‘Posthuman cosmopolitanism’ for the Anthropocene in India: Urbanism and human-snake relations in the Kali Yuga

Abstract

India’s rapid urbanisation and biodiversity decline together have critical global implications in the Anthropocene. However, the complex socio-religious dimensions of urban biodiversity are overlooked in current planning. This paper casts animals as vital components of urban societies in India to argue for species-inclusive zoöpolises as viable cities of the future. It proposes ‘posthuman cosmopolitanism’ as a planning ethic that extends pluralism to multispecies in the Anthropocene, cognisant of the socio-cultural and religious frames in which animals are enmeshed in India. These narratives have significant implications in the Kali Yuga or the apocalyptic cosmological epoch, which Hindus believe is currently underway. Akin to the Anthropocene, human action bears an exceptional significance in the events of the Kali Yuga, which is believed to be a precursor to human, ecological, and even planetary annihilation. The paper examines human-snake conflict, one of the most widespread human-animal encounters in Indian cities. Snakes play vital roles in urban ecologies and religio-cultural narratives in India. Simultaneously, religious and social perceptions of serpents contribute to a fear of snakes. Fundamental to snake preservation in the Indian urban Anthropocene is an expansion of diversity to ‘multinatural diversity’, and a reconfiguration of human-snake relations in socio-cultural frames.