ABSTRACT

Indra Sinha's novel Animal's People provides a fictional account of the 1984 Union Carbide toxic gas leak in Bhopal, India. Animal, who is severely injured in the disaster, guides the reader through both the post-apocalyptic social landscape, as well as the community's failed efforts to hold the 'Kampani' accountable for the consequences of the leak. Reading Animal's story through the lens of what I identify as its historical precedent, I trace the continuities between the Union Carbide Corporation and the East India Company in order to reveal in both moments a shared substitution of the corporation for the human. Bringing Animal's People into dialogue with this broader legal history, I argue that the terms of humanity set forth in the British colonial era rationalize the portrait of disposable humanity that Sinha paints. The guiding question of the paper is how does the legal realm shape and guide the imaginative possibilities of the human as represented in literature?

摘要

Indra Sinha 的小说Animal's People虚构了 1984 年在印度博帕尔发生的联合碳化物有毒气体泄漏事件。在灾难中受重伤的动物引导读者了解世界末日后的社会格局，以及社区未能让“Kampani”对泄密后果负责的努力。通过我认为是其历史先例的镜头阅读 Animal 的故事，我追溯了联合碳化物公司和东印度公司之间的连续性，以便在这两个时刻揭示公司对人类的共同替代。带来动物的人在与这一更广泛的法律历史对话中，我认为英国殖民时代提出的人性条款使辛哈所描绘的可支配人性的肖像合理化。本文的指导性问题是法律领域如何塑造和引导文学中所代表的人类的想象可能性？