any intrusion in of power negates the integrity of culture and the environment. If

environment is neglected while studying human-focussed culture, then the whole earth community will be imprecise. Environment and human culture cannot exist in isolation; they are a knotty part of each other, and hence, we believe, they should be studied in relation to each other. In this study, multi-cultural literature in relation to eco-criticism and postcolonialism is scrutinised. Multi-cultural literature is a vast field and covers concerns of cultural and environmental transition in society and the different approaches to those concerns. To study multi-cultural literature from an ecocritical post-colonial lens is advantageous in a way that multi-cultural literature elicits responses and approaches which challenge the trope. Eco-critical postcolonial study in multi-cultural literature develops an analysis that humans belong to the environment. To understand this relationship, we need to see the environment as a culture. For example, some essential eco-critical post-colonial representation and environmental ethics are expressed in the multi-cultural literatures discussed in Things Fall Apart.

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: The Argumentative African Ecology:

To spread the present-day idea of amalgamating post-colonialism and ecocriticism together and also with the praxis to develop new perspectives on the subject, we begin with the question: how does human culture depend on the physical environment, which includes animals, humans, non-humans, and land? How does the environment shape human culture, and how do humans shape the environment; do they affect each other marginally or strongly? The purpose of this research is not to provide an analysis of the post-colonial and multi-cultural texts, but to sharpen awareness, add new perspectives, and stimulate curiosity through a reading of a diverse range of literary and critical works. The African eco-system is famous for its thick vegetation and vast green sceneries. It attracts foreigners to explore its captivating culture of flora and fauna. The landscape is a projecting part of the African native culture, echoing its indigenous history and pointing to humans in their unity with the land. Precolonial and post-colonial changes brought abundant changes to the environment. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is one of the outstanding resources which describes the Nigerian environment with a blend of honorific literary sketches of the earth, bonding between the people of Igbo and African wilderness. Achebe highlights the subjective relation between the people of Igbo and the land. This paper highlights the relationship between indigenous people and the environment in the African cultural context. We are interested in understanding how their relationship changes with land with the change in the environment because of the missionaries’ expansion in Umuofia. We explore the role of literary imagination in the process of decolonizing the post-colonial ecology. Things are falling apart in the novel, so, what does the novel offer from a post-colonial environmental perspective? Post-colonialism is aware of the environmental changes or degradation, but it is acutely anthropocentric and prioritizes humans’ interests over the other, and the other is the environment in this case. The environment, in Things Fall Apart has genealogical (a communal ancestry) and phenomenological (connection between body and place) specificity with geographical expansion. This suggests a mutual intimacy between the Igbo

community and nature before the arrival of the missionaries in the novel. Rinda West, through his scholarly work, Out of Shadow Eco-psychology, Story, and Encounters with the Land, offers an in-depth understanding of the pre-colonial Igbo culture in contrast to the ambitious Western civilization. There were rituals and ceremonies practiced by Igbos to honour vegetation, land, and the indigenous agrarian culture.

Pre-colonial land of Umuofia: Wild forest and rituals:

Achebe’s details of the Igbo environment allow non-native readers to understand indigenous life and culture. The contrast between the two cultures, Igbo community and missionaries, is projected clearly. When a community harmonizes with nature and follows the natural cycle for their living, the environment becomes simple and peaceful. She argues that the rituals in the novel play crucial roles in the Igbo culture. She says, “Rituals are linked with the land. Like farmers everywhere, Umuofians study nature closely. Many of their rituals are directed at ensuring the land’s fertility” (57). It suggests a vital interdependence and inter-connectedness of the people of Igbo not just with their surroundings but also with the outer, non-being world. She writes, “This earthcentred religion helps for the Umuofians’ low impact agriculture” (58). West quotes Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel prize winner, when he said, “Where a society lives in close inter-relation with nature, regulates its existence by natural phenomenon within the observable process of continuity --ebb and tide-- the highest moral order is seen as that which guarantees the parallel continuity of species” (59). Postcolonial eco-criticism gives one the room to understand native culture and their practices to safeguard the natural and ancestral heritage. The analogy of the earth as a mother figure is a vital component of post-colonial eco-critical theory. Achebe points towards the psychology behind the bond between a man and the earth, when one of the characters, Uchendu, explains why a dead woman is buried with her own kinsman and not her husband’s. It is a beatific vision of the land which is divine and personal to the Igbo community, but unique and foreign to non-native communities. This vision aided non-native readers to understand the world of the native people. This aesthetic vision is denied when the environment is altered to “civilize” people. The people of Umuofia have a very strong sense of belonging to nature. They practise environmental payback as their faith implying that if one goes against the divine law of the land, then that individual and the entire fraternity will face a penalty. The images of wild forests, the caves, and crop fields are not just background descriptions, but they are portrayed as strong characters, affecting the life of the

villagers. The wild forest represents death, punishment, and a powerful force of nature which follows the execution of sinners in the village. Missionaries’ intrusion into the community is an unpleasant experience for the villagers. People of the village found it loathsome when the missionaries were looking for a piece of land to construct an institution of their faith. Thus, full of exasperation, the people of Umuofia decided to offer them the wild forest. The scene below is Hades for people of Umuofia:

“I am an Evil Forest. I kill a man on the day that his life is sweetest to him.” “That is true,” replied Uzowulu. “Go to your in-laws with a pot of wine and beg your wife to return to you. It is not bravery when a man fights with woman.” He turned to Odukwe, and allowed a brief pause. “Odukwe’s body, I greet you,” he said. “My hand is on the ground,” replied Okonkwo. “Do you know me?” “No man can know you,” replied Odukwe. “I am Evil Forest. I am Dry-meat-that-fill-the-mouth. I am fire-that-burns without-faggots. If your in-law brings wine to you, let your sister go with him. I salute you” (93).

The Igbo community is submitted to space for justice. Their relationship to land is similar to that of the Lord and the followers. The dialogue also connotes that humans are mere entities of nature and can be easily crushed by nature’s calamities if they do not pay attention to their actions. It is the place where dead bodies are buried and where there are rituals and spiritual beliefs involving people and places. The narrative suggests that nature always has an upper hand commanding human and reminds humans of their inability to control nature for their benefits. The

post-colonial ecology of the indigenous linked with colonial records questions the typical human mindset on nature as the “other.” Achebe foregrounds an ethical bond between a man and the land/earth: a bond which changes a sojourner into a dweller. Besides the role of divine justice, Achebe also presents economic status based on a portion of land and crops. The yam is an important crop, which carries a high status in Igbo culture. Okonkwo and Obierika gain their social status in the community because they produce many yams. The yam symbolizes masculinity. It is difficult to grow it and it involves intensive labour. Okonkwo is a farmer and is physically strong and the major portion of the yam cultivation is done by him along with the help of his wives and son. The novel describes the growing of yams as an industrious task and the indigenous agricultural process to grow yams is hefty. The growth of yams depends on the first rain. Once the crop is harvested, the Igbo community celebrates the yam festival in Umuofia to give thanks to the earth goddess, Ani. Achebe provides details of agriculture, climate, and condition of the land, rain, and humans to emphasize produce, on which the prosperity of the Igbo depends. Such collaboration of humans and non-humans indicates that the environment is a huge abstract body composed of everything under the sun. Land and the wild forest are spaces which pacify humans’ emotion and fill the spiritual and personal crisis in the lives of the Igbo. It is an ambiguous space which expresses itself as an ontological proof, as one can think of sacred wilderness as necessity, if one believes of its existence. By presenting the environment through a myth, Achebe draws attention to the specific characters and the individual role of the animate and inanimate to show how significant each one of them is to maintain the equilibrium in nature. Achebe presents a promising portrayal of the Igbo people and their dependence and emotional proximity to land, rain, sky, and animals. Achebe depicts culture with its individuality and shows sincerity towards the preservation of culture. According to the Igbo belief, animals are not the “other,” but they are harbingers of omens; according to ornithological studies, birds and animals are messengers of climatic changes. Villagers lost their yams because of the unive weather, affecting their economy, their livelihood. They are dependent on natural external conditions. Human dependence on nature models them to be submissive and respectful of the environment composed of all human and non-human species. In addition, animals and birds have the extraordinary potential to communicate with the inanimate natural world, which is beyond man’s capacity and imagination. In Things Fall Apart, Nwoye’s story seems like a myth, but

studies on animals and birds cannot deny the fact that vultures are the guardians of the eco-system. The culture and beliefs of Igbo are about relationships between the physical and non-physical and the animate and the inanimate. This metaphysics is significant in the culture to acknowledge the rights and wrongs upon which their social and religious system is based. Jude Chudi Okpala in his article, “Igbo Metaphysics in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart” examines the Igbo metaphysics in the narrative imaginations. Okpala sees “Igbo metaphysics as a thought system which recognizes the reality and independent existence of non-physical beings and their interaction with physical beings in their material world” (560). Achebe’s images of the physical and the non-physical are symbolic. There are meanings on metaphysical levels which is a feature of post-colonial texts linked to indigenous lives. Things Fall Apart as a post-colonial text deviates from the Western epistemic which relies upon this idea that the existence of human beings is dependent upon only one non-physical being, God. Things Fall Apart celebrates the non-physical as a powerful force. In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, William Cronon argues that mainstream environmental study is inclusive by nature. It understands the plight of nature and the poor who are also victims of environmental destruction. The meaningful involvement of the people of the Igbo community in the social justice of the wild forest is an implication of the same idea which Cronon emphasizes that people and all non-human species are integral part of “what should be understood as an environment” (301). In contrast, colonial environment destroys the sense of reasoning a native culture offered to the world.

Missionaries and environment:

Achebe, in his post-colonial work, portrays the pre-colonial harmonized environment of Igbo and their bonding with the natural world, but the environment’s sanctity is put into great peril when the missionaries invade. Alison Searle, in “The Role of Missions in Things Fall Apart and Nervous Condition” proposes that missionaries, who are introduced in the latter parts of the novel, are central to the narrative. Although the purpose of the theological mission is biblical in most of post-colonial texts, it becomes a power relationship applied on indigenous culture. Searle suggests that the Christian missionary expansion with its eschatological reconfiguration, “tends to construct the central issues in of self-agency, politics, subjugation, and power, failing to effectively incorporate the spiritual, affective, and transcendental dimensions of the missionary endeavour” (50). Okonkwo’s own son Nwoye converted to Christianity. Achebe’s depiction of the missionaries’ role in the Igbo community is psychological. Moreover, their relationship with Igbo land is objective. For missionaries, the land is a resource, which they want to use to build their dwellings and institutions. They cannot understand the behaviour and non-verbal language of the land and the climate of Umuofia, the way the natives do. On the other hand, a native diagnoses the climatic conditions of the place he/she belongs to. Climate plays a significant role in determining the economic status and class among the Igbo people, as dominant culture changes the value system. Thus, they are more subjective towards the physical environment around them.

Huggan and Tiffin in Post-colonial Eco-criticism:

Literature, animals, and the environment, display a major concern in ecological history, which post-colonialism overlooks. They argued that there is a huge and violent exploitation of indigenous land in the name of development and civilization and ignoring the ancestral values of the community, which is an execution of cultural imperialism. Besides the problem of exploitation, the Europeans are purposefully disregarding the value system for their own political and economic benefits. They refer to this ideology as ecological imperialism, a phrase coined by the environmental historian Alfred Crosby. Quoting Gustava Estava’s point of view, he argues that development and progress are better understood as “forms of colonizing in which poor countries of the world are simultaneously seen as socially and politically ‘backward,’ and in which the positive meaning of the world ‘“development”’ profoundly rooted after [at least] two countries of its social construction -- is a reminder of what are not” (30). The irregularity of the landscape is an example of indigenous classical beauty and ethics; “development” or “civilization” disrupts the natural orders and the way of life of local people. The attempt to replace the ethnicity of the environment is a sacrilegious action in respect to the pre-independent land and culture. Achebe does emphasize that not all missionaries are conservative authoritarians. Mr. Brown is a white missionary who shares his religious thoughts and stays most of the time with his people. He builds his trust with the people of Igbo and shares empathy, which is one of the fundamental grounds in both the cultures. Searle points out that these two different cultures are trying hard to understand each other. By sharing a mutual understanding between the two cultures, Brown influences the indigenous people to adopt the faith practiced by the missionaries. Achebe’s novels do not just suggest the pros and cons of the missionaries’ invasion, but show how the people of these two communities touched the lives of one another and affected the environment.

Okonkwo and land:

Okonkwo realizes that the Igbo community is losing its traditional values, and as an inflexible character, he chooses to commit suicide as opposed to the violation to Igbo laws. He is the most complex character, who emerge as a great leader in the beginning and became wretched at the end of the novel. In “Beast and Abominations in Things Fall Apart and Omenuko,” Hugh Hodge examines Okonkwo’s characters as an abomination to the Igbo culture. He specifically points out the title of the novel in relation to Okonkwo. This essay is a response to the articles by Adeleke Adeeko. He objects to some of Adeeko’s reading on Things Fall Apart and argues that a protagonist of Things Fall Apart is a “premonition of a post-colonial beast, slouching towards Bethlehem” (50). Hodge writes that Adeeko calls Okonkwo a character “who worries about the future, in contrast or anti-Okonkwo who act as tomorrow does not exist…” (51). Hodge argues that since Okonkwo comes from a cultural background in which suicide rituals are blasphemy to the land and the belief system of Igbo, he violated the most sacred law of Igbo culture, thus people of the community boycotted his dead body. What is ironic about Okonkwo is that he became a successful leader in the pursuit of not standing parallel to his lazy father, but the novel ends with him becoming a replica of his father: a coward, criminal, and a disgrace to his clan and the Igbo culture. The harmony in the community is directly proportional to the earth’s fertility, honour, and sanctity of the environment. There are rituals for the land conducted by people to praise it in order to increase the produce, to invite human minds to be patient and wise, and to maintain the balance between the land and humans. However, Okonkwo constantly loses a sense of being human and disobeys the moral bearing of the earth, spirit and ancestors, which the Igbo community is firmly associated with. His actions are violent, irrational, unwise, and capricious; they damage the moral and spiritual status of the community and the earth. He loses his connection with the land by breaking the week of peace. These actions lead him into exile for seven years and later on, to his death. The people of Igbo live their ancestral wisdom and values, which Okonkwo did not. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe shows the relationship between a person and

chi. His exile is an avenue to recognize his relationship with the land and to honour a mother’s nurturing love and discipline himself emotionally for himself and his clan. He was sent into exile to learn to be gratuitous to the land. But he is clouded by his ego and power. His suicidal actions completely segregated him from receiving one last act of respect; he did not receive a burial. Okpala affirms that on the existential level, Okonkwo was ordinary and inauthentic, which makes his presence insignificant in the novel. Achebe’s portrayal of the environment in relation to the Igbo people is that of a master and slave, and the master is nature in this case. The fall of the Igbo tribe suggests “changes” in the culture and the environment. As a post-colonial text, the novel emphasizes the being and the non-being, and their inevitable relationship that affects each other. This metaphysics of the Igbo culture helps us to understand the significance of the absence, the mystical, the supernatural in an ordinary human life. It helps us to understand the existence of the environment (relation between beings and non-beings) outside of the empirical bubble.

Environment and text:

Along with the past and the present, Huggan and Tiffin look to the future; what will come after environmentalism and post-nature. What will be the next step for future generations to realize the consequences of being detached from the natural world and whether or not there is a need to return to primitive knowledge and its implication on mainstream environmental culture? Achebe in Things Fall Apart projects this ideology by showing different approaches to these concerns. In an article called “Achebe’s Sense of an Ending: History and Tragedy in Things Fall Apart,” Richard Begam brings in three different ways of reading the events, which can conclude the novel. Firstly, Achebe writes a form of nationalist history, which means the recovery of the past. Secondly, he writes a form of adversarial history, which does not focus on reconstructing an authentic past, but rather it emphasizes “deconstructing the imposed counterfeit past.” Achebe celebrates the peculiarities and specifics of the Igbo culture by highlighting the depth and significance of the events in the novel, the integrity and ethnic beauty of the land of Umuofia. It suggests the reconstruction of an authentic past before colonization, which the national writers of Nigeria ignore. Begum argues that from the first point of view, Okonkwo’s suicide is a tragedy. Okonkwo suffers from “a guilty of errors in judgement, of hamartia” (399). Okonkwo is an individual, yet he represents the Igbo community. He is a cultural and social ambassador for the Igbo village. His falling apart in the novel is a falling apart of the entire community and culture. This fall constitutes changes in the social system by the dominant forces of imperialism, changes in the belief and customs in the villages of Umuofia, changes of faith and economy, changes in relationship between people of Igbo and the missionaries, thus changes in the environment of Umuofia. Achebe’s narrative and use of language plays crucial roles in highlighting the changes before and after the missionaries’ expansion in the village of Umuofia. His use of language recovers the past glory of Igbo as well as destroys the imperial leverage from the English language in the novel. In the environmental imagination, Lawrence Buell points towards the problem behind the pastoral imagination. He is sceptical towards how close a text can mirror the real

environment, when after all a text is a product of imagination: a virtual world. This makes the imaginary reconstruction of the environment as being invented and distorted simultaneously. According to him, “… even if human perception could perfectly environmental stimuli, literature could not” (84). He highlights the individuality of African wilderness and the lifestyle of Nigerians, dependent on the flora and fauna. The use of language, such as “ilo” (the village Green), “obodo” (the land of the brave), “nza” (a very small bird) are words associated with the land and environment in African culture. Words like “Go-didi-go-go-di-go” is a rhyme and reflects the oral tradition entangled in rituals. ‘Ilo’ is an Igbo name for a special space where people meet for the environmental ceremonies and rituals. The new yam festival took place in “ilo” in Umuofia. It was an occasion to be thankful to “Ani,” the “Earth goddess and the source of all fertility” (Achebe 36). Such use of creole is a post-colonial feature of the text. It leads one to gain a better understanding of the ethnic environmental space. Achebe’s use of language and style bridges the gap of imaginations that exists between an indigenous audience and foreign readers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe highlights the power relation between a man and a place through language and makes it more subjective to whether one is a native or not. Huggan and Tiffin talk about ‘post-nature’ and posit that modernity and the mechanical order of life is a phase of post-nature. They define “post-natural in a dialectical sense of losing human connection to the natural environment while simultaneously gaining a reinvigorated awareness that nature itself is continually reformed” (203). They further argue that humans gain an awareness of constantly reformed nature. This reformed nature is a result of humans’ actions when they take control of nature and pretend to be as powerful as nature. The invasion of missionaries does affect the Igbo community and the environment changes significantly; however, the missionaries are not the only reasons behind the Igbo community falling apart. Post-colonial literature explores this tension between the subjective and the objective relationships represented by the two different cultures, and highlights the crisis of mutual understanding between the perspectives of the two cultures about the environment. The African landscape is grounded in religion and the indigenous culture of Africa. A culture will be diminished by the dominant culture, and with the loss of that culture, the entire unique understanding of nature and environment will vanish. Achebe brings an independent and

uninterrupted narrative of the native people of the Igbo and their environmental culture. Things Fall Apart presents the macro narrative of an indigenous culture. The most interesting shift seems to happen by merging post-colonialism and ecocriticism. This is an interaction between humans and non-humans and suggests that the environment is one powerful entity comprised of humans, animals, and forests. The physical setting of the novel opens the door to travel through the village culture and African forest. Achebe projects a very complex social system entangled in beliefs and rituals and provides a reason and purpose behind such practices. He affirms that if such African lifestyles and practices do not seem true to modern civilization, it does not mean African people and their belief system is philistine. There is a strong presence of a subjective relationship between humans and land. The pre-colonial status of land in respect to Igbo community is more personal, reverend, and divine. Such practice of ideology of land formulates the people of Igbo to pursue socially and economically stable lives. This ideology of land changes with foreign intrusion, resulting in the falling of the culture. Achebe’s literary imagination of the environment in Things Fall Apart is panoramic. The relationship between the entities is co-operative and interdependent. It bridges the crisis by encouraging the idea of mutual coordination of humans, animals, and forests and offers some fundamental cultural differences (indigenous and European) focused on land. Post-colonial ecocriticism provides a clear picture of the relationship dynamics and tension between different cultures, resulting in a hostile environment. Undoubtedly, Achebe’s literary imagination bridges the gap between the stories and scientific environmental studies. It suggests the possibility that the two fields are designated to a single goal: bring awareness to the readers about the role of every single creature to maintain the eco-system (the environment). In Things Fall Apart, he traces nature and its power in the roots of philosophy, religion, history, and theology.

Conclusion

Unlike the European thinking about nature and environment, for indigenous culture, nature is not a pastime, and landscapes not just places to dwell on. Nature is deeper than what one might assume. This recognition comes from an in-depth study and familiarization with an unfamiliar, primitive, yet prudent way of living by indigenous cultures on their land. While analysing Things Fall Apart, we wondered if we did not have a sense of place so profoundly associated with the ‘self.’ Living in a post-colonial world and analysing these texts from an objective vantage, we might say that we have lost ourselves by choosing ‘self’ over everything we are surrounded with. Post-colonial eco-critical analysis gives us an opportunity to rethink about the current relationship with the post-colonial land and fills the gaps between people and the environment, between native and non-native, and compels us to ponder on local and indigenous culture and their roles in the environment. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, many writers highlight the deteriorating relationship between humans and the environment because of capitalism, arrogant anthropocentric approach and the oblivious attitude towards the surrounding. Eco-critical post-colonial studies of these texts invite us to embrace the differences and ethnicity to prevent environmental racism and the Euro-centric or mono-centric ideas which can only become a source to catalyse the existing environmental problems. The scholarship serves to maintain harmony in the environment despite differences in cultures and asks us to develop a more refined and horizontal, and not hierarchical perspective to look at the physical world.

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Contributors

1. Dr. K.V. Raghupathi, an established Indo-English poet with ten poetry collections, author of two novels and two short story collections and editor of seven critical and authoritative books and two books on yoga. He has 23 published books to his credit. He is an eminent critic and a distinguished teacher. He has ion for music. He practices Yoga.

2. Dr. P.V. Laxmiprasad, is an author, poet, well- known critic and an editor. He has published 18 books so far. He has a few books published abroad. He has to his credit 300 publications which include 120 poems, 65 research papers, 55 book reviews, translations and interviews with literary legends. He has been widely published in as many as 30 journals and anthologies. He is the recipient of Life Time Achievement Award conferred by International Poets Academy. Currently, he is working in the Department of English, Satavahana University, Karimnagar, Telangana, India.

3. Dr. G. Srilatha, Associate Professor, PB Siddhartha College, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. She regularly contributes her papers to journals and edited volumes. She successfully organised a few national seminars in the college. She is actively involved in many academic activities in the college. She developed innovative and dynamic educational programs to cater for the educational requirements of postgraduate students. As head of the department encouraged team work and implemented a variety of teaching methods to meet the needs of the students. She worked in teams to implement educational programs; to develop and evaluate curriculum initiatives, to improve Literacy outcomes, to monitor student progress and behavior, and to organize extracurricular activities.

4. Dr. Palakurthy Dinakar, Assistant Professor, Govt Degree College, Huzurabad, Telangana, India. A well-known critic for innovative research, he has contributed research papers to journals and books. He loves translating and as a translator, he has done many translations. He is a recipient of Best Teacher Award from the Govt of AP. He is on the Editorial board and rendered his services as a content writer for deg curriculum for UG courses of Kakatiya and Satavahana Universities, Telangana.

5. Dr. Neelima Chowdhary, Associate Professor, currently Professor in charge of Faculty and Development of the Department of English, KLEF was awarded Ph. D in Post-Colonial Diasporic Literature in specific South Asian American Immigrant Writing from Dravidian University, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, India. She published her 23 research papers in different International Journals. Her research interests include Diasporic Immigrant Identity, ESP, ELT Teaching and Learning Techniques, Transcultural pedagogy and Second Language Teaching and Learning Policies. Her book “Identity Perspective in the Fictional World of Bharati Mukherjee” was published by APH Publishing Corporation, New Delhi. On KLEF she enjoyed the roles of Professor in charge Research and Development along with Campus Recruitment Training and the journey continues further. Leela Priyadarshini Assistant professor working in Department of English, KLEF is a Postgraduate in English literature from Acharya Nagarjuna university, Guntur and PGCTE and PGDTE holder from English and Foreign Languages university, Secunderabad, Telangana State. She published 10 research papers in different areas like ELT, Language and Linguistics in UGC recognized journals. In KLEF, she was on different titles like professor in charge- P&D, course coordinator of Employability Skills, and Soft Skills Trainer. Furthermore, her services are extended to mentorship, course development, campus recruitment training and so on.