Ecology and Inequality: Environmental Justice in Arundhati Roy's Nonfiction writings

Abstract Arundhati Roy’s nonfiction, particularly The Greater Common Good (1999) and Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin (2001) offers a penetrating critique of the interlinked crises of ecology and inequality in contemporary India. Written at the cusp of the country’s neoliberal turn, these essays interrogate how large-scale development projects and privatization policies generate ecological devastation while deepening social stratification. Drawing on the conceptual frameworks of environment justice and political ecology, Roy demonstrates how globalization, state-corporate alliances, and technocratic decision-making disproportionately displace Dalits, Adivasis, rural communities, and landless women. These populations, often excluded from compensation or rehabilitation, are compelled to bear the heaviest burden of development, while benefits accrue to the urban-industrial elite and multinational corporations. Central to Roy’s critique is the exposure of the rhetoric of ‘national development’ and he so-called ‘greater common good’. She reveals how such discourses normalize the sacrifice of vulnerable communities, treating their lives and livelihood as expendable in the pursuit of industrial growth and national prestige. By documenting the human costs of displacement, interrogating the erosion of democratic processes, and exposing the commodification of vital resources such as water and electricity, Roy reframes environmental conflicts as struggle over rights, recognition and justice. Her analysis underscores that ecological issues cannot be disentangled from caste, class, and gender hierarchies. In this sense, Roy’s nonfiction exemplifies environmental justice writing, situating ecology not as an abstract concern but as a lived reality of inequality, dispossession, and resistance.