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ABSTRACT
In this article, I focus on Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People as case study, a literary representation of the compound crises of disability and a postcolonial chemical disaster that resulted in mass human disability and deaths. Set in the fictitious place of Khaufpur in India, the novel is a retelling of the 1984 ‘Bhopal Gas Disaster’. Sinha’s narrative depicts how the disaster extracts all human qualities from the eponymous character Animal and transforms him into a ‘creature’ with a crooked spine and walking on four ‘legs’, a progeny of the ‘Apokalis’, striving hard to survive, along with many other people of Khaufpur. This article will also investigate how Sinha makes Animal the icon of the impaired nation suffering from economic disability. I would simultaneously attempt to find out how a postcolonial nation becomes disabled in the hands of the multinational corporate economy, the imported ‘Biopolitics’ and neo-colonial exploitations, whilst also thinking about these metaphors critically.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
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2 Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘A Tryst with Destiny’, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s Inaugural Address, International Relations and Security Network: Primary Resources in International Affairs (PRIA), www.isn.ethz.ch (accessed 11 November 2023).
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4 Benjamin Robert Siegel, Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018, p 4.
5 Anita Ghai, ‘Disability in the Indian Context: Post-colonial perspectives’ in M. Corker and T. Shakespeare (eds), Disability/post-modernity, London: Continuum, 2002, pp 88–100, p 90.
6 Ghai, ‘Disability in the Indian Context: Post-colonial perspectives’, p 96.
7 Helen Meekosha, ‘Decolonising disability: thinking and acting globally’, Disability & Society, 26(6), 2011, pp 667–682, p 671.
8 Ann Raeboline Lincy Eliazer Nelson, Kavitha Ravichandran and Usha Antony, ‘The Impact of the Green Revolution on Indigenous crops of India’, Journal of Ethnic Foods, 6(8), 2019, pp 1–10, p 2, https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-019-0011-9 (accessed 11 November 2023).
9 Ingrid Eckerman, The Bhopal Saga: Causes and Consequences of the World’s Largest Industrial Disaster, India: Universities Press (India) Private Limited, 2005, p 21.
10 Indra Sinha, Animal’s People, UK: Pocket Books, 2007.
11 Fiona Kumari Campbell, ‘Inciting Legal fictions: Disability’s Date with Ontology and the Ableist Body of the Law’, Griffith Law Review, 10, 2001, pp 42–62, p 44.
12 Campbell, ‘Inciting Legal fictions: Disability’s Date with Ontology and the Ableist Body of the Law’, p 44 (emphasis added).
13 Fiona Kumari Campbell, ‘Ability’, in Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss and David Serlin (eds), Keywords for Disability Studies, USA: New York University Press, 2015, p 12.
14 Anita Ghai, ‘Engaging with Disability with Postcolonial Theory’, in Dan Goodley, Bill Hughes and Lennard Davis (eds), Disability and Social Theory: New Developments and Directions, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp 270–286, p 274.
15 Andrew Mahlstedt, ‘Animal’s Eyes: Spectacular Invisibility and the Terms of Recognition in Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People”’, Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 46(3), 2013, pp 59–74, p 59, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44030341 (accessed 25 October 2023).
16 Clare Barker, ‘“Radiant Affliction”: Disability Narratives in Postcolonial Literature’, in Clare Barker and Stuart Murray (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp 104–119, p 106.
17 Mark Sherry, ‘(Post) colonising Disability’, Wagadu, Special Issue on Intersecting Gender and Disability Perspectives in Rethinking Postcolonial Identities, 4, Summer 2007, pp 10–22, p 11.
18 Alice Hall, Literature and Disability, New York: Routledge, 2016, p 37.
19 Barker, ‘“Radiant Affliction”: Disability Narratives in Postcolonial Literature’, p 106.
20 Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages; c 1100- 1400, New York: Routledge, 2006, pp 20–21.
21 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages; c 1100-1400, pp 20–21.
22 Clare Barker, ‘Interdisciplinary Dialogues: Disability and Postcolonial Studies’, Review of Disability Studies, 6(3), 2010, pp 15–24, p 18.
23 Deb Doning, ‘Seeing Double in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People: Local Toxins, Global Toxicity and the Universal Bhopal’, Journal of Postcolonial Writing 54(4), 2018, pp 528–541, p 532, DOI: 10.1080/17449855.2017.1402808 (accessed 11 November 2023).
24 Alexandra Schultheis Moore, ‘“Disaster Capitalism” and Human Rights: Embodiment and Subalternity in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, in Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg and Alexandra Schultheis Moore (eds), Theoretical Perspectives on Human Rights and Literature, New York: Routledge, 2012, pp 231–246, p 232.
25 See Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee's Postcolonial Environments: Nature, Culture and the Contemporary Indian Novel in English; and Andrew Mahlstedt’s ‘Animal’s Eyes: Spectacular Invisibility and the Terms of Recognition in Indra Sinha’s ‘Animal’s People’’.
26 See Deb Doning’s ‘Seeing Double in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People: Local toxins, global toxicity and the universal Bhopal’; and Stacey Balkan’s ‘A Memento Mori Tale: Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and the Politics of Global Toxicity’.
27 See Brigitte Rath’s ‘“His words only?” Indra Sinha’s Pseudotranslation Animal’s People as Hallucinations of a Subaltern Voice’; and Adele Holoch’s ‘Profanity and the Grotesque in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’.
28 See Liam O’Loughlin’s ‘Negotiating Solidarity: Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and the “NGO-ization” of Postcolonial Narrative’; Rebecca S. Oh’s ‘The Claims of Bodies: Practices of Citizenship after Bhopal in Survior Testimony and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’; and Adele Holoch’s ‘Profanity and the Grotesque in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’.
29 See Jennifer Rickel, ‘“The Poor Remain”: A Posthumanist Rethinking of Literary Humanitarianism in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’.
30 See Andrew Mahlstedt, ‘Animal’s Eyes: Spectacular Invisibility and the Terms of Recognition in Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People”’; and Justin Omar Johnston, ‘“A nother World” In Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’.
31 Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, ‘“Tomorrow There Will Be More Of Us”: Toxic Postcoloniality in Animal’s People’, in Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George B. Handley (eds), Postcolonial Ecologies—Literatures of the Environment, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp 216–234, p 216.
32 Ingrid Eckerman, The Bhopal Saga: Causes and Consequences of the World’s Largest Industrial Disaster, India: Universities Press (India) Private Limited, 2005, p 9.
33 Allison Carruth, ‘The City Refigured: Environmental Vision in a Transgenic Age’, in Stephanie LeMenager, Teresa Shewry and Ken Hiltner (eds), Environmental Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, New York: Routledge, 2011, pp 85–104, p 89.
34 Andrew Mahlstedt, ‘Animal’s Eyes: Spectacular Invisibility and the Terms of Recognition in Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People”’, Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 46(3), 2013, pp 59–74, p 67, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44030341 (accessed 25 October 2023).
35 Indra Sinha, ‘Foreword’, Animal’s People, UK: Pocket Books, 2007.
36 Suroopa Mukherjee, Surviving Bhopal: Dancing Bodies, Written Texts and Oral Testimonials of Women in the Wake of an Industrial Disaster, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p 6.
37 Indra Sinha, ‘Foreword’, Animal’s People, UK: Pocket Books, 2007.
38 Sinha, AP, p 1.
39 Sinha, AP, p 11.
40 Sinha, AP, p 16.
41 Justin Omar Johnston, ‘“A Nother World” in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, Twentieth Century Literature 62(2), 2016, pp 119–144, p 120, DOI 10.1215/0041462x-3616552 (accessed 11 November 2023).
42 Moore, ‘“Disaster Capitalism” and Human Rights: Embodiment and Subalternity in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, p 232.
43 Sinha, AP, p 29.
44 Sinha, AP, p 30.
45 Sinha, AP, p 12.
46 Sinha, AP, p 3 (emphasis added).
47 Adele Holoch, ‘Profanity and the Grotesque in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 18(1), 2016, pp 127–142, p 133, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2014.1001420 (accessed 11 November 2023).
48 Sinha, AP, pp 7–8.
49 Anita Ghai, ‘Engaging with Disability with Postcolonial Theory’, in Dan Goodley, Bill Hughes and Lennard Davis (eds), Disability and Social Theory: New Developments and Directions, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp 270–286, p 274.
50 Sinha, AP, p 8.
51 Moore, ‘“Disaster Capitalism” and Human Rights: Embodiment and Subalternity in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, p 238 (emphasis added).
52 Sinha, AP, p 10–11.
53 Sinha, AP, p 29.
54 Shunqing Cao, ‘Disabled and vulnerable bodies in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People: transcending the human and non-human world’, Neohelicon, 47(1), 2020, pp 67–74, p 69, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-020-00535-0 (accessed 12 November 2023).
55 Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, USA: Harvard University Press, 2011, p 2.
56 Rebecca S. Oh, ‘The Claims of Bodies: Practices of Citizenship after Bhopal in Survior Testimony and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 21(1), 2019, pp 70–91, p 73, DOI:10.1080/1369801X.2018.1487326 (accessed 11 November 2023).
57 Sinha, AP, p 33 (original emphasis).
58 Sinha, AP, p 37.
59 Sinha, AP, p 55.
60 Sinha, AP, p 59.
61 Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, Postcolonial Environments: Nature, Culture and the Contemporary Indian Novel in English, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp 134–162, p 153.
62 Sinha, AP, p 162.
63 Jina B. Kim, ‘“People of the Apokalis”: Spatial disability and the Bhopal Disaster’, Disability Studies Quarterly 34(3), 2014, p 3, < http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3795/3271> (accessed 22 May 2018).
64 Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, ‘“Tomorrow There Will Be More Of Us”: Toxic Postcoloniality in Animal’s People’, p 223.
65 Sinha, AP, p 31–32.
66 Sinha, AP, p 114.
67 Sinha, AP, p 32.
68 Kim Fortun, Advocacy After Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011, p xiv.
69 Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, ‘“Tomorrow There Will Be More Of Us”: Toxic Postcoloniality in Animal’s People’, p 219.
70 Sinha, AP, p 23.
71 Sinha, AP, p 33.
72 Sinha, AP, p 53.
73 Oh, ‘The Claims of Bodies: Practices of Citizenship after Bhopal in Survior Testimony and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, p 73.
74 Daniel L. Scheberle, Industrial Disasters and Environmental Policy: Stories of Villains, Heroes and the Rest of Us, New York: Routledge, 2018, Google Books (accessed 24 May 2018).
75 Sinha, AP, p 54.
76 Sinha, AP, p 229.
77 Sinha, AP, p 229.
78 Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, Durham: Duke UP, 2003, p 124.
79 Sinha, AP, p 229 (original emphases).
80 Sinha, AP, p 229.
81 Sinha, AP, p 228.
82 Mahlstedt, ‘Animal’s Eyes: Spectacular Invisibility and the Terms of Recognition in Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People”’, p 63.
83 Michael Davidson, ‘Universal Design: The Work of Disability in an Age of Globalization’, in Lennard J. Davis (ed), The Disability Studies Reader, New York and London: Routledge, 2006, pp 117–128, p 119.
84 Davidson, ‘Universal Design: The Work of Disability in an Age of Globalization’, p 119.
85 Davidson, ‘Universal Design: The Work of Disability in an Age of Globalization’, p 119.
86 Sinha, AP, p 268.
87 Sinha, AP, p 274.
88 Meekosha, ‘Decolonising Disability: Thinking and Acting Globally’, p 667.
89 Suroopa Mukherjee, Surviving Bhopal: Dancing Bodies, Written Texts and Oral Testimonials of Women in the Wake of an Industrial Disaster, p 14.
90 Daniel L. Scheberle, Industrial Disasters and Environmental Policy: Stories of Villains, Heroes and the Rest of Us, New York: Routledge, 2018, Google Books (accessed 24 May 2018).
91 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France 1978-1979, Graham Burchell (trans), Michel Senellart (ed), Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp 252–253.
92 Kim, ‘“People of the Apokalis”: Spatial Disability and the Bhopal Disaster’ p 2.
93 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1, New York: Vintage, 1990, pp 95–96.
94 Kim, ‘“People of the Apokalis”: Spatial Disability and the Bhopal Disaster’ p 9.
95 Sinha, AP, p 366.
96 Moore, ‘“Disaster Capitalism” and Human Rights: Embodiment and Subalternity in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, p 241.
97 Moore, ‘“Disaster Capitalism” and Human Rights: Embodiment and Subalternity in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, p 241.
98 Sinha, AP, p 208.
99 Jennifer Rickel, ‘“The Poor Remain”: A Posthumanist Rethinking of Literary Humanitarianism in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People’, ARIEL 43(1), 2012, pp 87–108, p 102.
100 Meekosha, ‘Decolonising disability: thinking and acting globally’, p 679.
101 Meekosha, ‘Decolonising disability: thinking and acting globally’, p 679.
102 Sinha, AP, p 366.
103 Sinha, AP, p 366.
104 Sinha, AP, p 366.
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Maitrayee Misra
Dr. Maitrayee Misra is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, ICFAI University, Tripura, India. She has previously served the Department of English Language and Literature, Central University of Odisha, Koraput, India. She was awarded the Junior Research Fellowship in 2015 by the University Grants Commission, Govt. of India. Her research interest lies in the domains of postcolonial anglophone literature and culture studies. In her publications and conference presentations in Asia (India, Nepal and Bhutan), Europe (Germany, Spain, Austria, France and the UK), the United States and Egypt, she has worked in the areas of diasporic dislocation, cultural memory, cultural space and transculturality in Indian Literature in English. She is a Life member of IACLALS and a regular member of eminent research organizations like GAPS and MESEA. Her latest publication appears in a volume entitled Contemporary Indian English Literature: Contexts – Authors – Genres – Model Analyses (Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG: Tübingen, Germany), 2024.