Remapping Caste, Dalits, and Nature: Socio-Ecological Realism in Bheda

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates the workings of the caste system and its negative impact on Dalit lives and Nature as represented in Akhila Naik’s Bheda. Using the broad approach of ecocriticism, it focuses on ‘environmental casteism’ to assess various dimensions of caste discrimination meted out to the Dalits. It exposes the paradoxical underpinnings of the naturalisation of caste and varna system through which Dalits and various landscapes, water bodies, and forests have been subjugated and appropriated in different times and spaces. The study will also identify the eco-precariousness of Dalits through different casteist, state-backed, ecological, and educational institutions that underwrite casteism, and it also argues for Dalit socio-ecological struggle coupled with Dalit ‘consciousness of kind’. Furthermore, the study not only divulges the Brahmin-Bania duo’s black marketeering that has deprived the Kalahandi district of its rich natural resources but also celebrates Dalit socio-ecological egalitarian approach espoused, particularly, by Laltu, the protagonist.