Eco-feminism offers a significant theoretical
framework for examining the interconnected relationships among gender, nature,
power, exploitation and resistance. It challenges systems that dominate both
women and the natural environment and draws attention to the ways in which
patriarchal, capitalist, colonial and developmental structures produce
ecological and social inequalities. Indian literature provides a particularly
rich field for such an investigation because questions of environmental
exploitation are frequently connected with caste, class, tribal identity,
displacement, poverty and women's marginalization. The present research paper
comparatively examines the representation of nature, gender and power in
selected works of Mahasweta Devi and Namita Gokhale. The primary texts selected
for the study are Mahasweta Devi's The Right to the Forest and Chotti Munda and
His Arrow, and Namita Gokhale's The Book of Shadows and Things to Leave Behind.
Although the two writers differ considerably in narrative style, geographical
setting and literary concerns, their works reveal the complex ways in which
women and marginalized communities negotiate structures of power. Devi's
fiction foregrounds tribal communities, land alienation, forest rights, state
intervention and resistance, while Gokhale explores women's bodies, memory,
gendered violence, social conventions, identity and the relationship between
individual existence and cultural landscapes. The paper argues that an
eco-feminist reading of these works reveals nature not as a passive backdrop
but as an active cultural, political and ethical presence. The study further
demonstrates that women's oppression and ecological exploitation frequently
emerge from similar structures of control, while resistance becomes a process
of reclaiming land, identity, memory, bodily autonomy and community. The
comparative analysis establishes that Devi and Gokhale contribute to a broader
Indian eco-feminist discourse in which ecological justice and gender justice
are deeply interconnected.
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