Disabling/ Debilitating Environment: A Biopolitical Reading of Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People
Keywords:
disability; debilitation; biopolitical; desirability, expendabilityAbstract
Departing from the medical and social models of theorizing disability, in this paper I attempt to pursue and explicate a geopolitical model of disability, based on critically examining the interconnected role of various social institutions in creating and perpetuating disabling/ debilitating circumstances that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. For my research, I critically approach the novel Animal’s People by Indra Sinha for its historically relevant plot, which brings into question the collective amnesia of official memory, surrounding the events of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak. Through the course of my essay, I also complicate the unquestionable virtuosity granted to the human species, by unfolding the processes of slow violence generated by human institutions, multiple incidents of which are scattered across the novel. Finally, I examine the intersection of debilitation, disability and desirability, and its correlation to the biopolitical logic of devaluing certain bodies over others.
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