A Postcolonial study of Aranyak: Of the Forest (1939) by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay: An Ecocidal Fiction of Colonial India’s Indigenous Lands
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The article intends to present a postcolonial ecocritical study of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel Aranyak: Of the Forest (1939). This novel is one of the earliest fictions to portray the deforestation occurring on the Indigenous lands of the Santal in India during the British colonial period. This article also tries to study the conception, representation, and understanding of nature in different strata of the colonial Indian society. Aranyak is concerned with nature being violated by exploitative practices, as well as processes of ecocides and deforestation in Indigenous forest lands. The perception of nature and the ideological views on how to preserve forests are drastically different among the characters who show differing views on environmentalism. In western culture, religion, and philosophy, humans are usually considered the center of the universe, but in the Indigenous Indian context, humans, in this shared world, are not at the center of the universe but part of the planetary consciousness. The different approaches to environmentalism developed by various characters in the ecofiction will be studied in detail. The article will also focus on the concepts and representations of wilderness, deforestation, colonial influence, and capitalism. The current climate crisis proves the non-functionality of anthropocentrism. Therefore, there is a need for an alternative, all-encompassing worldview of nature where humans are not a be-all and end-all but a part of a greater planetary consciousness.
Source: Textures
Authors: Mallika Bala, Madhumita Roy
Language: French
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7155168053