‘Slow Violence’ and Ecocide: An Ecocritical Reading of Swarga: A Posthuman Tale

Abstract

The influence of the environment upon human life necessitates the preservation of nature with all its diversity. During industrialised farming, the excessive use of chemical pesticides contaminates the water bodies, soil, air and all-natural elements. The chemical content is passed on from one organism to another, linking the food chain and resulting in mysterious diseases in humans and animals, loss of biodiversity, and extinction of species. Ecocritics analyse the relationship between literature and the physical environment. They critically view the descriptions of nature in literature and the irreversible changes that happen in the environment. Swarga: A Posthuman Tale, written by Ambikasudhan Mangad, is a painful account of the endosulfan disaster in the village called Enmakaje of Kasargod district in Kerala. The strategy adopted by the Plantation Corporation of Kerala for the aerial spraying of endosulfan on cashew plants can be viewed as slow violence against impoverished communities. The intolerable pain experienced by the people who suffer from strange diseases and the challenges faced by those who look after them are analysed. Human beings efficaciously commit ecocide during the anthropocene epoch.