A Gregarious Species Directed by Natasha Raheja, 2023, 10 minutes. Found‐footage video

Unlike Siberian migratory birds, locust swarms do not merely visit or arrive; they do hamla (attack). Through multiple blurry footages purposefully blurring the boundary between arrival and attack, Raheja draws our attention to the multifaceted nature of the locust's coming: It occurs under the cover of night rather than in daylight, targets fields and trees instead of human bodies, and effortlessly breaches the barbed wire fences between two countries. The assault is severe, as it ravages crops and impacts livelihoods, prosperity, and food security. While some endeavor to eradicate locusts using insecticide-spraying drones, and others race through fields with tractors in hopes of driving the insects away, it is the locusts themselves who destroy crops instead of being destroyed, instilling fear about an uncertain future rather than getting scared themselves. What can be done about such uncanny attacks? For many, as depicted in this found-footage video, the apparent solution lies in leveraging the symbolism of invasion to shape public discourse on national security and cross-border threats. At the outset of the video, a voiceover declares, “First they [the swarm] were in India and now in Pakistan,” imbuing subjective significance to the flight of locusts that not only breach the sanctity of human-established borders but also pose a collective menace to these two nation-states, which, in line with their colonial legacy, have largely sought to impose control on the uncontrollable (Bayly, 1999). Consequently, as one news clip implies, the locust becomes synonymous with “destruction,” leaving many in a precarious and perilous position. The theme of vulnerability and devastation exacerbates panic and anxiety, prompting politicians to advocate persuasively and forcefully for their anti-migration policies: “Millions of ghuspaithiya (infiltrators) have sneaked into our country. Like termites, they have eaten into the future of our country. Should we uproot and throw them out or what?” The act of ghuspaith karna (infiltration) differs significantly from simply aana (arriving). It demands a robust response and prompts many to employ their distinct methods of punishing infiltrators on social media. “Tell the truth, what's your sajish (scheme) for coming to India,” a man asks a dead locust in his hand in one of such social media posts. That locust for him is a more-than-human spy who, like Pakistani spy pigeons (Kavesh, 2023, 2024) or Chinese yaks (Mathur, 2019), agentively infiltrates India conspiring to cause greater damage. In a mobile phone video that Raheja includes via a split-screen assembly, such a “motherfucker” locust is explained as bahar ki larki (a symbol of foreign femininity) who must be beheaded to secure the fragile nation-state (c.f. Brown, 2010)—“bitch, how dare you enter India?” Yet another hangs the locust, mimicking the final, gasping words of that dying insect, “I will never return [to India]. I will seek refuge in Saudi, Arab countries, or Pakistan.” Hope symbolizes continuity and prosperity. In the subcontinent, when a woman becomes pregnant, she becomes umeed sy (or embraces hope) for the continuation of her lineage and the promise of abundance. However, what significance does it hold when a female locust becomes umeendwari (hopeful) for new offspring after mating with a male locust? Locusts have the potential to lay thousands of eggs within one square meter, turning their hope (pregnancy) into what a Sindhi educational documentary added by Raheja aptly termed as “umeedan ty pani pheran tan” (hopelessness for farmers). Raheja eloquently illustrates how a more-than-human understanding of hope and desperation drives plant scientists to organize webinars, state officials to implement eradication policies, and television broadcasts to propose insect-combating strategies. The hope of harvesting agricultural products transforms into a hopeless, precarious prospect when a locust swarm devours entire fields in a single night. However, this dynamic of interspecies hope and desperation shifts when the locust itself, the harbinger of despair, becomes a source of that hope. Locusts, as we discover, come in various colors—red, yellow, green, white, and black—yet they all share a common trait: They are halal and can be cooked into protein-rich dishes like locust biryani and locust karahi. “Even though one cannot sacrifice them [in a Muslim ritualistic manner],” one individual instructs in a fuzzy video segment while showcasing a plate of fried locusts alongside a knife and scissors, “Friends, I'll show you how to remove the head. Just grab it and pull like this.” In such an intimate exchange between hope and despair, the crop killer is killed, and the food destroyer is devoured—thus blurring the boundaries between victim and assailant. The transformation of desperation into hope, as Raheja depicts through her careful video editing, does not occur in isolation. It evolves through a systematic shift from a parasitic relationship to a mutualistic one, facilitated by the endorsement of the state. News channels amusingly capture farmers cooking locusts, while state officials, comfortably seated in their air-conditioned offices on leather chairs, recommend city-dwellers to “cook and eat them.” The locust, notorious for consuming crops, is proposed as consumable itself. What is a locust, after all? Much like other significant works in the field of environmental humanities, Raheja's deliberately fuzzy, low-resolution videos draw our attention repeatedly to swarms of locusts filling the sky, flying over houses and farms, and encircling trees and fields (Raheja, 2023). They are an assembled force of nature that cannot be easily subdued. We learn from a man's voiceover that locusts are unstoppable; similar to a passing storm that leaves destruction in its wake, “they will go away on their own.” They are numerous, “in billions upon billions,” prompting many to ponder the cause of their arrival. Described as “the world's most destructive insects” in one video clip, they have the capacity to devour all vegetation in their path. Yet, they also defy control, revealing the shortcomings and limitations of anthropocentrism and exposing the impacts of global climatic crises (UNEP, 2020). They blur borders and boundaries, challenging existing alliances and animosities, and underscore the importance of reimagining our existence within a more-than-human world. The split-screen collage in the closing sequence, followed by the sounds of locusts, serves as a warning that our lives in the Anthropocene are as fragile as those of the other beings with whom we share the planet.