INDRA SINHA’S ANIMAL’S PEOPLE: MEMORY OF AN ECOCIDE AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The world we live in has become inhospitable due to the increase in pollution, contamination and industry-sponsored bio-disaster. Conspicuously, mankind is efficiently committing ecocide and bringing irrevocable changes in ecology. The prominence of literary works which depicts the claustrophobic effects of industrial disaster increases as long as the uneven development prevails. Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People(shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for fiction and won the 2008 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize) is a memory of the aftermath of a large-scale industrial catastrophe based on the Bhopal disaster of 1984; it is a vivid portrayal of life at gutter level among the dirt-poor of the fictional city of Khaufpur. Sinha depicts a claustrophobic world of sickness, filth, scamming, surviving on four rupees a day, and above all, the ongoing suffering of those afflicted by an explosion at the local chemical plant on what is always referred to simply as ‘that night.’ The writer throws light upon the environmental destruction, consequences and the unending protests of the victims due to the denial of justice. The traumatic memories of ‘that night,’ recollected and recorded in several tapes by the titular character Animal provides a symbolic representation of the uneven development in India. Indra Sinha is not speaking about the past rather he is speaking for the future. He is asking the policy makers to introspect about the development without concern for the environment. All developments without any environmental research will have a bad impact on both environment and peoples’ quality of life. Every memory is a lesson for better tomorrows.

Keywords

ecocide, uneven development, bhopal gas tragedy, bio disaster, khaufpur.

References

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To cite this article

Shinu, C. (2019). Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People: Memory of an Ecocide and Uneven Development. John Foundation Journal of EduSpark, 1(4), 13-28.