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Paper short abstract:

Arunachal Pradesh forms one of the segments of eastern Himalaya. It is inhabited by 26 tribes. Lummer Dai(1940-2002) was the pioneer Literary Intellectual who represented the unique relationship between an old woman and his pet whom she nurtures and takes care of him.

Paper long abstract:

Lummer Dai (born on June 1, 1940) belonged to the Dai clan of Pasis, a sub-tribe of the Adis of Arunachal Pradesh. His literary production (authored five novels) is Phar Hile, Hile, Prithbi Hanhi Hanhi (The Earth smiles,1963) Mon aur Mon (1966), Konyar Mulya (The Bride-Price ,1978), amd Upar Mahal(published posthumously in 2002). He died on April 5,2002 at the age of 62. As a member of the literate group and an intellectual, Lummer Dai chose fictional narrative as a medium to articulate the cultural identity of his tribe. An attempt at Retrieval of their history formed an important aspect of forging the tribal cultural identity. Animals specifically dogs played an important role among the Tani group of tribes of Arunachal Pradesh. Lummer Dai’s novel novel Mon aur Mon (Heart to Heart) represents the unique relationship between an old Adi woman and her pet dog. This proposal is an humble attempt to show how literary texts can be read with a view to exploring their articulation of the animal world and the relationship of humans with that world.

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In this paper, I investigate the use of geological time in Anita Agnihotri’s Mahānadi (2015) and its relation to the tradition of the Bengali regional novel to argue that the novel’s use of the Mahanadi river basin as a “region” helps us rethink the role of the regional novel in the Anthropocene.

Paper long abstract:

The Bengali regional novel has a long and rich history of depicting how capitalist modernity transforms property relations of specific communities directly dependent on natural resources for subsistence. These transformations mark a shift from a commons based lifestyle to a capitalist or modern lifestyle centred around the idea of private property. Yet, as Amitav Ghosh’s critique of the realist novel in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) underscores, these novels remain bound to human time and space and have very little engagement with the geological. However, if we are to have narratives that address the current planetary crisis, the geological must be an integral part of storytelling. In this paper, I investigate the use of geological time in Anita Agnihotri’s Mahānadi (2015) and its relation to the tradition of the Bengali regional novel to argue that the novel’s use of the Mahanadi river basin as a “region” helps us rethink the role of the regional novel in the Anthropocene. The term “regional” invokes the idea of a remote land in opposition to the global or the metropolitan. Yet when the climate crisis is bringing down the opposition of the place and the planet, can the regional novel be the kind of narrative we need in the Anthropocene?

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This proposed paper will mainly look into the cultural memories of Mappila Muslims shared through generations about the idea of the apocalypse, the floods, and the spiritual dimensions associated with nurturing hope and survival instincts amidst chaos and utter anarchy.

Paper long abstract:

Cultural memory is considered a part of the "outer dimension of human memory," which includes mimetic memory, the memory of things, communicative memory, and cultural memory. The German anthropologist Jan Assmann proposes that cultural memory is the process by which society ensures cultural continuity by preserving, with the help of mnemonics, its collective knowledge from one generation to the next. Arabimalayalam, a vernacular script form developed and continues to thrive amongst the Muslim community in the Malabar region of Kerala, is the linguistic outcome of the cultural contact between Kerala and Arabia. Vellappokkamala (poems on floods) is a genre of Arabimalayalam literature that primarily focuses on literary renderings of floods. More than a hundred poems are written on the events that occurred during and after the major floods of the 20th century in Kerala [ floods of 1909, 1924, and 1961]. As memory is situated in an individual's historical, social, political, and cultural contexts, cultural memory works as a mode through which members of a specific community or group create, form, refashion, and reclaim their identity and preserve the cultural continuum. As cultural memory comprises the ideas of reference to time and place, reference to a particular group, and ability to reconstruct itself, the proposed paper will mainly look into the cultural memories of Mappila Muslims shared through generations about the idea of apocalypse, the floods, the ways to cope with it and the spiritual dimensions associated with nurturing hope and survival instincts amidst chaos and utter anarchy.

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This paper is an attempt to analyse the struggles between capitalists and ecofeminists by advancing various competing storylines in the context of development discourse in India.

Paper long abstract:

Scholarly works focusing on the increasingly expansion of capitalism and its effects on nature are well documented in the development literatures, but largely under-represented gender dimensions and their struggles in relationship with resource use. This makes an entry point of combining Ecofeminism and Discourse Coalition Theory. Vandana Shiva enriches the understanding of ecofeminism and see how the male-stream knowledge driven by capitalism exploited women and nature. The capitalists’ control over nature and women lead to escalate conflicts with indigenous women; this results into the rise of ecofeminist movements in India. Such struggles between capitalists and ecofeminists can be viewed as the conflicts between modernist discourse and environmental discourse through storylines, detailed in Maarten Hajer’s Discourse Coalition. Both discourses merged to form wider development discourse. Analysing the struggles of discourses and linking gender roles with storylines is the central focus. How gender roles and narratives are constructed through storylines in the existing development discourse in India? At the higher level, modernist discourse coalition largely composed of educated male political leaders, exploiting nature by advancing pro-developmentalist storylines. At the lower hand, formally educated middle class women formed environmental discourse coalition and spearheaded ecofeminist movements against the development paradigm through alternative storylines.

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While unraveling how environment as a matter of concern obtains multiple values, this paper interrogates whether port-centric contestations can be framed as political-ecological critique drawing on pragmatic sociological rendering of ‘critique’ hinged on socioculturally mediated ‘orders of worth’.

Paper long abstract:

Just as our planetary future is turning more ‘oceanic’ in the wake of the Anthropocene, there has been a simultaneous stride to reap economic benefits out of the oceanic ecosystems through a plethora of technocapitalist ventures clubbed together as ‘blue economy’. The geography of South Asia being attuned with the oceanic and littoral ecologies, the impetus for ‘blue growth’ has been pushed for with much fanfare in this region. Building of new ports as well as expansion and modernization of existing ones have featured prominently as one of the mainstays for this proliferating regime of blue growth - for instance, India’s mega-infrastructure project “Sagarmala” has been launched with the catchy objective of ‘port-led prosperity’. However, the growing disquietude materialized in the form of resistance and contestations against the globalized and corporatized port-making has been unsettling the dominant imaginary of port-qua-prosperity. Fixing analytical gaze on the many visions and volitions, tactics and multiple imaginaries that drive the unfolding of resistance and/or negotiations around port-making, this paper interrogates whether anti-port resistance and port-centric contestations can be framed as political-ecological critique drawing on pragmatic sociological rendering of ‘critique’ that hinges on socioculturally mediated ‘orders of worth’. Instead of viewing the instances of mobilization against infrastructuring of ports as discrete cases, the paper seeks to unravel the ‘modes of valuation’ and evaluative repertoires for understanding how the environment as a matter of concern obtains multiple values in the different evaluative registers of actors involved in the making and unmaking of port.

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This paper deals with the historical development of environmentalism in India as well as the legal regime surrounding it. It makes an attempt to delve into environmental histories, climate change advancements with reference to legal issues and institutions laying an emphasis on India and South Asia.

Paper long abstract:

Environmentalism, as a concept has grown heaps and bounds around the world. South Asia as a region has seen ingenious developments relating to it in the past decades. Legal developments on top of the historical developments are quite significant in mapping the histories and growth of environmentalism in South Asia. Climate change is one pressing issue in the field of environmental law. South Asian countries are highly vulnerable to climate change. We are witnessing direct consequences of it including soaring high temperatures, floods, droughts. India among the other countries in the region is one of the most vulnerable due to its high population, large and varied geographical area. India has diversified laws for environmental protection and the very constitution of the country has articles for environmental welfare and protection. The country has enacted numerous legislations towards such goals and is also a party to key international agreements. It is pertinent to analyze the historical development of the present legal regime of environmentalism in India and the paper aims to do so. It makes an attempt to delve into environmental histories, climate change advancements with reference to legal issues and institutions laying an emphasis on India and South Asia.

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Indian writers have used realism as a mode for writing on ecological themes from the early 20th century. Postcolonial ecocriticism’s neglect of this body of writing and their histories needs to be addressed through critiques of anti-mimetic literary theories and a focus on non-Anglophone literature.

Paper long abstract:

A defining feature of literature and cinema in modern Indian languages was the espousal of realism—sometimes described as “peripheral” realism—by many leading writers and filmmakers of the last century. In this regard, modern Indian artists were markedly different from their Western counterparts in their aesthetic and political aims. Through their espousal of realism, Indian writers sought to represent, analyze, and critique social issues, including human beings’ relationship with nature. Consequently, works of ecological fiction came to be written in Indian languages from the early twentieth century, their origins going further back in the past. Yet, neither the relationships of human beings with the environment that these texts sought to analyze, nor the impact of these texts on readers has been of interest to postcolonial ecocriticism because of the peripheral status of modern Indian languages, their literary histories and milieus, and, most importantly, postcolonial ecocriticism’s methodological rootedness in postmodernism (with its attendant suspicions regarding the representation of a world existing outside of language). Consequently, histories of non-Anglophone writings on the environment and the ecologies described in these texts have, at best, been studied in a piecemeal fashion. Taking my cue from recent critiques of anti-mimetic theories of representation (e.g., Lazarus, Buell, Gikandi, Esty and Lye), I argue in my paper that a renewed—albeit qualified—engagement with mimetic theories of representation is necessary if ecological fiction from the Third World, in general, and those in modern Indian languages, in particular, are to receive the critical attention they richly deserve.

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This paper borrows from history of Odisha,India where the best elephants were said to be found in India, and Kings were titled Gajapati (meaning lord of elephants), to map the genesis of human-elephant relations of a lesser-known elephant range, i.e., Balasore district of Odisha, India.

Paper long abstract:

In the present day, the concerns of wildlife cannot be discussed in isolation but concerning human forces pushing them towards extinction. Nevertheless, Trautmann rummages through pages of Indian history and posits that the protection of elephants was ensured positively by the Indian Kings. Most Indian kingdoms in the past engaged their resources to capture and train elephants, primarily to travel, wage wars against enemies and symbolize power among other tasks. Various shreds of evidence establish that before the rise of kinship, there was no capture and management of elephants. The relation of Kings to elephants as observed by Trautmann is a four-cornered one with kings, elephants, forests, and forest people. However, the Kings’ interest in elephants dwindled with the modernisation of warfare technology, the decline of kingship, and the introduction of wildlife protection laws, among other reasons. Consequently, human-elephant relations altered tremendously. Hence, this paper borrows from history of Odisha where the best elephants were said to be found in India, and Kings were titled Gajapati (meaning lord of elephants), to map the genesis of human-elephant relations of a lesser-known elephant range, i.e., Balasore district of Odisha.

Keywords: Indian kings, elephants, human-elephant relations, Gajapati, Balasore, Odisha.

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This study analyzes the effects of relocation from Sariska Tiger Reserve on indigenous communities by comparing relocated and non-relocated households. It calls for collaborative approaches that balance environmental and social justice in conservation policies.

Paper long abstract:

Conservation policies in postcolonial South Asia have often prioritized ecological concerns over social and economic considerations, leading to the displacement of rural and indigenous communities for protected area management. This paper examines one such case - the relocation of villages from Sariska Tiger Reserve in Western India. Relocation from Sariska has been hailed as an example of successful conservation, but there has been little research on its impacts on the quotidian livelihoods and identities of displaced indigenous communities. Through a comparative study of 86 relocated households and 96 households still residing inside Sariska, we map the heterogeneous environmental histories of these rural communities across time. The study finds out that the average income from livestock rearing has decreased after moving outside and expenses have increased due to non-availability of NTFP products. Factors shows that literates in the region are willing to relocate but due to lowering income and non-availability of natural resources after moving outside are the main reason for people to not relocate. The study gainsays says that a shift from traditional conservation paradigm to a more collaborative-community oriented criterion can possibly satisfy the needs of communities and conservation.

For marginalized rural groups, everyday livelihood practices are deeply linked to local ecologies. Their perspectives must be integrated into conservation policies through community collaborations, to balance environmental sustainability with social justice. Our micro-level study provides empirical evidence from the ground to inform more intersectional approaches for relocation and protected area management in 21st century South Asia.

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This research aims to read selected Bangla novels from the late colonial period in India, within an Eco-Marxist framework. A realist representation of rivers and riverine communities narrates their metabolic relationship and historicizes the responsibility of colonial ecocide on colonial Capitalism.

Paper long abstract:

Bengal is home to critical riverine systems, housing the Sundarbans forest in its deltaic region. The entangled lives of humans and nonhumans along these riverine systems have found space within Bangla literary and cultural productions. This research deals with Bangla fiction from the late colonial era that carries the river as a central motif. Manik Bandopadhyay’s Padma Nadir Majhi, Adwaita Mallabarman’s Titas Ekti Nadir Naam, and Samaresh Basu’s Ganga deals with humans and nonhumans, whose lives are forged within the entanglements of economic and ecological relations. This research studies the interdependencies and vulnerabilities of human life in the natural world, represented in the realist narratives, and connects it with the ecological rupture caused by colonial Capitalism.

This research also historicizes the debate between Ecological Marxists and New Materialists that has been raging since before the ‘material turn’ in Environmental Humanities. This research tries to situate the selected narratives of ecological entanglements onto the frameworks offered by the Ecological Marxists. Empirically testing the fictional narratives of human-nature representation, using the Marxist frameworks of ‘historical-materialism’ and ‘dialectical analysis,’ requires us to recognize the necessary boundaries within the natural world that those human characters populate. However, this Marxist framework of ‘metabolic rift’ instead of the ‘social metabolism of Capital’ helps our understanding of ‘metabolic interactions’ and ‘ecological rifts’ between humans and their environments, in this case, the rivers and their riverine communities. An Eco-Marxist reading of the narratives gives birth to the possibility of demanding accountability from colonial Capitalism for colonial ecocide.