The Planetary Subaltern On Indian History, Theory, and Texts in the Anthropocene

Contributors

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Theorising the Planetary Subaltern

Somasree Sarkar and Agnibha Maity

Part I: Planetary Crises and the Subaltern Subjects

1.   Protests against the Farm Laws: The Political Ecology of the Green Revolution and the Limits of Agrarian Populism

Aniket Aga

2. Subaltern Climate, Climate Subaltern

 Kaushani Mondal

3. The Gendered Subaltern and the Plachimada Struggle: Examining Capitalist Exploitation and Indigenous Women’s Resistance in Mayilamma: The Life of a Tribal Eco-Warrior

Somasree Sarkar and Agnibha Maity

4. Can The Subaltern Alternate?: Exploring Planetarity as Radical Alterity in The Netflix Docuseries The Hunt for Veerappan

Subhayu Bhattacharjee and Sinor Lama

5. The Subaltern in the Anthropocene: The Case of the Jarawas in The Last Wave

Sangeetha Balakrishnan

Part II: The Planetary Subaltern and Narratives

6. Travails of Modernity and The Planetary Subaltern in Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain and Anuradha Sharma Pujari’s The Forest Wails

Debajyoti Biswas, Jayashree Haloi, and Rustam Brahma

7. Preparing the Earth: Diasporic Bildung and Planetary Ethics in K.S. Maniam’s In a Far Country

Devin Choudhury

8. Environmental Reproductive Justice in the Anthropocene: Narrating Subaltern Experiences from India

Angela Sebastian

9. Anthropocene and the Deranged Others: Situating Planetary Subalterns in Literary Representations from Northeast India

Paddaja Roy

10. Of Rivers, Roots, and Resilience: Reflections of Subaltern Voices in Select Bengali River-Writing

 Rajanya Ganguly

11. The Capitalocene, the Displaced Other, and Subaltern Environmentalism in Nila Madhab Panda’s The Jengaburu Curse (2023)

Rit Chattapadhyay

12. Fairies, Mountains, and the Anthropos: Exploring Strategies of Narrativising Nature in the Anthropocene

Anusmita Mukherjee

Index

Biography

Somasree Sarkar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Ghoshpukur College, University of North Bengal, India. She has completed her PhD in the Department of English, University of North Bengal, India. Her areas of research interest include Environmental Humanities, Climate Fiction, Subaltern Studies and South Asian Literature. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Gender Studies, South Asian Review, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, and Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. She has also contributed chapters to several edited volumes published by internationally renowned publishing houses.

Agnibha Maity is a faculty member of English at Surya Sen Mahavidyalaya, Siliguri, and a PhD candidate at the Department of English, University of North Bengal, India. Previously, he served as a UGC Senior Research Fellow at the University of North Bengal. He obtained his M.A. and B.A. from the University of Calcutta. His research interests include Subaltern Studies, Planetary Studies, and Ecopoetics. 

"When concepts - planetary, text-theory, history and Anthropocene - cluster together a certain critical capital is expectantly built. The book is no exception in that it cultivates a section of readers and a form of thinking to go with this swarm of thoughts. However, the spark and swerve come with a distinct critical quotient as revealed through ‘planetary subaltern.’ The experience adds further distinction in sweeping the focus on India and how planetarity and subalternism combine their conceptual bite into a consolidated experience of admirable scholarship, and experiences of insight, intrigue and innovation. The book is an invitation to read as much as a challenge to face; an engagement worth one’s studious indulgence." 

- Ranjan Ghosh, Author of The Plastic Turn and Plastic Tagore

 

"The Planetary Subaltern is a provocative intervention that brings postcolonial insight, ecological critique, and subaltern narratives into dynamic conversation, redefining the Anthropocene from India’s margins. This bold manifesto for planetary justice expands subalternity to rivers, animals, and “multibeing” communities, amplifying human and non-human voices of survival, resistance, and resilience amid climate precarity. Urgent and original, this landmark in subaltern ecologies is essential reading for reimagining justice, agency, and futurity beyond the global North."

- Ewa Domańska, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland