ECOSOPHY AND ECO-CONSCIOUSNESS IN SELECT INDIAN LITERATURE

ABSTRACT

The human-nature interface has come under a critical scanner ever since the ill-effects of exploitation of nature have been the most pressing aspects of life on Earth. The twentieth century biological massacre has resulted in a grim environmental situation today-greenhouse effect, depletion of ozone layer, acid rain, air, water, soil and marine pollution, dwindling natural resources, tsunamis, untimely seasonal changes… the list goes on. The recent onslaught of Covid-19 across the globe has been an alarm waking the entire humanity to the disastrous ways it has trudged on for over centuries. There is an awareness everywhere to revisit the march of civilizations as well as the epistemology and ontological premises of human thoughts, anthropocentric knowledge of the universe, belief systems and values that have been propagated, primarily those which underlay the relationships between humans and the environment. This has led to a shift from mono-disciplinary studies to those of inter and multidisciplinary studies not just in natural sciences and social sciences but in humanities as well. Among such intersections of disciplines to gain a holistic comprehension of the universe at large, the multi-disciplinary field of Ecocriticism to engage in the study of literature from the view points of life sciences is not just interesting but yields aspects of knowledge that was hitherto not seriously deliberated upon. Coming to the fore in 1990’s, the field of ‘Ecocriticism’ actually had its antecedents in the writings of all nature-conscious litterateurs. But as American Scholars like William Rueckert, Rachel Carson, Cheryll Glotfelty,Harold Fromm, Lawrence Buell.Scott Slovic and otherswere the first to define the field, mapping its scope and contoursthereby establishing Ecocriticism as a discipline, its origins are attributed to United States. But there have been traces of eco-consciousness in Indian literature in regional languages across India as well as those written in English. Hence this paper explores aspects of ecocritical perspectives that can be evinced in Indian Fiction in English in general with specific focus on a few recent novels that exclusively delve into most pressing environmental concerns of contemporary times. The paper thereby offers methodology of ecocritical reading per se of literary texts.