Eco-caste Migrants in Kerala: A Posthumanist Reading of Veyilmarangal

Introduction: Man, Nature and Malayalam Cinema

Ongoing anthropogenic global warming and the resultant climate changes have been dismantling and displacing life on the earth for the last centuries. People are affected in terms of risk of life, economic dip and sociocultural eviction. The negative aftereffects are endured mostly by vulnerable groups such as women, tribal groups and Dalits (Thomas & Kumar, 2019). This cruel reality exposes and invites us to perceive current climate politics as a social justice issue. Such social issues have always found expression in literary and visual arts. Being one of the most influential media in India, cinema has a great impact in giving voice to such issues on mainstream social platforms.

The film industry in the Indian state of Kerala, where the Malayalam language is widely spoken, is one of the pioneers in addressing climate change through film production, storytelling and education. In its early phase, Malayalam cinema (hereafter MC) had always been dominated by the romantic representation of pastoral green and rural areas, untarred pathways across lush green paddy fields, small-town tea shops and ponds among many others, as the backdrop of many films. These landscapes have often been used as a setting for stories that explore the themes of love, loss and redemption. At times, the beauty and serenity of nature have been contrasted with the violence and chaos of human existence, offering a powerful commentary on the human experience. For instance, the village in Sathyan Anthikad’s films has become a common staple for the family audience in Kerala. Ottapalam and other Valluvanadan landscapes have been the background of many of MT Vasudevan Nair’s film scripts. The banyan trees, laterite walls, ponds, paddy fields and the long-winding Bharathpuzha river have been considered as the embodiment of Kerala’s culture with themes and settings that have elitist and casteist connotations, as depicted in films such as Valsalyam (1993), Pavithram (1994), Thoovalkottaram (1996) and Sallapam (1996). Additionally, the backwaters of Alappuzha and the fields of Kuttanadu have also been popularized as sites that showcase Kerala’s natural beauty, as seen in films like Bhagyadevatha (2009), Champakulam Thachan (1992) and Venicile Vyapari (2011). But the growing thrust on the climate issues and resulting migrations have brought a shift from these idealized notions of nature in the discourse of MC to the wrath of nature on human beings. In the ongoing phase of film production, experimental films and socially relevant topics are also well-received by the audience. Therefore, films representing issues related to the climate crisis and its effects on human beings are gaining momentum in society.

Climate Change, Posthumanism and Malayalam Cinema

Climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’ as, apart from shifting weather patterns and the physical environment, it also manifests in the social, economic, cultural and political fabric (Field et al., 2014). Human beings are significantly affected by the psychological conflict of dislocating from their culture, geography and social identity due to climate issues. The way people develop stronger and deeper connections to a geographic area has been crucial throughout history and across cultures. Although this relationship has significantly waned in contemporary scenarios due to various reasons like modernization, industrialization and globalization, several communities and people who pursue occupations such as farming and fishing for several generations, and tribal people who live in close proximity to land, still derive a sense of belongingness from their geographic surroundings. Over generations, they must have understood what nature is capable of, and by adapting to its ways, they have been able to sustainably exploit the available resources. Through their regular exposure, they have also become aware of various facets of the operational ecosystem so much so that in some cases, their culture and thinking are heavily influenced by their immediate surroundings. As Harold Proshansky explains, this kind of ‘place identity’ incorporates a ‘potpourri of memories, conceptions, interpretations, ideas, and related feelings about a specific physical setting’ in their sociocultural memories and propagates a sense of psychological attachment to the place. As time passes, these become part and parcel of quotidian practices and shape their conception of ‘place’ or ‘home’ (Proshansky et al., 1983, p. 59).

The threat of climate change is directly linked to existing socioeconomic inequalities in numerous ways. These inequalities in the sociopolitical frameworks can be explained with Richard Ryder’s idea of ‘speciesism’. This concept points out the discrimination faced by non-human animals based on their social status as ‘not human’. A similar situation can be found in the hierarchical division in Indian society where Dalits are treated as sub-humans. Speciesism is the human–animal binary where animals are regarded as ‘not-persons’ and humans as ‘not-animals’ (Ryder, 1975, p. 2). Non-human entities, such as animals, exist as parts of humans (selves), cultures and societies (Mcphie & Clarke, 2015), which emphasizes the importance of considering both human and non-human experiences and conditions to analyse the impacts of climate change and subsequent catastrophes.

Both non-human and sub-humans meet at this crossover where unequal status in social, economic, cultural and political spheres pushes them to underprivileged groups in society. This is especially crucial as social and spatial ‘othering’ of both ‘non-human animals and animalized humans’ or sub-human lives has severely impacted their experiences during ecological catastrophe (Howell, 2015, p. 6). They are made more susceptible and defenceless against the adverse effects of climate change. Several intersecting social factors, compounding and overlapping forms of inequalities and discrimination pin them to the landscape with a heightened concern for their safety and survival. Such groups suffer from a double disadvantage when they confront ecological catastrophes.

In addition to the threats, nuances of homesickness experienced by sub-humans/non-humans are widely discussed in recent theoretical movements like posthumanism. Until recently, humanism has posited ‘human’ at the centre, considering themselves as the origin of meaning and history (Whatmore, 2013). This has been problematic in environmental structures as it kept animals, machines and other non-human entities away from the centre. The dominant Cartesian tradition of dualism insists that the essence of the human is cognition, and animals are a mere part of the material world against the world of the mind. Posthumanist scholars attempt to blur the boundary between human and non-human entities by recognizing that human selfhood relies largely on webs of various aspects, including non-living and non-human entities that are ‘networked with each other and with technologies, practices, and disciplines that may cluster and co-constitute them regardless of species designation’ (Wolfe, 2013, pp. 34–35).

As posthumanism upholds the idea that ‘other-than-human resides at the very core of the human (Wolfe & Mitchell, 2003, p. 17), it is highly imperative to analyse the non-human experience in the face of ecological catastrophe. Jane Bennett rightly points out that the contemporary scenario shows intense ‘interaction between human, viral, animal, and technological bodies’ (Bennett, 2010, p. 108), and these newfound connections manifest dramatic landscape transitions due to deluges, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis, among many. They deeply affect both human and animal bodies, consciousness and psyche along with socioeconomic wrecks. As Wolfe argues, posthumanism is a ‘new mode of thought that comes after the cultural repressions and fantasies, the philosophical protocols, and evasions of humanism as a historically specific phenomenon (Wolfe, 2010, pp. xv–xvi). These changes are most specific and are generally ‘derived from particular geographic’ boundaries (Hediger, 2019, p. 7). Realities become conscious and amount to a person’s identity based on individual or collective past. Hence, one’s subjectivity, even if it’s never fully acquired, arrives late, particularly after being displaced from what is conceived as their homeland.

A posthumanist framework of homesickness reflects misalignments between structures of power and personal desires, as well as between social meaning and individual truth (Hediger, 2019, p. xi). Some of the posthumanist theoreticians assert that humans have never quite ‘had a home’, as home is a way of organizing a complex set of ideas, including memory, desire, heritage and more, and it has always been ‘more complex and less scrutable than we tend to admit’ (Hediger, 2019, p. 54). As a predominantly casteist state, the interlink between caste and ecological disasters in Kerala is a problematic condition, and few attempts have been made to shed light on this issue.

To address this gap, insights from the domains of environmental casteism and climate migrants are considered to explain what we call ‘eco-caste migrants’ in this article. The term ‘eco-caste migrants’ signifies the role of caste hierarchy among human and non-human entities during the ecological crisis, with a focus on the experiences of Dalits. The relationship between climate change and MC is a complex and multifaceted one. As discussed in the previous section, MC has often depicted the relationship between man and nature in a romantic way, reflecting the state’s lush green landscapes, serene backwaters and bountiful forests. The people of Kerala have a deep connection with their natural surroundings, and this is often reflected in MC. Many Malayalam films have showcased the beauty and bounty of Kerala’s natural resources. Up until recent times, nature and other non-human entities in a film are confined within the boundaries of the setting of the action, rather than being a crucial aspect of the storyline. However, recently some film directors have attempted to shed light on the darker aspects of nature and the intricate relationship between human and non-human entities. As Chandrasekaharan argues ‘from being a mere prop in songs’, nature has now become a ‘central theme’ in many Malayalam movies (quoted in Nair, 2017). This includes Joshy Mathew’s Black Forest (2012), Jayaraj’s Ottal (2015) and Dr. Biju Damodaran’s Perariyathavar (2015), which are some acclaimed films in this category. Their attempt to explore themes related to the effects of climate change on the environment, wildlife and communities associated with it promotes environmental awareness and sustainability.

Recently, Krishand R K’s directorial film Aavasavyuham: The Arbit Documentation of An Amphibian Hunt (2022) won the Best Film award at the 52nd Kerala State Film Awards this year. Similarly, the 27th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) honoured Utama (2022) directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi with the Suvarna Chakoram for Best Film. The film deals with the dilemma of an elderly Quechua couple during a prolonged drought, whether to resist or be defeated by the environment. An eco-critical approach has not been taken in visual media such as film as much as it is used to analyse different genres of written texts for a long time in Kerala society. However, this newly found ecological consciousness in MC attempts to recognize and promote environmentally-concerned films and raise awareness about climate change among Kerala’s audience, as well as address the plight of victims of climate-induced disasters. When a text is eco-critically examined, factors such as the relationship between humans and the natural world, human reaction to changes in the natural world and the effect of human actions on ecological balance, among many others are taken into consideration. Displacement of a person with an intimate association with a particular landscape can cause deep-seated psychological conflicts, and in other cases, people associate their personal and social identity with the landscape. Hence, any change in the existing condition of the landscape can shatter the connection between the individual and their identity. These individual and communal experiences in the light of the immediate or gradual transformation of the landscape emerge as a resource for navigating human response to climate change-induced disasters (Cruikshank, 2005).

To analyse the predicament of eco-caste migrants, this article adopts a posthumanist theoretical framework to examine Dr. Biju Damodaran’s Veyilamaragal (2020). The article seeks to find parallels between the non-human group and sub-human group hierarchies in society and analyse the intersectional casteism from the vantage point of Kerala society through the representation of eco-caste migrants in the film. It also offers a posthumanist perspective on the conception of ‘home’ among eco-caste migrants and the need to examine it in light of the ecological catastrophe. The kind of homesickness experienced by the eco-caste migrants in the film is not just a nostalgic longing for home. Rather, they are in a liminal state where their identity disappears with the submerging of ‘home’. In this film, apart from the ecological threats, the caste-based geo-social identity bestowed upon eco-caste migrants by society weighs them down. ‘Place identity’, as Harold Proshansky has noted, is a ‘sub-structure of self-identity of the person consisting of broadly conceived cognitions about the physical world in which the individual lives.’ Incorporating posthumanist challenges to the traditional human-centric worldview invites us to acknowledge the agency and interconnectedness of non-human entities. The film recognizes that the boundaries between humans and non-humans are not fixed, and the well-being of humans and non-humans is closely intertwined.

Eco-caste Migrants in Veyilmarangal

Dr. Biju Damodaran’s ‘Veyilmarangal’ is a notable example of a film that highlights the struggles of eco-caste migrants. The movie revolves around a family that had to relocate to an orchard in Himachal Pradesh from a remote island in Kerala due to heavy rainfall and erosion. ‘Veyilmarangal’ is a Malayalam film that explores the struggles of a group of marginalized individuals living on the fringes of society. From a posthuman perspective, the film challenges traditional notion of what it means to be human and how it expands the boundaries of our understandings. One of the central themes of the film is the relationship between humans and nature. The characters are shown living in a world that is defined by the forces of nature, whether it be the scorching heat of the sun or the violent monsoon rains. The film suggests that the distinction between human and non-human is not clear-cut, as both humans and nature are shown to be vulnerable and interconnected. The film also explores the limitations of the human body and the ways in which it can be transformed. The residents of the island had to leave behind their familiar surroundings and adapt to an unfamiliar landscape. They struggle with physical disabilities, illness related to aging age and various ways they adapt to overcome these limitations.

The film’s realistic portrayal of the intersection of Dalits and ecological catastrophes marked a posthumanist turn in Malayalam cinema. This shift involved decentring human characters and focusing on the setting, non-human entities and other elements that lie beyond anthropocentric notions. Representing sub-human categories of people in mainstream films, who were previously excluded from mainstream anthropocentric notions, is also a step towards decentring humans. Dr. Biju’s filmography reflects a ‘dalit-centred narrative’ that focuses on the lives of the dispossessed and marginalized while challenging stereotypes associated with their characterization. The films also touch on various environmental issues and emphasize the collective responsibility of Kerala society to make it a better place to live.

Dr. Biju’s aim is to sensitize people to the disregard for marginalized communities and highlight the importance of nature and the environment. The ecological situation today has a significant impact on human beings, particularly on the marginalized sections of society. The film ‘Veyilmarangal’ weaves together layers of Dalit issues and ecological issues to illustrate the ‘audacity of man in spoiling the decorum that nature’ and the way certain sections of society push less-privileged individuals to the fringes of ecological problems. The intersecting inequalities faced by eco-caste migrants exacerbate their marginalization and impede their ability to adapt to environmental issues.

In addition to depicting the lives of the dispossessed and marginalized, ‘Veyilmarangal’ challenges stereotypes associated with people from marginalized communities. They are often portrayed as wild, loud, angry towards the government system and on the verge of revolt. In this film, both human and non-human entities are silently fighting against ostracization and injustice, placing their plight on an equal pedestal and drawing parallels between their ‘otherness’.

In a particular scene, the residents of the island divert excess water into the backwater to save their island from sinking. This scene depicts the alarming impact of climate change and resulting disasters such as deluge, floods, landslides, etc. It also highlights the struggles of Dalits, who due to their social and economic barriers, are more susceptible to the adverse effects of climate change. The rising water levels accentuate the uncertainty of the residents’ existence, as shown in the subsequent scene where they discuss their anxiety about the possibility of the island being submerged if it rains more. The conversation between the father (played by Indrans) and his neighbours reveals that the government has already declared the threat of the island being submerged, leading most families to leave the place. The remaining few families have to stay there until they receive aid to relocate. They raise a pertinent question, ‘Nammal pine evde pokum?’ (Where will we go?) (Damodaran, 2020).

This attachment to a place is not based on a conventional, romanticized notion of homesickness. Rather, they don’t have the means to move to a safer place. Their economic backwardness and social ostracization play a critical role in pinning them to the sinking island. The family’s economic condition is portrayed in the scene where the house leaks during the rain. The father attempts to control the leakage by keeping a pot under it. In a later scene, instead of collecting water in the pot, the father had to fix the roof himself as the house grew weaker due to heavier rain and began to leak all over. The father conveys his anxiety about losing his job as a construction worker due to frequent rain. There is a connection between his working condition, living condition and social status. His low pay and uncertain job prevent him from affording to move out of the island, and his social status as a Dalit pins him to a low-paid, uncertain job. Therefore, it is evident that his identity as a Dalit has turned him into an eco-caste migrant.

The eco-caste migrants have been marginalized from mainstream society and reduced to a sub-human category by being confined to a particular space. In Kerala, a casteist society, distinctions such as ‘civilized/wild, pure/impure, and human/animal’ are essential in maintaining control over subaltern caste human and non-human lifeforms (Narayanan, 2021, p. 4). The abandoned thurutthu (island) represents both an ostracized geographic space and a symbol of the inhabitants’ sub-human status in the caste hierarchy. The film sheds light on the pervasive isolation of the family across the country. Their backward social status pushed them to remain on an almost submerged island in Kerala, and when they moved to Himachal Pradesh, they were ostracized to a secluded orchard with no access to basic amenities. The eco-caste migrants’ plight is exacerbated by their house/area of residence, as ‘different caste inhabits in a particular location’ (Nibedita Ray-Bennett quoted in Jain, 2019).

The father’s attachment to their previous residence prevents him from considering other options, as he asks his co-worker who suggested migrating to Himachal for better wages, ‘How can we leave our place all of a sudden?’ (Damodaran, 2020). Braidotti (2019, p. 16) notes that restricted notions of humanism, such as ‘what counts as a human’, are one of the keys to understanding how one can take a posthuman turn. The eco-caste migrants’ nostalgia for their previous residence is closely related to the land’s topography. The father asks his wife, ‘We’ve started to forget our backwaters and island, haven’t we?’ (Damodaran, 2020).

Moving from a lowland place to the heights of Himachal Pradesh necessitates a new lifestyle and coping mechanisms to adjust to the hills and snow. The winter was a new yet harsh experience for them, especially due to the lack of immediate assistance resulting from their geographical and social isolation. The landlord’s assistant warns the father not to touch them or invite the landlord to his house due to their caste differences, which is an instance of the practice of untouchability. The landlord becomes furious when the son (Govardhan) tries to snatch the sheep from him as he broke the code of untouchability. The father compares himself and his family to migratory birds that used to visit their island, noting that they come ‘from somewhere, going somewhere else. In between, staying somewhere like this’ (Damodaran, 2020). This illustrates the impermanence in the life of eco-caste migrants and their dwindling possibility to call a particular place their ‘home’ in today’s scenario.

The son brings a stray puppy home, but that night the island gets flooded. While trying to evacuate, his parents prevent him from taking the puppy with them, prioritizing his safety. Unfortunately, the puppy unties itself and runs away, and the father later finds it dead when he returns to the island. This experience leaves him overwhelmed with guilt and grief. He also finds a rooster they raised, which survived the flood by floating on a plank.

The homeless puppy serves as a symbol of the social conditions of the island’s residents. Just as the puppy sought temporary shelter on the island, humans had to seek refuge there, away from the privileged segments of society. In our society, caste is a fundamental determinant of social exclusion and development, and it affects both human and non-human species. As Doniger (2009) notes, segregation based on caste and species involves descent-based oppression. Various animals are symbolic to power, pollution and purity, thereby, denoting people from different classes. For instance, stray dogs are considered traditionally as exploited species, whereas well-bred dogs are kept as pets at home.

The vulnerability of animals depends on their position in human society, and this vulnerability is linked to caste. For example, the Atharva Veda states that certain animal species and certain human castes are politically interconnected based on shared qualities, with cows and Brahmins, horses and Kshatriyas, and dogs and low castes (Doniger, 2009). The film highlights how both human and non-human beings are placed in the lower strata of society, and they are denied their basic rights due to their social identity. This scene in the film reflects the exploitation of non-human creatures and calls for a posthumanist understanding, which recognizes that animals have equal capacities to humans and that seeing, representing and thinking are not exclusively human affairs (Kohn, 2013).

The recent floods and deluge in Kerala have brought to light various incidents, including the poignant death of a puppy. An article on abandoned animals in Firstpost highlights how the floods caused extensive damage, and in situations where human casualties and infrastructure destruction were considered substantial, animals had to vie for safety and priority. Rescuers shared their experiences of animals being denied space on boats and trucks while people were being evacuated to safer grounds (Siva, 2018). Similar incidents occurred across the state during the deluge and flood in two consecutive years. The family’s initial negligence towards the puppy reflects the refusal to accommodate animal lives on the priority list. However, towards the end, they redeem themselves by refusing to abandon a sheep to its fate.

In Himachal Pradesh, the family attaches to a sheep on the submerged island. Sheep symbolize the plight and helplessness of eco-caste migrants, as they are among the most exploited farmed animals in India and elsewhere (Narayanan, 2019, p. 5). The sheep were kept as prey to wild animals, thereby saving the human inhabitants there. The son claims ownership of the sheep towards the end of the film, but the landlord refuses to give it to a Dalit boy. This led to a dispute, and the family was battered for touching the high-caste landlord. The father had to use the gun given to him to protect his family from wild animals, ironically using it to protect them from the ‘attack’ of the landlord. The eco-caste migrants are paralleled with domestic animals, trained within the rules and norms of social hierarchies and caste implications prescribed by their ‘lords’. The landlords battered the son and used derogatory language such as ‘lower caste dog’, paralleling the boy’s social status with the dog’s position in the species hierarchy. Towards the end, the family raises their voice and fights back for their survival, asserting the right of both non-human and sub-human creatures to live with dignity without fear.

According to Mukula Sharma, paradigms of Indian environmentalism often render questions of caste and Dalits invisible (Sharma, 2012). There is ‘caste-blindness’ in contemporary environmental politics, even though Indian environmentalism from the perspective of Dalits has been expressed in various works and movements across the country. The book asserts the need to redefine key categories such as development, modernity, community, livelihood and social movements to change the notion of environment and Dalits from Brahmanical and conservative Indian environmentalism. This urges eco-caste migrants to manage and overcome the aftereffects of climate change through new means.

Conclusion

In light of rising ecological issues, it is imperative to look into the diverse ways through which it affects human beings from different walks of life. In a casteized state like Kerala, ecological issues act as double oppression to the marginalized living beings. Hence, the experience of eco-caste migrants must be brought into the mainstream scenario and climate action needs to take an intersectional approach to ensure that the most marginalized are not left behind. While designing policy and programmes on climate change, it is important not to make assumptions and generalizations. The key to successful climate change adaptation in Kerala’s future depends on the government and media’s capacity to highlight the struggles of an overlooked group of living beings. This can be achieved by transforming film into a powerful tool that brings the marginalized society’s challenges to the forefront of mainstream culture. The director’s posthumanist approach in Veyilmarangal successfully expresses the need to have an unbiased treatment for both sub-human and non-human categories of living beings. This posthumanist reading of the film explains the way the film challenges traditional power structures. The characters in the film are marginalized by society, but they also have agency and power, such as when they come together to resist the destruction of their homes by a powerful developer. The film suggests that power is not solely the domain of the human, but is distributed more widely throughout the world. Such a reading also explores the ways in which the film blurs the boundaries between the human and non-human, expands our understanding of the limitations of the human body and challenges traditional power structures.