The Ecological Predicament Of The Poor And The Demands Of Environmental Justice

Animal's People is a novel published in 2007 by Indra Sinha.He was born in India and lived in England.The novel is based on a gas leak at the Bhopal chemical plant in India.The novel accuses the crime of the company,which is a transnational one,through the victim's perspective.It aims to expose the imperialist oppression that developed western countries impose on backward areas behind the ecological crisis,and make people pay attention to the oppression and inequality in the relationship between man and the environment.Postcolonial Ecocriticism is a new kind of criticism theory and critical discourse formed on the basis of the long-term debate and dialogue between the post-colonial study and the ecological criticism.It rethinks the relationship between nature,animals and human beings through human development of justice so as to break through the limitation of eccentricity model of ecological criticism and to break the binary opposition of anthropocentrism/biocentralism.On this basis,it wants to achieve global justice in society and environment.This paper discusses the relationship between environment and human existence,environment and justice,environment and history from three aspects.And it expounds the environmental trauma and mental predicament brought by neo-colonialism which is in turn caused by colonial history and capital globalization.It criticizes the concept of environmental community which the western environmental researchers put forward regardless of the reality of the third world and points out that the environmental problems in the third world are ultimately the problems of development.If there is no social and economic development,no support of the local cultureinlocal community,such environmental tragedy will repeat over and over again.This paper also criticizes the author's solution to the environmental living condition of the third world.The author cannot find a way out,therefore he can only depend on the utopian dream and the harmonious unification of the world.This is no use,the crux is that the development of the regional economy cannot be followed blindly.Protecting local environment should take the needs and positions of the local people into consideration,and the active coping mechanism should be constructed from top to bottom.The paper consists of three parts: introduction,main body and conclusion.The introduction includes a brief introduction to Indra Sinha and his work Animal's People,the research status of the novel at home and abroad and the significance and value of the topic.The body part is divided into three chapters.The first chapter is about the relationship between the environmental problems and the plight of human beings.This chapter begins with the analysis of the title of the novel and the name of the hero,and discusses the metaphor behind the name,which implies the people in the city of Khaufpurare living like animals.And then it summarizes the living conditions of the local people from the four aspects of the body,family,society and faith,which fully reveals the plight of them in physical disability,family breakdown,social breakdown,and the loss of faith.The second chapter focuses on discourse expression and the scramble for discourse power in the novel.This chapter discusses the internal logic of environmental problems and Indian colonial history,environmental problems and indigenous consciousness of India.It is from the historical culture that the "animal" and the local people gradually recover from "animals" to "people" based on local discourse and local culture.The third chapter discusses the root of environmental tragedy in the novel,and puts forward the concept of environmental justice.It is the western capital that dominates the world that makes India as a third world country become the victim of environment.Developmentalism is not only the source of environmental problems,but also makes the third world become victim of the western capital again in their path towards modernization.The conclusion part is a summary,which puts forward the ecological humanistic ideas on the environmental issues of the novel,and emphasizes the importance of the natural environment to human beings.We need to develop economy under the premise of protecting the environment.We should also advocate environmental justice,and cannot ignore the living environment of the poor.Only by adhering to the holistic view of ecology and breaking the binary opposition between east and west,man and nature,can we realize the harmony and unity of natural ecology and spiritual ecology.