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An Ecocritical View on Indra Sinha's Animal's People

Article · October 2019

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 An Ecocritical View on Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People

Anand Stanley Jones P

Assistant Professor of English,

Bishop Heber College

Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India

stanleyjones333@g,ail.com

Dr. Suresh Frederick

Associate Professor and UG Head

Department of English

Bishop Heber College

Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India

sfheber@gmail.com

Literary writers have written many works on the destruction of nature and environment. The

main purpose of the ecocritical writers are to make people responsible towards nature. They

principally point out the polluted environment that leads to the killing of living organisms in

forthcoming years. According to Peter Barry in The Beginning Theory, “They (Ecocritics) re-

read major literary works from an ecocentric perspective, with particular attention to the

representation of the natural world” (264). Reading literature of this genre will give people

ecological wisdom, like how humans and nature coexist. “Reading a novel or poem on such a

subject will surely give ecowisdom or ‘ecological wisdom’”(Glotfelty xv). Indra Sinha in his

novel Animal’s People discusses the Bhopal gas tragedy and ruthlessness of corporate
IJELLH (International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities) Vol. 7, Issue 10, October 2019 378

companies. The environmental injustice that took place in the novel, clearly resembles the

Bhopal Gas Tragedy that happened in 1984. This study discusses the consequences of the

Bhopal gas tragedy happened to the innocent people and also talks about the ‘sense of place’

in the novel.

Indra Sinha was born in 1950. His novel Animal’s People was published in 2009 on

the Memorial Day to remember the 25th year of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. It reminded the

world’s most horrible industrial disaster that took place in Bhopal. In 1984 December, The

Union Carbide India Limited, US based multinational company oozed around 27 tons of toxic

Methyl isocyanate gas, killed thousands and continued to cause disorder in the generations of

victims. As Smita Sahu in her article “The Emergence of Environmental Justice in

Literature”, says, “The novel discusses the devastating impact of gas leak from a chemical

factory on, not just the people, but also on the ecology” (549). The aim of this study is to find

out the consciousness of the place, culture and the consequences of the gas tragedy in the

novel, Animal’s People.

The novel Animal’s People was set in a fictional town Khaufpur. It is a novel about a

nineteen years old boy, Animal. As long as Animal remembered, he walked on fours, because

his spine had been twisted due to the terrible gas leakage incident caused by the chemicals.

The book is written in Animal’s point of view. The whole story is narrated by Animal and

recorded in the tape. Indra Sinha presents twenty-three tapes as the sections in the novel. The

tapes explain how Animal was treated by the people, his thoughts, the people’s sufferings,

their struggle towards justice and the Kampani’s irresponsibility. The tragic night, that the

whole story was based on, caused death to many of the town people. The people who

survived suffered with terrible diseases due to that chemical fog and the poisoning of water.

Khaufpur had full of poor people who didn’t have money for their treatment. Their anger

towards the Kampani, made to suspect everything and everybody.

IJELLH (International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities) Vol. 7, Issue 10, October 2019 379

Khaufpur was a place of death and sickness. Animal, a nineteen years old boy who

lost his family, and his spine fatally twisted, made him walk on four legs from that incident.

Not only Animal, so many Khaufpuris had lost their loved ones, and they were damaged for

life on that particular night. The toxic gas that oozed out from the factory twisted the life of

many people in Khaufpur. Victims like Pyare Bai’s husband died, Pandit Somraj’s family

died and he lost his voice and loses his profession, Huriya Bi’s daughter died and she had to

take care of her injured granddaughter. The disaster had not even spared the unborn. Animal

narrated the stories of victims of Bhopal Tragedy. Khaufpur remained poisoned for years

after that tragedy and the plight of its people continues to contaminate the ecology of the

town. The novel replicated the drab image of present Bhopal. The novel also revealed the

environmental degradation issues in the urban area.

The whole events of the novel was the recorded by an unnamed journalist. At first

Animal refused to recite the incident and happening. Because he knew no justice would come

whatever happened. After convincing, he accepted to narrate the incidents. These lines by

Animal, illustrated how dangerous the poison was. “No bird sing. No hoppers in the grass.

No bee humming. Insects can’t survive here. Wonderful poisons the Kampani made, so good

it’s impossible to get rid of them, after all these years they’re still doing their work.” (29)

Animal’s narration illuminated the corporate inhumanities, the struggle of the victim for

justice. Indra Sinha used ‘Animal’ as the voice of the poor and helpless people who were all

waiting for the justice. The novel was a message to the readers by the author. Indra Sinha,

writes from the reports of Animal which was recorded by the journalist, “So, from this

moment I am no longer speaking to my friend the kakadu jarnaliss, name’s Phuoc, I am

talking to the eyes that are reading these words, Now I am talking to you” (12). The above

statement clearly states that, Animal talks to the reader to bring justice to the people and also

to the environment.
IJELLH (International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities) Vol. 7, Issue 10, October 2019 380

Animal narrated the incidents to the journalist with the starting point as, “I used to be

human once. So, I’m told. I don’t remember it myself, but people who knew me when I was

small say I walked on two feet just like human being” (1) Animal didn’t remember when he

walked on two legs. The toxic gas twisted his spine and still he was walking on four legs. He

insisted that the journalists were like vultures who have come when they smelt blood. Animal

said that night remains always the same it never changes.

Many characters shown in the novel were the victims of that terrible incident. Animal,

at first was a normal child, slowly the toxin affects him. When he was six years old, the pain

started with scorching sense at his back. He could not lift his head. He had gone with some

medical treatment. But everything went in vain. “Further, Further, forward I was bent” (15).

These happenings made Animal to be angry with Kampani. He was fully frustrated about the

injustice given to Khuafpur. Ma Franci, a nun came from France more than forty years ago.

She knew several languages, but after that disaster she forgot all the languages she had

known except French. She was affected mentally a lot and she had some madness. The

orphanage which she was a part, was badly hit by that venomous gas. Many of the children

and nuns died. Those who survived were sick. “The orphanage was run by les religieuses

francaises, it was in Jyothinagar near the factory and on that night, it was badly hit. Many of

the children died, nuns too” (37).

Aliya was a small school girl. She was also one of the victims of that incident. She

was fond of Animal. She was a granddaughter of the couple Huriya and Hanif Ali. When Elli,

American doctor who opened a free clinic for Khaufpuris, asked Huriya regarding her

granddaughter’s health, she replied that Aliya had been ill for almost a year with a cough and

fever. Elli found that she had an infection on her throat due to poisonous gas. Elli asked Aliya

how long had she been coughing. Aliya replied forever. Later, she became serious with her

strange face even after the heavy treatment, she could not be saved, and Aliya was dead.
IJELLH (International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities) Vol. 7, Issue 10, October 2019 381

Once Elli watched a woman with a child poured her milk onto the ground. Elli

narrated the incident to him. She asked the reason behind that. The woman answered, “I

won’t feed my kid poison. . . Our wells are full of poison. It’s in the soil, water, in our blood.

It’s in our milk. Everything here is poisoned. If you stay here long enough, you will be too”

(107). Some girls frequently had their menstrual problems due to that toxic gas.

Indra Sinha emphasized the suffering of the people and the description of that night

all through the novel. He particularly pointed out the toxic gas tragedy and its consequences

to create awareness to the readers. People lost their loved ones and met poverty because of

that incident. For more than twenty years, thousands of people’s health had been ruined by

that poison and the people waited for relief. Thus, Indra Sinha presented the consequences of

toxic gas and the troubles of people through this novel. Indra Sinha through this novel, giving

voice to the people affected by the Bhopal tragedy also gives voice to nature, suggesting that

harming or destroying nature will only bring about the inevitable fatality of the human race.

Indra Sinha through this novel, gives voice to the voiceless. As Dr. Suresh Frederick

states that, “Ecocriticism speaks for the voiceless earth. This approach is earth-centered and

all the other approaches are ego-centered”(Frederick 31). Indra Sinha also talks about the

voiceless land affected by the Bhopal tragedy and also the suffering of human beings,

suggesting that harming or destroying nature will only bring about the inevitable fatality of

the human race. Human beings as part of an ecosystem will suffer the consequences affecting

the ecosystem, “No bird sing. No hoppers in the grass. No bee humming. Insects can’t

survive here. Wonderful poisons the Kampani made, so good it’s impossible to get rid of

them, after all these years they’re still doing their work.” (29), the consequence of this death

of nature is reflected in the characters as Animal spine in unrecoverably injured, the death of

Aliya, and so on. It not only affects the physical but also the mental health as in Ma Franci,

she forgets the language and loses her mental stability. As Ursula Heise challenges the sense
IJELLH (International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities) Vol. 7, Issue 10, October 2019 382

of place in the essay “Sense of Place and Lieu de Memoir: A Cultural Memory Approach to

environmental texts”, this novel as Ursula suggests, brings out the sense of place to bring out

the sense of planet in the reader. However, it can’t be so certain that ecoconsciousness is

rooted the in sense of place, reconnecting individuals with their place has been challenged by

Ursula Heise in her book Sense of Place and Sense of Planet. As she says in her essay,

Not all pre modern societies were rooted in place, Heise reminds us, and those

that were have by no means always been models of ecologically sensitive

inhabitation. In the mobile world of the twenty-first century, moreover, there

can be no simple return to local belonging and the caring which allegedly

follows from it: sense of place must be complemented by ‘‘sense of planet,’’

and local belonging subordinated to global identification ( Rigby 56).

By taking up the Bhopal incident she incites the global consciousness and

identification towards this incident.

 IJELLH (International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities) Vol. 7, Issue 10, October 2019 383

Works Cited

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory.

Manchester university press, 2002.

Frederick, Suresh. “Ecowisdom in Keki N. Daruwalla’s Poems “Wolf” and “The Last Howl”.

Nawale, Aravind M.ed.Critical Essays on Indian English Poetry and Drama: Texts

and Contexts. New Delhi: Authors Press, 2010.

Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, eds. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary

Ecology. University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Rigby, Catherine E. Ecocritical Theory: New European Approaches. University of Virginia

Press, 2011.

Sahu, Smita. The Criterion. “ The Emergence of Environmental Justice in Literature”. 5(2),

2014. Web.

Sinha, Indra. Animal's People: A Novel. Simon and Schuster, 2009.

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