‘Hearts of Darkness’ in Shining India. Maps of Ecological Un-Sustainability in the North-East

Abstract

I: Rossella Ciocca ‘Hearts of Darkness’ in Shining India. Maps of Ecological Un-Sustainability in the North-East A number of recent novels have chosen to variously address the existing conditions of the multi-ethnic mosaic of the Indian North-East. These works of fiction shed light upon a dramatic contemporary condition and propound an alternative historical archive able to perturb the current image of India as a neo-liberal, globalized super power. Indeed, in India’s complex, uneven and contradictory patterns of economic and technological progress, perspectives of development prove highly controversial. In Surface, a novella written in 2005 by Siddhartha Deb, set in the Northeastern region and seemingly modeled upon Conrad’s colonial archetype Heart of Darkness, a post-millennial social community of investors, executives, administrators, traders, politicians, journalists, social workers and rebels, inhabit a very complex, and ‘dark’, territorial reality. Abstract II: Il tema delle controverse prospettive dello sviluppo e della globalizzazione in India sono state recentemente oggetto di attenzione narrativa. In particolare questo articolo analizza il romanzo di Siddhartha Deb del 2005 intitolato Surface che mostra come nel Nord-Est della nazione una nuova generazione di scrittori stia cercando di costruire un contro-archivio in grado di contestare l’immagine dell’India come emergente super-potenza globale. Dando conto di tutte le contraddizioni che il modello neo-liberista di sviluppo sta producendo soprattutto nelle zone più periferiche e multi-etniche del paese, il romanzo di Deb, sulla falsariga del modello conradiano, mette a nudo il cuore oscuro del cosiddetto “India Shining”. A number of recent novels have chosen to variously address Indian economic modernization, conjugating fiction with a new environmentalist sensibility. These works shed light upon a dramatic contemporary condition and shape an alternative historical archive able to perturb the emerging image of India as a globalized super power encapsulated within the 2004 electoral slogan “India Shining”1. Indeed, in India’s complex, uneven and often contradictory route towards economic and technological progress, perspectives of development, conceived under the aegis of global capitalism, prove to be highly controversial. Surface, a 1 The “India Shining” slogan was initially conceived as part of an official national campaign intended to promote India internationally. The expression was subsequently used as an electoral slogan in the campaign for the 2004-2005 national elections by the nationalist right-wing formation Bharatiya Janata Party.