Abstract
This chapter examines Indra Sinha’s fictionalized account of the 1984 toxic chemical spill in Bhopal, India, Animal’s People, to critique Dow Chemical’s evocation of humanity in its “The Human Element” ad campaign (2006–2012). When toxic chemicals enter the narrator’s body, his spine is twisted forward, and he adopts the name “Animal.” Walking on his hands and feet, Animal offers up an often-overlooked perspective on non-human relations as he empathically converses with dogs, trees, and others. Not only does Animal refuse to be recognized by western definitions of what constitutes the human, he also helps transform a community of local activists by broadening their coalition to include non-human subjects, the “people of the apocalypse.” I argue, therefore, that the neoliberal call to “be more human” by acquiring more human capital echoes nineteenth-century imperialist discourses, which called on colonized subjects to “be more civilized.”
A different version of this chapter appeared in Twentieth-Century Literature, Vol. 62:2. pp. 119–144, 2016.
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Notes
- 1.
Kim Fortun highlights the shocking discrepancy of various estimates: “The Indian government counted 1754 dead and 200,000 injured. Indian newspapers counted 2500 dead and 200,000–300,000 injured. United States newspapers counted the dead as 2000+ and the injured as 200,000. Voluntary organizations counted 3000–10,000 dead and 300,000 injured. The Delhi Science Forum, one of the groups I worked with, listed 5000 dead and 250,000 injured. Eyewitness interviews claim 6000–15,000 dead and 300,000 injured” (2001: 15). Lapierre and Moro add that “in the absence of official death certificates, large numbers of corpses were incinerated or buried anonymously” (2002: epilogue).
- 2.
A summary of the fourteen recent studies conducted by different research groups on Bhopal’s water supply can be downloaded here: https://www.bhopal.net/wp-content/uploads/Reports/Contamination/Summary-of-Contamination-Studies-Bhopal.pdf.
- 3.
Two other scenes that foreground Animal’s synesthetic narration are the Yar-yilaqi fire walking scene in Tape 14 and the Holi scene in Tape 15. In both cases Animal’s narration is infused with the voices and sensory experience of those surrounding him, disorienting the reader, and complicating any simple stable understanding of the novel as a first-person narration.
- 4.
The use of the term “prosthetic” here builds on Elizabeth Grosz’s definition in “Prosthetic Objects” where she highlights “material … relations of incorporation,” concluding that “it remains ambiguous … whether it is the nonliving, the inhuman which functions as prosthetic for living beings, or whether, on the contrary, living beings are the prosthetic augmentations of inert matter, matter’s most elaborate invention and self-reflection” (2005: 145, 152). Grosz rejects a normative (white, heteronormative, ableist) definition of prosthesis that seeks to recuperate an organic vision of the human. Instead, prosthetic is an accounting for and an exploration of relations between bodies-objects that look to systematic effects and new potentialities. This term, then, also clearly echoes Stacy Alaimo’s concept of “trans-corporeality,” especially as Alaimo uses Grosz and Karen Barad to consider the posthuman consequences of trans-corporeality in the final chapter of her book Bodily Natures (2010). Mel Chen’s concept of “Animacy” also highlights similar concerns. For instance, Chen describes how—during episodes of involuntary intoxication due to Mercury poisoning—leathers, perfumes, cars, couches, and girlfriends all provoke deeply intimate and unfamiliar affects. Here Chen finds it nearly impossible to distinguish between “living and lifely things,” especially since these affects result from molecular interpenetrations and bodily absorptions (2012: 202).
- 5.
There has been some controversy about the meaning and significance of Sainath’s reporting. For instance, Ian Plewis (2014) concludes his review of the suicide data: “the Indian farmer suicide story has become received wisdom for some anti-GM campaigners. In fact, we find that the suicide rate for male Indian farmers is slightly lower than for non-farmers” (2014: 18). Meanwhile, a London School of Economics review by Srijit Mishra (2014) points to some unusual factors in the collection of data during certain sub-periods and from specific regions. Mirsha clarifies: “At the all India level, suicide rate for male farmers is lower than that of the male non-farmers [only] in the first (1995–1997) and the last (2010–2012) sub-periods. This turnaround in the last sub-period is largely on account of a sudden decline in the reporting of farmers’ suicides in Chhattisgarh and non-reporting in West Bengal, which we will elaborate later” (5). Furthermore, Mishra adds, “It is a matter of concern when suicide rate for farmers will be relatively higher than that for non-farmers. This happens to be so for all the six sub-periods in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra, the national capital region of Delhi and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli” (2014: 5). Additionally, Mishra notes that in the Chhattisgarh region “There seems to be an implicit change in defining professions after 2009. The reported data indicate a near absence of farmers’ suicides (zero in 2011 and four in 2012) while at the same time there has been an increase in the suicide of the professions ‘self-employed (others)’ and ‘others’” (2014: 7). And even more disturbingly, “Farmers’ suicides data for West Bengal in 2012 is missing from the reported annual publication by NCRB … West Bengal constituted nearly 6% of male farmers’ suicides in India in the years prior to 2012. This is a concern because the aggregate suicides for the state have been reported” (2014: 7). While it is wise to approach the “seeds of suicide” narrative with some healthy scepticism, it is critically important to see how the counter argument, which discounts the significance of these farmers’ suicides, relies on tailored data.
- 6.
In her essay “‘The Poor Remain’: A Posthumanist Rethinking of Literary Humanitarianism in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People,” Jennifer Rickel brilliantly explores this topic (2012). For Rickel, Animal’s People is “posthuman” because, in large part, it resists a mode of “literary humanism” that treats the reader’s recognition of others suffering as in itself a resolution to that suffering. Rickel’s reading is especially helpful for thinking about how traumatic testimonies do or do not open up space for political analysis.
- 7.
Although Dow has been associated with a long list of environmental and health fiascos, including the production of Napalm during the Vietnam War, and the continued production of Dursban in India (outlawed as toxic in the United States), Dow’s 2001 acquisition of the Union Carbide Corporation proved especially controversial. Even though Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide, still faced outstanding criminal charges in India, Dow failed to disclose any Bhopal-related liabilities in their filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Sue Breach, a Dow spokesperson, responded to the apparent omission by denying any continued liability whatsoever, asserting “the matter was legally resolved in India with respect to Union Carbide Corporation and its subsidiaries” (Kumar Sen 2000). “Dow’s Indian subsidiary” followed up on this assertion by petitioning “the High Court [in India] … to get a stay on the summons issued against Dow USA,” which, in effect, sheltered Warren Anderson from long-standing criminal charges. As with the civil lawsuit, criminal litigation against Anderson, UCC, and Dow has been stymied, leaving the people of Bhopal without any legal recourse for justice.
- 8.
Jesse Oak Taylor’s essay “Powers of Zero: Aggregation, Negation and the Dimensions of Scale in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People” traces the meaning of Zafar’s concept, “the power of nothing,” from its initial meaning as “having nothing left to lose” to its ultimate meaning as “the power of negation … a weapon in [the struggle for justice] as Zafar … embarks on a hunger strike” (2013: 188). Echoing some of Taylor’s key concepts, I read Zafar’s fast as a moment of transformation or metamorphosis. At a physical level his body undergoes a chemical change that brings him, perhaps only ritualistically, closer to the community he hopes to represent; it is a community that has been defined (at least from the outside) as the negative or abject populace against which “civilized humans” have been historically defined. In this sense, Taylor is quite correct when he argues that “the potential for community resilience … is rendered palpable in the energy that crackles through Animal’s People” (2013: 195).
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Johnston, J.O. (2019). Toxic Bodies: Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People. In: Posthuman Capital and Biotechnology in Contemporary Novels. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26257-0_4
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