Ecocritical Resistance and Environmental Justice in
Contemporary Tamil Cinema: A Comparative Study of Jai Bhim (2021) and Asuran
(2019)
Soumen Das,
Faculty Member,
School of Media and
Communication,
Adamas University,
Kolkata, West
Bengal.
Abstract: This paper examines the ways through which contemporary
Tamil cinema represents ecocritical resistance through the case studies of Jai
Bhim (2021), Asuran (2019), exploring the environmental impacts as well as the
social impacts of development from the critical lenses of ecocriticism,
political ecology, or environmental justice’s theories. Based on these
theories, the paper tries to outline the ways through which the films represent
nature as a sites-of-discord over the matters of caste politics, indigeneity, and
state or through which the films represent land or the forests as the sites
through which the narrative develops surrounding the themes related to identity
or the politics related to survival or the politics through which the film
narratives develop within the frames of resistance. The comparison between
forest and agricultural ecologies in the study draws attention to the ways in
which environmental injustices occur in varied environments to create similar
scenarios of displacement and marginalization. The paper contributes to the
study of cinema and the environment because it links Tamil cinema with the
global debate on environmental justice and extends ecocritical work on Indian
cinema from aesthetic representations to structured stories for action on the
environment.
Keywords: Ecocriticism; Tamil Cinema; Environmental Justice;
Political Ecology; Caste and Ecology; Development and Displacement
1. Introduction
Ecocritical studies have appeared as a prominent
interdisciplinary area of study that investigates and unpacks a complex
interplay between culture, environment, and power. Ecocritical studies began
with literary criticism and have lately broadened to include media and
cinematic studies, and this was because cinematic studies found cinematic media
to be a very potent platform to reflect and represent anxieties and struggles
around ecology and environment and its ethics and struggles in a social and
political setting (Garrard, 2012; Buell, 2005). Ecocritical studies in
cinematic media include and transcend picturing scenic landscapes to deal with
themes like degradation and developmental and displacement struggles and social
inequality and struggles in contemporary contexts (Rust et. all. 2013). In this
background, cinematic media becomes a site for ideological struggle and
resistance.
While ecocritical scholarship has grown steadily within
Indian film studies, it is unevenly distributed. Most extant ecocritical work
engages with either the landscape aesthetics or the symbolic valuations of
nature, or both-as part of national imaginaries-and privileges Hindi cinema
along with auteur-driven art films (Mukherjee 2018; Prasad 2014). While such
work has been essential in establishing a scholarly domain around Indian
eco-cinema, it has mostly elided South Indian cinemas, and especially Tamil
cinema, through which ecology features not as an abstract or romanticized
category but as a lived, material condition determined by caste, indigeneity,
labour, and state power. Consequently, ecological narratives driven by resistance
from within Tamil cinema remain under theorized within mainstream ecocritical
discourse.
Films like Jai Bhim (2021) and Asuran (2019) highlight
that environmental injustice is structurally produced through development
policies, land dispossession, and institutional violence. These films
articulate ecology as a contested socio-political space where ecological harm
disproportionately affects already marginalized communities, particularly
indigenous and Dalit populations. Drawing on environmental justice theory,
these narratives refract Global South ecological realities, wherein
environmental degradation cannot be delinked from histories of colonialism,
caste hierarchies, and economic marginalization (Nixon 2011; Martínez-Alier
2002). Yet, these dimensions remain marginal in Indian ecocritical film
scholarship.
This paper seeks to fill the gap regarding the absent
consideration of ecocritical insights pertinent to South Indian cinema on the
plane of the intersections of politics, environment, and ecologies, as
understood in the broader contexts of ecocritical studies, by carrying out a
comparative analysis of the two cinematic texts, “Jai Bhim” and “Asuran.” The
paper is calibrated towards the following objectives:
(1) analyzing how ecology is presented as a lived and
contested experience in each film;
(2) to explore the nexus of development, displacement,
caste, and indigeneity; and
(3) exploring types of resistance, whether legal,
collective, or embodied, undertaken against environmental injustices.
Through the framing of Tamil cinema in the larger
discourse of environmental humanities studies, this essay attempts to extend
the reach of the ecocritical discourse in Indian cinema beyond aesthetic
approaches to nature-based narratives into more structurally informed modes of
resistance-based narratives.
2. Review of Literature
The field of ecology and movies has emerged as a topic of
interest for studies to recognize and analyze cinematic interpretations of
nature and human relations with nature. This literature review places the
scholarly work conducted into three broad streams: ecocritical studies and
cinematic works, environmental justice and political ecology studies, and
Indian films and ecologically related content.
a. Ecocriticism and Film: Thus, ecocriticism emerged as an interdisciplinary field
that analysis the relation between culture and natural environment. Early
ecocritical scholarship was centred on literary texts, but scholars like
Lawrence Buell (2005) blew out the discipline to broader cultural forms. He
stated that environmental crises need to be contextualized by cultural
representation. According to Buell, the concept of environment is not just
physical nature, but it shows the lived space formed by human ethics, politics,
and power.
Greg Garrard further systematised ecocriticism in 2012 by
identifying tropes or key thematic parts in ecocriticism: wilderness,
pollution, apocalypse, and dwelling. He underlines the fact that cultural texts
all too often reproduce dominant ideologies of nature and development, hence
their importance as sites of critical intervention. Building on this, film
scholars have contended that cinema possesses a unique aptitude for visualising
ecological relationships based on its sensual and spatial qualities (Rust,
Monani, & Cubitt, 2013).Recent ecocriticism focused on film has evidenced a
sustained swerve from the continually scenic nature to an ecology inherently
political. According to scholars, films represent environmental degradation as
linked to industrialisation, state policies, and capitalist expansion
increasingly (Ivakhiv, 2018). This new turn in studies reframes cinema as a
medium that can expose ecological injustice rather than merely aestheticizing
nature.
b. Environmental Justice and Political Ecology: The theory of environmental justice emphasizes the
inequality in the distribution of environmental damage, which
disproportionately affects marginalized sections of society based on class,
race, caste, and indigeneity (Schlosberg, 2013). In this manner, the objective
of environmental justice is the opposite of mainstream environmentalism
inasmuch as environmental justice emphasizes land, water, and politics as
opposed to conservation.
Political ecology serves to reinforce this paradigm by
studying the influence of the interaction between state and corporate power on
the environment and society (Robbins, 2012). There is also the view that
development leads to the displacement of populations at the expense of the
environment (Martinez-Alier, 2014).In the Indian context, issues related to
environmental injustice are deeply entwined with caste and indigeneity.
Research reveals that Dalit and Adivasi are displaced to a greater extent by
mining, construction of dams, and forest acts (Baviskar, 2018). The Indian government's
approach to environmental management often treats indigenous ways of handling
environment as illegal or unproductive. Thus, environmental justice is a very
significant tool for deconstruction on representations related to land and
displacement in Indian cinema.
c. Indian Cinema and Ecology: The academic engagement with ecology in the context of
Indian cinema is mainly restricted to Hindi and Bengali films. The research
associated with Hindi films takes up issues such as ecological disasters, crises
in the countryside, and displacement due to development (Ghosh, 2016;
Mukherjee, 2020). The Bengali film industry, especially the films of Satyajit
Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, is analyzed for their representation of rivers, famine,
and postcolonial ecological trauma (Bandyopadhyay, 2018).More contemporary work
has begun to examine the ecological ideas within regional cinema studies. This
includes the topic of agricultural crises and sustainability within the
Malayalam cinema tradition (Menon, 2021). Nonetheless, the Tamil tradition of
cinema has been an understudied field within the study of ecocritical cinema.
Current studies addressing Tamil cinema have mainly
explored caste, ideology, or resistance, without addressing environmental
injustice in a thorough manner (Rajangam, 2019). There has been a dearth of
studies acknowledging the connection of Tamil cinema to studies of
environmental injustice and political ecology. This has assumed importance,
since contemporary Tamil cinema has increasingly featured themes like land
rights, displacement from forests, and ecological violence. To fill this void,
this paper attempts to focus on Jai Bhim (2021) and Asuran (2019) as narratives
of environmental injustice, emphasizing the connection of ecology, caste, law,
and resistance.
3. Theoretical Framework
This study integrates ecocriticism with political ecology
into a combined theoretical framework to analyse the representations of
environmental injustice-resistance in Tamil cinema, Jai Bhim (2021) and Asuran
(2019). The integration is deliberate and limited, aiming to avoid conceptual
overload while offering clarity.
Ecocriticism is used as a tool for analyzing ecology as a
construct within cinematic texts. Traditionally speaking, ecocriticism is a
practice wherein eco-critics study nature as a subject of literary and cultural
texts and challenge anthropocentrism-based paradigms of thinking (Buell, 1995;
Garrard, 2012). The study of cinema using ecocriticism allows for a shift from
seeing land and geological features as a backdrop for stories and supports
land, forests, and rivers being agents of cinematic narratives that act to
impact human lives and struggles (Rust, Monani, & Cubitt, 2013). In Jai
Bhim and Asuran, ecology is intertwined with sustainability and survival
themselves. The forests and farmlands are no longer just objects for cinematic
gaze but are lived spaces for marginal communities. The use of ecocriticism
promotes a better interaction among humans and their lived ecology.
However, the scope of ecocriticism is not wide enough to
account for the disparate impact of ecological damage. To address this issue,
the paper now brings in the study of political ecology, which critiques the
interaction between the environment and power relations (Bryant & Bailey, 1997).
The study of political ecology is applicable in the current context of India,
where the impact of development is that of the displacement of native
populations such as Dalits in favor of the more powerful classes (Peet,
Robbins, & Watts, 2011).The integration of ecocriticism and political
ecology also finally enables the study to link ecological representation with
structural power relations. While ecocriticism explains how the land and
ecology are narratively central in the films, political ecology reveals how
law, policing, caste hierarchies, and state authority shape ecological
injustice. This is particularly evident in Jai Bhim, where indigenous forest
practices are criminalised through legal mechanisms, while Asuran exposes how
agrarian land ownership is controlled through caste-based power and violence.
It synthesizes these two frameworks into an analytical
lens particularly focused on ecology as a narrative presence and a political
resource. This integration\ makes the analysis stronger without overstretching
the theoretical claims to promise conceptual coherence and greater analytical
depth.
4. Methodology
The current research work is conducted with a qualitative
research design that is non-empirical and interpretative. A non-empirical
research design is appropriate for research work carried out under the realm of
humanities, such as cinema studies with a focus on cinematic meanings and
interpretations. The non-empirical research design enables a detailed
examination of how films represent ecological stories through cinematic
strategies. In this study, while exploring cinema studies from a non-empirical
This analysis relies upon the textual analysis of the
narrative structure and the mise-en-scene of the motion pictures. It
specifically considers the role of the concept of land and forest in the
context of displacement and resistance. These are the elements of the motion
pictures that are analyzed to see how environmental factors are embedded in the
narratives. It follows a comparative method to locate the points of convergence
and divergence between Jai Bhim (2021) and Asuran (2019), especially in
portraying different ecological spaces-forest and agrarian landscapes-and forms
of resistance. Comparison helps this study to draw together some thematic
concerns that are shared, and yet, simultaneously tracing the narrative
strategies that get differently constructed through social and environmental
contexts.
The films are further contextualized through a reading of
the films situating their narratives within real land, forest, and displacement
conflicts in Tamil Nadu. This really helps to link up cinematic representation
with broader socio-environmental realities without resorting to empirical
data.A textual analysis is appropriate for this research study because this
research technique allows for a close reading of how films as texts represent
concepts of environmental injustice, power, and resistance within culture.
5. Analysis
5.1 Jai Bhim (2021): Forest Ecology, Law, and
Indigenous Resistance
In “Jai Bhim,” instead, it symbolizes a lived, ecological
space, which provides a home to the native population. The relations of the
Irular community with this ecological space have been depicted through the
activities of hunting, gathering, and inhabiting. This has been expressed when
one of the characters says, “This forest is our home; we know every path and
every tree” (translated).The documentary emphasizes the criminalization of
indigenous nature knowledge by the state. Indigenous knowledge is considered
illegal in terms of forest and policing regulations. This is evident in a
statement made by a policeman: “You people live by stealing from the forest.”
This is a practical example of indigenous knowledge being criminalized and
further leading to displacement.
However, Jai Bhim also portrays a legal system that is
both oppressive and liberatory. While there are the oppressive machinery of the
police and the lower bureaucracy, there is also the judiciary, which becomes a
site of resistance. Advocate Chandru says in the series: “The law is not a
weapon of the powerful alone; it is also for those who have lost everything”
(trans.). This is a turning point where law becomes a site to resist
environmental injustice. Notably, it is important to mention the significance
of law as an environmental justice tool. For example, law is applied in courts
beyond protecting people’s individual rights to protecting collective rights
over land, life, and dignity. This makes law, therefore, an important part,
albeit symbolic of the struggle over forests.
5.2 Asuran (2019): Agrarian Ecology, Caste, and
Embodied Resistance
Asuran is strongly embedded in an agricultural ecology
where land is intricately intertwined with survival and dignity. The repeated
utterance by the protagonist, “This land is our life,” highlights how
agricultural land is basic to life itself. The land, crops, and water resources
are depicted as an extension of the body and community. The documentary reveals
environmental Exclusion and Inclusion based on the caste system and portrays
Dalits as people denied access to land and water. The characters in the higher
caste claim not only land but also environmental resources. In an interview
with a feudal landlord, it is said, “This land never belonged to your type,”
establishing a connection between the caste system and nature to define who
gets to occupy and farm the land.
Asuran also criticizes development and feudal land
control. State institutions remain complicit or indifferent while dominant
castes use legal and extra-legal means to consolidate land ownership.
Development appears not as progress but as a continuation of historical
dispossession. Agrarian landscape thus becomes a site where caste power is
materially enforced. Unlike Jai Bhim, resistance in Asuran is primarily
embodied and violent. The protagonist explains, “When law does not protect us,
we have only our bodies to fight with” (translated). Violence here is not
glorified but shown to be the consequence of structural ecological injustice,
where pathways of institutional justice are systematically closed.
Jai Bhim and Asuran, combined, illustrate two different
ways of ecocritical resistance in Tamil Cinema. While Jai Bhim explores the use
of legal mobilization in forest ecology, Asuran explores the use of corporeal
resistance in agricultural ecology. This illustrates that the ecological
struggle in Tamil Nadu is inextricably linked with issues of caste and state
power.
6. Comparative Discussion
Though both cinematic depictions belong to different contexts
and involve distinct approaches toward storytelling, it is evident that there
is a critical intervention against developmental ideologies.
6.1 Forest Ecology and Agrarian Ecology: This is evident in the film "Jai Bhim" as it is
shot in the forests inhabited by the "Senda" tribe. The forests are
shown as an ecological space that is experienced in daily life. The loss of
this ecological space due to displacement brings loss of means of survival. In
Asuran, the agricultural setting of the story means land defines both survival
and social status. Land ownership becomes the definitive quality for economic
security. Disparities in land and water resources trigger ecological conflict. Though
ecological spaces are different in both films, in both, nature has been shown
to be an indispensable part of human life, as opposed to simply a backdrop.
6.2 Legal Resistance and Violent Resistance: In Jai Bhim, resistance is mainly expressed through legal
struggle. The courtroom becomes a site where environmental injustice and
violation of human rights is contested. Law is depicted as having potential use
as an instrument for environmental justice, though it is initially involved in
repression. In contrast, Asuran’s resistance is expressed through physical and
collective violence. The movie illustrates that paths for marginalized people
are closed in institutional spaces and hence violence is a form of resistance
to exclusion. The contrast highlights how different socio-ecological contexts
provoke different forms of resistances among the oppressed.
6.3 Shared Critique of Development Ideology: Both films are critical of "development" as an
ideology that favours economic progress over the sustainable use of natural
resources and the struggle for equity. While in "Jai Bhim" development
is practiced through legal and administrative structures that penalize the
indigenous ways of living in harmony with nature, in "Asuran" it is
associated with the acquisition of land, caste supremacy, and the power of the
state. It is made apparent through the text that growth is not portrayed as an
objective-based or neutral process but rather as one in which displacement,
degradation, and inequity ensue.
6.4 Ecology, Caste, and Power Relations: One of the main similarities between these films is the
concern for the interrelationship of ecology with social hierarchy. In Jai
Bhim, the film underlines the denial of forest rights to the indigenous people
in general through the machinery of law and policing. In Asuran, it is the
domination of the caste over land and natural resources.
In both stories, habitat degradation is mediated through
power structures, which influence whose access to the land, water, and
protection is facilitated. In short, ecologies here are highly politicized and
conflated with caste and power.
6.5 Comparative Summary Table
|
Aspect |
Jai Bhim (2021) |
Asuran (2019) |
|
Ecological Space |
Forest and indigenous habitat |
Agrarian land and rural landscape |
|
Community Focus |
Indigenous tribal groups |
Dalit farming communities |
|
Nature’s Role |
Source of livelihood and identity |
Basis of survival and dignity |
|
Form of Resistance |
Legal and institutional |
Violent and collective |
|
Development Critique |
Law and state control |
Land ownership and caste power |
|
Ecology and Power |
Legal exclusion of indigenous rights |
Caste-based environmental exclusion |
6.6 Synthesis: Jai
Bhim and Asuran, combined, illustrate that issues of environment and justice in
Tamil Cinema take place in varied spaces and are defined by the same power
framework. Both films convey that issues of the environment and issues of caste
and power cannot be distinguished. This critical analysis places Tamil Cinema
as an important body of study in the realm of Indian Cinema, and Environment
Studies.
7. Discussion
Tamil Cinema, as evident in Jai Bhim (2021) and Asuran
(2019), forms a crucial departure in the treatment of environmental justice as
a counter-narrative to the mythical notion of development and progress. Tamil
cinema transpires beyond the boundaries of nature as setting or symbolic
presence and embodies nature as a space wherein the dynamics of power,
inequality, and resistance define its presence. Tamil cinema, in this context,
forms a counter-hegemonic discourse related to nature.
As counter-hegemonic texts, the films critique the
dominant development model that prioritizes economic growth over ecological
sustainability and social equity. Jai Bhim brings to light how legal and
administrative systems criminalize indigenous ecological practices, thereby
legitimizing displacement and environmental exclusion. Asuran shows how
agrarian land and water resources are controlled in caste-based power
structures that have unleashed ecological violence on the marginalised. By
foregrounding such realities, the films contest official discourses that cloak
development as either neutral or benevolent while it is fundamentally
inegalitarian and harmful.
The eco-political struggles depicted in these films also
have a significance that is non-local and therefore universal. Matters such as
indigenous land rights and the displacement of agrarians, environmental racism,
and the use of the state to regulate resources and other such issues are not
confined to the boundaries of Tamil Nadu alone and pertain to the wider Global
South. These films, therefore, also allow for the reading of such conflicts in
their localized manifestation within the wider debates that take place around
the world regarding issues such as environmental justice, sustainability, and
human rights.
Through their engagement with caste, indigeneity, and resistance,
"Jai Bhim" and "Asuran" open up a new way of thinking about
Tamil cinema and its engagement with the field of environmental humanities. In
doing so, it becomes apparent that environmental narratives in cinema are not
restricted to themes related to conservation and climate change but are also
capable of exploring how the social structures, which result in environmental
injustice, can be a focus. Thus, Tamil cinema opens up new avenues for
ecocritical research by becoming a significant field where film studies,
ecology, and social justice are interwoven. In turn, it extends the boundaries
of ecocritical research by exploring political and socially engaged narratives
related to environmental struggle in cinema.
8. Conclusion
This paper has considered Jai Bhim and Asuran as two
prime examples of ecocritical resistance in the recent cinematic traditions of
Tamil cinema. In integrating ecocriticism with political ecology and
environmental justice theory, this paper has revealed how both films dislocate
the symbolic and aesthetic use of nature by prioritizing ecology as a site of
social struggle and political contestation. Neither forests nor agricultural
land are dealt with as background passive contexts; on the contrary, they are
sites of meaning, livelihood, and existence for the marginalized. The study
notes how the degradation of the environment and its displacement in these
movies are interconnected with caste, tribalism, and state power. In Jai Bhim,
legal entry is situated in the context of environmental resistance in the
indigenous forests, and Asuran represents agricultural land struggle where
there is environmental resistance that is the result of caste and corporeal
resistance. Through comparison, the study can demonstrate how different environmental
spaces produce different forms of environmental resistance.
The novelty of this study primarily resides in situating
the study of Tamil cinema in the domain of global discourses on environmental
justice and not in the conventional ecocritical paradigms that are
aesthetically centred on landscape and mainstream Hindi cinema, as found in
most ecocritical discourses on Indian cinema in the past. Future research might
extend this study by conducting comparative research on other South Indian film
industries, namely either Malayalam movies or Kannada movies, which address
issues of development and ecologies in similar ways. Research on ecological
narratives on OTT platforms might throw considerable light on how new media
ecologies are reframing ecological resistance in the Indian context.
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