Ecocritical Awareness: Indian Thought and Praxis

Technological and scientific achievements have enabled us to better understand the world and enhanced our ability to harness natural resources more effectively. Regrettably, our appreciation for Nature has declined simultaneously, in an inversely proportional way with our amplified ability at exploiting the natural surroundings to suit our purposes. At an early stage of development when we were at the mercy of our environment, Human beings must have been more aware and mindful of nature. While it is impossible to entirely turn the clock back and return to pre-modern ways of living, there is an urgent need to learn from those patterns of life and thought. Western paradigms, like in the other fields of literary research, have customarily dominated literary theorising and criticism. Ecocriticial theory too has seen the preponderance of Western thought. The proposed paper will aim to look into Indian ecocritical thought and praxis in an effort to study ecological awareness in India from a decolonial perspective.