Spaces of Exploitation and Resistance: A Postcolonial Ecofeminist and Phenomenological Reading of Prayaag Akbar’s Leila

Abstract

Exploring literary representations of our ongoing ecological crisis from an ecofeminist perspective can unravel the role of “human-caused environmental change in the twin oppressions of women and of nature, driven by patriarchal power and ideologies” (Vakoch, 2021). A postcolonial ecofeminist focus recognizes that this twin oppression is “intimately bound up with notions of class, caste, race, colonialism and neo-colonialism” (Kaur, 2012, p. 384). This perspective may offer further invaluable insight. This paper applies a postcolonial ecofeminist and phenomenological approach. It focuses on the interconnectedness of the climate crisis and the exploitation and oppression of nature and women by a patriarchal, totalitarian regime in Prayaag Akbar’s Leila (2017). The dystopian novel follows the protagonist-narrator, Shalini, on her physical and mental journey from a life of privilege to a punitive facility for women called Purity Camp. The story takes her through exploited and heavily polluted slums to the Purity Pyramid and Skydome, which epitomize totalitarian power. Through close reading of Shalini’s phenomenological facticity and actions in these dominated and dominating spaces, this paper will analyze the portrayal of ecological and societal changes, subjugation, and resistance as manifested in the heroine’s embodied and lived experience. It will argue that, while challenging the notion of exploiting nature and women in the name of ‘purity,’ Shalini constructs a self-identity as a feminist ecological citizen in a world that treats her as a slave.