The Politics of
Vitality: Plead for Animism and Protection of Nature in Select Writings of
Amitav Ghosh
Mrityunjoy Samanta,
Assistant
Professor,
Department of English,
Maharaja Nandakumar
Mahavidyalaya,
Purba Medinipur,
West Bengal, India.
Abstract: Mankind has
wrought havoc on ecological poise in this planet and his avaricious soul has
fizzled out to hearken to her voice. Being quite negligent of the perils
embedded in his actions, he has rendered nature quite dead. The clear division
between nature and culture in modern times has outlived its moral and
epistemological efficiency. The so-called sustainable period of Holocene has
yielded passage to the dreaded archaeological era called the Anthropocene. So to sustain life upon this planet a radical
re-examination of the relation between the human and the non-humans has been
the need of the hour. In a broader sense, two distinct thoughts are there to
usher sustainability of nature- the Westernized view of preservation and the
indigenous view of protection of nature.
The latter concept adheres much to the animistic view of the world of
nature- a view shared by many of the primitive indigenous people across the
globe. Animism is the belief that plants, objects, weather and other natural
objects have a living soul and that there is a power that controls and
organizes the universe. Like human rights, animism pleads for ecological rights
and animal rights. Some writers like Amitava Ghosh, Mamang Dai and some others
in the North East of India, writers on Maori tribes in New Zealand have
expressed their strong faith in animism for the sustainability of nature. As
part of my research in this paper, I am keen on focusing on the literary
representation of animistic faith in some of the texts of Amitava Ghosh (The
Living Mountain, Gun Island, and The Hungry Tide), and thereby promote across
the globe, what Ghosh says, the ‘politics of vitality’ for the protection of
nature- a belief that all living beings have a vital force.
Keywords: animism,
politics of vitality, primitivism, ecology, sustainability.
The geological era called the Holocene, believed to have
started 11700 years back since after the last glacial period, is the most
stable part in Earth’s history that finds the growth of a rich biodiversity in
this planet. The worst part of Holocene, called the Anthropocene, presumably
staring in the 1950s, has witnessed the steady decline in the equilibrium of
that rich bio-diversity of nature. Mankind alone has wrought havoc on the
sanity of nature for his aggression for development, growth of GDP, and a
countless other factors, all contributing to the loss of sustainability of our
habitat. The emission of greenhouse gases causing global warming, burning of
forests and fossil fuels, reckless mining, nuclear explosion, chemical waste,
all substantially add up to the ruin of bio-sphere of this planet. There is no
denying that humankind has identified the potential threats looming large
across the globe. Over the recent years, there is an increasing discussion on
climate change and the loss of planetary bio-diversity. Critics, scholars,
academicians, social scientists, environmentalists, so to say, the
environmental humanists, are all trying different means to cope up with that
challenge. On private and political
levels, sincere efforts are being triggered to create an inclusive, safe,
resilient and sustainable environment. There have emerged multiple discourses
across multiple disciplines, myriad experiments in different territories of the
world, with the view to carving out new perspectives on environmental
humanities. In his article Anthropocene
Time (2018), Dipesh Chakrabarty underscores how “humankind . . . rivals
some of the great forces of Nature in its impact on the functioning of the
Earth system,”(6) and has become “a global geological force in its own right”
(6).
To cope up with the environmental challenges there is no
one “single rational solution” (Chakrabarty, “Postcolonial Studies”13). This is
exactly what Chakrabarty maintains in Postcolonial
Studies and the Challenge of Climate Change (2012): “Precisely because
there is no single rational solution, there is the need to struggle to make our
way in hitherto uncharted ways”. His arguments are indicative of certain
comprehensive interdisciplinary studies across “ontological and non-ontological
modes of existence” (14). Donna J.
Haraway in her enunciation of the “Chthulucene” (2016) sees the possibility of
a revived tie between human and more-than-human entities. In Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the
Anthropocene (2017), Clive Hamilton perceives a kindred potential,
optimistically earmarking humans as a ‘conscious force’: “the future of the
entire planet, including many forms of life, is now contingent on the decisions
of a conscious force” (27). All these,
therefore, necessitate a re-situating of Hamilton’s “conscious force” or
Chakrabarty “struggle” for “hitherto uncharted ways” in “a dynamic,
discipline-crossing field that combines academic scholarship with environmental
activism”(Hubbell and Ryan 127). J. Andrew Hubbell and John C. Ryan refer to
this as “EH” in Introduction to the Environmental
Humanities (2022). To battle against the challenges posed by environment
and bio-diversity of Earth, many means of conscious forces have been suggested
by the environmental humanists. Two basic kinds of conscious forces for
sustainability have been suggested so far- the Westernised view of Preservation
and the indigenous way of Protection. One such “conscious force” of Protection
of nature reminds us of what Amitav Ghosh says, “the politics of vitality”.
Such a belief has its root in the
indigenous cultural belief in animism. In fact, Ghosh's "politics of vitality"
is anticipation for taking a new leap to see how humans interact with the
non-human world, making a shift from colonial mode of seeing nature as inert
resources to recognition of nature's inherent agency and life force. He pleads
for drawing on indigenous wisdom to foster harmony, co-existence, and a shared
planetary fate, particularly relevant against the backdrop of climate crisis.
He also warns against its co-option in the praxis of narrow nationalism or fascism. It is a belief
that is based on the interconnectedness of human struggles with ecological
collapse, demanding solidarity with marginalized peoples and non-human
voices. Of course, such a view was not unknown to
mankind; it was not “unchartered” in the true sense. It existed but not
popularised owing to the impact of other majoritarian principles of
religions. In this research article I
have tried to explore how some of the writers of our contemporary times, have
resorted to the representation and revival of that same spirit of animism
against the backdrop of echo-disaster. Some of the environmentalists and
philosophers in our times have resorted to reclaim the pristine, primitive
cultural narrative of animism for an understanding of the environment that
necessitates conservation, management of its resources, and sustainability. In
this regard, a shift towards animism is to find an alternative means of
heralding a consciousness in the global arena for conservation and sustainability.
Val Plumwood, in this connection is very particular in her opinion. According
to her, the revival of interest for non-human phenomena is part of our survival
strategy. She puts forward the argument that it is emergent in our times to
rethink and hair-split the cultural narratives as we are desperately
confronting the loss of planetary crisis. She recommends “a thorough and open
rethink which has the courage to question our most basic cultural
narratives”
(47).
Such a strand, in fact boils down to the idea that our scientistic paradigm and positivist outlook, our love for
the world of nature seem failing as we have grown a disregard which has led mankind to consider nature as
mere resource for human consumption.
According to this view, many indigenous communities lived in tune with nature
and this harmonious cohabitation was the outcome of their negotiation with the
world outside which they thought was an expansion of their own socio-cultural
spaces.
The word “animism” comes from the Latin word “anima”
meaning ‘breath’, ‘spirit’, or ‘life’. The basic premise of this metaphysical
concept is founded on the belief in a supernatural universe, superficially, on
the conceit of immaterial soul. In simple terms, it holds the idea that nature
has her own spirit or soul. Animistic worldview exists in many of the complex
societies and hierarchical religions. The majority of the world religions are
not animistic, but a few other religions of the tribal peoples, are animistic.
Since the primitive times animism as a religious belief existed among the
hunter gatherers across the globe. It cannot be described under a single
umbrella term-it has its hierarchies and different ontological explanations and
conflicting traditions. In fact, animism is an umbrella term, encompassing a
plethora of conflicting traditions and concepts, whereas the concept of
vitality is a part of that tradition, much relevant in the context of
eco-disaster. The first comprehensive view on animism comes from the Victorian
anthropologist, Sir Edward Brunett Tylor’s work, Primitive Culture (1871).
According to Tylor, animism is the most rudimentary form of religion.
Before the solidification and shaping of a culture in the prehistoric state, in
the stage of evolution of a culture, a tribe needed “a minimum definition of
religion” and found it in “the Belief in Spiritual Beings” (Tylor, Vol.1.383).
According to E. B. Tylor, animists believe that the natural objects like the
rocks, trees and the waterfalls are pervaded by spiritual beings; they consider
nature to be animated. The most common trait of all animistic religions is
their particularism. In Natural History
of Religion (1757) David Hume points to the universal propensity of mankind
“to conceive all beings like themselves” (Vol.1, Sec-iv, 29). Inanimate bodies
are endowed with “invisible powers possessed of sentiment and intelligence” (Hume
42).It is a kind of “mythic personification”(vol.1, 273), says Tylor. Almost
echoing the same tune, Sigmund Freud argues that the animists find a kind of
“analogy of human souls” in animals, plants, and objects in nature (76). In
fact, these writers while deliberating on animism ascribe the natural phenomena
with stray anthropomorphism. In The Golden Bough, James
Frazer refers to animism as “savage dogma” (1900, 171). Rites and
rituals relating to animism are described as “mistaken applications” of basic
principles of anthropomorphism and an analogy between the human world and the
natural world (62). The modernist view, however, championed by the likes of
Hume, Tylor, and Frazer as an unsophisticated, primitive, and superstitious
belief was called into question in the 20th century.
Stewart Guthrie, a modern proponent, suggests that animistic philosophy
requires proper explanation. He goes deep into the matter and tries to
understand why people are so prone to invest personhood or agency to non-human agents.
Guthrie’s stance is that animistic belief is the outcome of an adaptive policy
of survival in the process of evolution.
Animism in the parlance of contemporary post-modern
social science discussion has gained in momentum, causing a renaissance unseen
hitherto. Notable contributors of repute are Philipe Descola, Tim Ingold, Nurit
Bird-David, and Graham Harvey. Nurit Bird-David explains animism in terms of
“relational epistemology” in which the animate and the inanimate are bound by a
social interaction. In this view, the subject-subject relation between the
human and the non-human is of fundamental concern, whereas the naturalists take
it as the subject-object relation. David’s view does not suggest any
metaphysical idea that the non-human agents have souls or spirits. Rather, he
advocates the idea of socialisation. According to David Bird, any particular
tree, for example, is not a person, but by virtue of social interaction or
socialisation, the tree becomes a social being. Philippe Descola explains animism
as a worldview where the animate and the inanimate share a common “interiority”
(soul) but differ only in “exteriority” (physical states). Seen in this light,
humans and the natural objects, for example, differ in exteriority; but they
share common interior states. This is in stark contrast to the naturalistic
worldview that hypothesises the likeness in exteriority and difference in interiority.
As the interiority is common to both humans and non-humans alike, it comes to
the point that non-humans are said to have social features, such as reverence
for kinship rules and ethical conducts. Viveiros de Castro’s radical view
called “perspectivism”, rooted in diverse Amerindian indigenous religions,
poses a challenge to the Western nature/culture divide by suggesting a common
interiority among all. As perspectivism applies only to a limited number of
Amerindian cultures, it cannot be considered an inclusive view of animism.
However, Descola and Viveiros de Castro, both converge to the point of
ascribing interiority to non-humans as well as to non-living agents. Tim Ingold’s idea of animism does not
involve any spirits. He suggests that animism is a lived experience of
listening with heightened sensitivity and responsiveness to an environment that
is always in a state of flux. Seen in this light, it is a stance of being alive
to the world of nature, marked by hypersensitivity and responsiveness, be it in
action or perception. Ingold, in
fact, emphasises the “lived experience” of animism as “the sense of wonder that
comes from riding the crest of the world’s continued birth”. Irving Hallowell’s
explication of animism also focuses on the ontology of social relations. In his
opinion, “the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that
life is always lived in relationship with others” (xi). Such recent
ethnographers and anthropologists have tried to explain the modes in which
indigenous societies accomplished social relations between the human and the
non-human in a process which conspicuously oppose the Western view of social
world. Such an attitude can be considered as the New Animism. In this context,
it is pertinent to note that animists consider some objects of natural world,
for instance, rivers, lakes, trees, mountains, animals and thunderstorms as
non-human agents with whom we can extend social rapport. In this connection, it
is worth mentioning that many animistic believers consider the objects of
natural environment to be non-human relatives or progenitors from whom the
community people descended.
Some of the renowned philosophers like Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno are of the opinion that modern men are estranged from nature for
their naturalistic scientistic attitude and this alienation can be cured by
resorting to animistic mode of living. Martin Buber’s explanation of animism is
worth mentioning. He emphasises the fundamental spiritual nature of what he
calls the “I-Thou” aspect of experience (a subject-subject relation), which can
be contrasted with the “I-It” aspect (a subject-object relation). The
pragmatist philosopher William James uses the very same terms while speaking of
the religious perception of the universe: “The universe is no longer a
mere It to us, but a Thou”
(240).Viewed in this way, the world is made up of a nebulous network of human
and non-human relatives, and maintenance of good relations within it.
Unlike theism, animism down the ages has received
negative recognition. The Christian missionaries are unsympathetic to animistic
worldview. They consider it as a
“primitive superstition”. However, it is a primitive religious credo,
inferior but ancestral to their own. To the intellectuals of the 19th
century already soaked in the ideologies of Darwin’s theory of evolution,
animism is concerned with primitive mind, a stage in the process evolution of
culture. Post-modern thinkers take this view to be founded on an erroneous
premise.
Amitav Ghosh is an environmental humanist. In a number of
his fictional narratives he engages his conscious force to address the issue of
climate crisis and very subtly weaves into the texture of his stories the
animistic worldview that pleads for socialization between the human and the
non-human others. In course of his narratives, in the garb of his stories, he
shows how modern men’s failure in recognizing the social non-human others has
resulted in a disastrous outcome. In The
Living Mountain: A Fable of Our Times (2022), Amitav Ghosh’s fictional
oeuvre very deftly places the idea of animism by positing the mountain,
Mahaparbat as a living force, an animated object of nature. The mountain in the
story can “listen” and the tribal people living in the valley are
interconnected with the spirit of the mountain. The tenor of their life runs
smooth until the Anthropoi (humans) who consider nature as a mere source of
consumption appear to act upon her serenity. Ghosh, in order to drive his point
as a cautionary anecdote tinges his story in the form of a dream. In the fable,
Maansi, in her dream, takes us to a fictitious territory of tribal villages
extending across the valley of streams flowing down from the Great Mountain,
called the Mahaparbat. The dwellers living there receive sustenance from the
natural resources, garnered thriftlessly for ages by the mountain and the
streams flowing from the mountain. Despite differences among the villages, all
of them converged to a point. They-
revered that mountain: our ancestors had told
us that of all the world’s mountains ours was the most alive; that it would
protect us and look after us-but only on condition that we told stories about
it, and sang about it, and danced for it-but always from a distance. For one of
the binding laws of the valley, respected by all our warring villages, was that
we were never, on any account, to set foot on the slopes of the Great Mountain
(Ghosh 7).
The warring villagers never set their foot on the
mountain and maintained a social interaction with it. The old women of the
tribes, called the adepts, danced and could feel and read the life of the mountain.
But the virgin mountain hitherto un-kissed by the footprints of mankind drew
the eyes of the strangers called the Anthropoi. They, with their might and
mien, defeated the villagers and made them servants who had to work from them,
their adepts killed and leaders replaced. They laughed at the beliefs of the
villagers of the sacredness of the mountain. They thought: “all ignorant, pagan
superstition… All mountains were the same, they could all be climbed if only the
climbers were strong” (Ghosh 26).The climbing and digging the mountain started
for the consumption of resources. For years the plundering of the natural
resources continued and now the villagers, particularly, the fovourites of the
strangers, also started climbing and finally all the villagers joined them in
great numbers. There was now no difference between the strangers and the
villagers. In their bid to climb up the mountain, they forgot all limits and
one day what happened, a huge iceberg slid down the slope from the bottom of
the mountain sweeping several villages in the foothills claiming a huge toll of
lives. Still the climbing continued. The Anthropoi were much ahead and the
Varvaroi (villagers) following them up. But the climbing is now an addiction,
more speedy than before. The late climbers ultimately came to a point where the
early climbers halted and thought it not right to climb up more. Suddenly they
felt another shock from the mountain as if it is revolting against the
advancement of the illegal invaders into her sacrosanct pulpit. Despairing,
with their hearts in hands, they came down and found to believe to have some
kind of truth in the words of the Varvaroi and their Adepts, as the savants
started saying- “there was some wisdom in your belief after all” (Ghosh 34).
Savants of the Anthropoi condescended, “You were right! The mountain is alive!
We can feel its heartbeat under our feet. This means we must look after the
poor, dear mountain; we must tend to it, we must care for it.” (35). Ghosh’s
story therefore places the mountain as a living presence; it is not merely a
rock, it is sentient entity and the local villagers have their old stories,
songs and dances to honour the mountain with their traditional ecological
wisdom. The Anthropoi, having their ingrained belief in extractivism and nature
as a source for profit and consumption, commit an epistemic violence by
dismissing the indigenous belief in animism as pagan and as a result inviting
dangers upon themselves. The denouement is very important where the Anthropoi
realises their great mistake and seek the Adept to learn the old ways urging humanity to rediscover animistic principles for survival in
the face of climate crisis. Ghosh
ultimately advocates a revival of the profound, spiritual connection to the
non-human world that indigenous cultures once emphasized.
Ghosh’s novel, The
Hungry Tide (2004), through the indigenous myth of Bon Bibi, recognizes the
existence of non-human agency challenging the anthropocentric Western worldview
that leads to the rampant exploitation of nature. The fiction brings side by
side the indigenous experience of Fokir, a local fisherman and the scientific
approach of a marine biologist, Priya. Fokir and the local people consider the
Sundarbans as a living entity, much to the contradiction of Western knowledge
of ecology. Priya’s psychological journey from a scientific frame of mind to a
relational understanding of environment is worth noticing. Ghosh seems to
establish the idea that nature is not a passive force for humanity. Bon Bibi,
the forest deity who protects the local people from the tiger god, is a
powerful spirit, an agency cherished in animistic philosophy. The
other non-human entities like the Irrawaddy dolphins, the mangrove forests, and
the powerful tidal currents are depicted as active agents with their own
existence and emotional depths. Nature is a force that doesn't "bend to
natural, will" but possesses a wild, untamable quality that humans must
learn to respect and cohabit with, rather than control. Through its use of
animism and myth, the novel critiques the human/nature dualism prevalent in
Western thought. Ghosh argues for reconciliation with nature, suggesting that
true ecological awareness must bridge the gap between human societies and the
natural world, acknowledging their profound interdependence. In essence,
animism in The Hungry Tide (2004) is a literary and philosophical
tool used to challenge conventional environmentalism and promote an ethics of
care and responsibility towards the planet, rooted in ancient and indigenous
wisdom. Ghosh’s Gun Island (2019) exploits
the myth of the snake goddess Manasa Devi to embody the environmental and
migration crises of our times. The fictional narrative concerns the old legend
of the Bonduki Sadagar (Gun Merchant), an affluent tradesman who incurs the
displeasure of Manasa Devi, the deity of snakes and fertility as he refused to
worship her for his pride and for material gain. She brings natural calamities
and sets snakes upon him and drives him away into a long journey across the bay
to elude her anger. Ghosh here challenges the secular, rational worldview of
the protagonist, Deen Datta, by presenting a world where animals and nature
exhibit mysterious and powerful agency. The presence of the poisonous
snake, a king cobra, in the Sundarbans, and a yellow-bellied sea snake in Los
Angeles, represent “uncanny" events that defy easy scientific explanation
and are linked to Manasa Devi's influence and the changing environment.
Ultimately, through its animistic elements, Gun Island argues
for a renewed sense of reverence,
humility, and responsibility toward the nonhuman world, suggesting
that survival depends on recognizing the interconnectedness of all life.
Nature was created out of a cosmic force; she has her own
constitution and the abiding laws. She has her mountains, rivers, trees, the
groves and the treasure troves in her bosom. As part of creation, she has both
the human and the non-human agents. The seeds of human life have grown in
accordance to the same laws of nature. But human agents alone, in desperate
disregard of the laws of nature, defile the sacredness of the space where he
lives and breathes. For his aggression for comfort and delusory development he
tries to tame nature, despoil her serenity. But who are we to tame it, shape
and distort it? Are we as strong as to change her course? We are only a little
bit tiny creatures, ever failing to discover her infinite variety and depth. If
life in this planet is to be sustained, we must pay meet adoration to the
subtle forms of nature. Animism is an indigenous way of paying respect to the
natural, inanimate objects. Whether those objects are endowed with souls or
spirits may be an issue of investigation to an inquisitive mind, but it is not
everything. We would lead ourselves astray if the non-biological agencies are
exploited for our ends. In fact, the biological and the non-biological
phenomena are interdependent. Without the non-biological phenomena nothing can
exist. So, it is not important to hair-split whether animistic philosophy has
some factual ground on not, whether the natural objects have souls or not. If
our sole motif is to save the serenity of the natural world, any philosophy
satisfying our objective might be welcome and in that case the gain is always
greater, and the price we have to pay against the backdrop of climate crisis is
less. Otherwise, the price to be paid for our irreverence is high.
Different modes endeavours are being tried to do proper justice with
environment. So, there is no harm, if we if we have our reverence to different
dimension of animism. The gain in that case is greater, with no loss as a
consequence. Let our belief in animism enjoy its heyday and the human and
no-human agents live long being interconnected ushering a sustainable nature
that remains protected. If the non-human agents are protected, the living
beings are also protected.
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