Broken Bodies, Broken Earth: Environmental Collapse in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007)

Authors: Mahek Dua, Geetha Yadav

Country: India

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Abstract: Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007) vividly reimagines the lingering aftermath of an industrial catastrophe in the fictional town of Khaufpur, a thinly veiled representation of Bhopal. Set decades after a devastating gas leak, the novel exposes the social, ecological, and moral decay that follows environmental disaster. This paper offers an ecocritical reading of the text, contending that Sinha intricately fuses the physical deformity of the protagonist, Animal, with the poisoned landscape of Khaufpur to dramatize the deep symbiosis between human suffering and environmental collapse. Through grotesque imagery, a fragmented oral narrative, and the aesthetics of testimony, Animal’s People(2007) challenges dominant corporate and institutional discourses that sanitize ecological violence. The novel transforms bodily trauma into an allegory of environmental devastation, revealing how corporate negligence and global capitalism perpetuate ecological injustice in postcolonial contexts. Moreover, Sinha’s narrative gives voice to those marginalized by both environmental and social hierarchies, positioning the subaltern body as a site of ecological memory and resistance. By portraying the destruction of both human and nonhuman worlds, Animal’s People(2007) emerges as a compelling literary articulation of environmental ethics, resilience, and postcolonial ecological consciousness in the age of the Anthropocene.

Keywords: Ecocriticism, Environmental Justice, Postcolonial Ecology, Toxicity, Bhopal, Anthropocene.

Paper Id: 232802

Published On: 2023-01-10

Published In: Volume 11, Issue 1, January-February 2023

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