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| Photograph by United States Navy |
Introduction:
Dr. Dilip Barad sir's article, "Postcolonial Studies in the Anthropocene: Bridging Perspectives for a Sustainable Future," argues that the pressing realities of the planetary climate crisis demand a critical reevaluation of postcolonial studies. The sheer scale of contemporary environmental degradation requires scholars to move beyond traditional cultural frameworks to examine the ongoing devastation caused by global capitalism and resource extraction. Nila Madhab Panda’s cli-fi thriller The Jengaburu Curse serves as a stark visual testament to these exact themes, depicting the systemic exploitation of Odisha's indigenous Bonda tribe by corporate mining interests. The learning outcomes of this analysis are twofold: first, to illustrate how the visual narrative of the series exposes the ongoing legacy of colonialism through severe environmental degradation, and second, to demonstrate how postcolonial critique remains entirely indispensable in unpacking the persistent dynamics of plunder in the globalized present.
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The Jengaburu Curse Streaming Now|Sony LIV
Theoretical Framework:
The expansion of global capitalism and the ascendancy of transnational corporations have drastically exacerbated exploitative dynamics that were initially set in motion during the colonial era. As highlighted by environmental activist Vandana Shiva, this modern corporate expansion directly correlates with the wanton destruction of ecological diversity and sustainable local cultures. This ongoing exploitation thrives in the shadows of what Rob Nixon terms "spatial amnesia". This concept refers to the prevalent tendency, particularly in the Western world, to forget or intentionally overlook the specific geographies and histories of colonized peoples.
Spatial amnesia functions as a potent mechanism of erasure, silencing indigenous voices and completely removing their lived experiences from mainstream environmental discourse.
It allows global narratives to celebrate "untouched" wilderness or focus solely on futuristic climate models while deliberately ignoring the violence, dispossession, and immediate environmental impact imposed on marginalized territories.
By erasing the historical and geographical context of these territories, the environmental discourse becomes deeply distorted, enabling multinational corporations to despoil land for profit with total impunity. As Barad notes, postcolonial scholars have historically approached purely "green criticism" with suspicion, precisely because it often perpetuates this spatial amnesia by erasing the violent histories of colonization and environmental exploitation. To achieve a sustainable future, environmental studies must bridge this gap by explicitly acknowledging that the contemporary plunder of the earth is inextricably linked to the ongoing disenfranchisement of formerly colonized populations.
Film Application:
The Jengaburu Curse powerfully dramatizes the ongoing realities of ecological destruction within the formally decolonized world. The central conflict where a massive corporate entity, Dutta Mines, illicitly mines the sacred Jengaburu hills perfectly illustrates Karl Marx’s foundational concept of "primitive accumulation". Marx defined this as the violent, historical process of forcibly usurping communal property to concentrate wealth and resources into the hands of the capitalist class.
In the series, the ancestral lands of the Bonda tribe are not simply repurposed; they are violently usurped, dispossessing the local population and transforming independent, self-sustaining communities into marginalized, landless laborers.
Their land, their natural resources, and their very existence become completely commodified by a global capitalist system that fundamentally requires constant, predatory expansion.
This dynamic points to a brutal, contemporary manifestation of "internal colonialism". Even though India is formally a decolonized nation, the exploitative mechanisms of colonialism persist internally, where the state frequently acts in concert with multinational corporations to encroach upon indigenous resources. The Bonda people in the narrative are pushed to the extreme margins of society, facing violent disenfranchisement so that bauxite and other minerals can be extracted to feed international markets.
Just as Rosa Luxemburg argued that capitalism must constantly seek to access and appropriate resources from outside its existing purview often by force, fraud, or oppression the corporate antagonists in The Jengaburu Curse utilize state machinery and physical violence to subjugate the local environment. The series vividly captures how internal colonialism functions: marginalized communities bear the total brunt of ecological collapse, while the financial benefits are siphoned away to urban centers and global conglomerates. As Barad emphasizes, global capital continually encroaches upon "the commons" shared land and resources worldwide perpetuating an unequal system where the violence of the original colonial era is repackaged as neoliberal development.
Global Implications:
The struggles depicted in The Jengaburu Curse are symptomatic of a much larger planetary shift. Dipesh Chakrabarty’s concept of the Anthropocene identifies humans as unprecedented "geological agents" who are profoundly altering the planet's ecosystems and climate. As the crisis accelerates, climate change, refracted directly through global capital, inevitably accentuates the deep logics of inequality that inherently run through the rule of capital. Consequently, marginalized indigenous groups suffer disproportionately, bearing the immediate violence of ecological degradation. However, Chakrabarty offers a sobering caveat regarding this epoch: while capitalism may temporarily benefit the elite, the ultimate crisis of the Anthropocene leaves "no lifeboats" for the rich and privileged. The planetary scale of the disaster ensures that the consequences of environmental collapse will eventually breach the walls of those who profit from it.
Conclusion:
Barad sir's article insists that postcolonial critique remains "indispensable" precisely because colonial logics of extraction have outlived colonial rule, migrating into corporate boardrooms, development ministries, and mining leases. The Jengaburu Curse gives that argument a face and a landscape: a sacred hill turned into a bauxite deposit, a tribe turned into a statistic of "displaced" persons, a father's disappearance turned into evidence of a much larger, older pattern of dispossession. What the series adds to Barad's theoretical account is a reminder that this pattern is still unfolding, not archived history and that resistance, however fragile, persists alongside it in the whistleblowers, activists, and communities who refuse to let the hill be forgotten. If postcolonial studies is to remain, as Ania Loomba insists, "meaningful only in conversation with scholarship and activism across the globe," then popular narratives like Jengaburu are not peripheral to that project but part of the very archive postcolonial ecocriticism needs to read closely attentive to what such stories illuminate about ongoing dispossession, and equally alert to what their thriller conventions risk obscuring.
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References:
- Barad, Dilip. “Postcolonial Studies in the Anthropocene: Bridging Perspectives for a Sustainable Future.” Journal of Higher Education and Research Society, vol. 10, no. 2, Oct. 2022, pp. 201–214. ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376374708.
- Chakrabarty, D. (1992) ‘Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History, Who Speaks for “Indian” Pasts?’, Representations 37, Winter: pp. 1–24.
- Chakrabarty, D. (2009) ‘The Climate of History: Four Theses’, Critical Inquiry 35:2, Winter: pp. 197–222.
- Chakravartty, P. and da Silva, D. F. (2012) ‘Accumulation, Dispossession, and Debt: The Racial Logic of Global Capital
- The Jengaburu Curse. Created by Nila Madhab Panda. Performances by Faria Abdullah, Nassar, and Makrand Deshpande, 2023.
Plunder in the Anthropocene
Postcolonial Ecocriticism & Resource Extraction in the Global South
Modern climate crises cannot be isolated from historical colonial expansion. This infographic bridges Dr. Dilip Barad's seminal research, "Postcolonial Studies in the Anthropocene: Bridging Perspectives for a Sustainable Future," with Nila Madhab Panda's SonyLIV cli-fi thriller, The Jengaburu Curse. Together, they expose how historical colonial exploitation has evolved into internal colonialism and corporate plunder.
Theoretical Foundations of Postcolonial Plunder
Dr. Barad emphasizes that traditional "green criticism" often succumbs to spatial amnesia by ignoring violent histories of colonization. To understand contemporary resource theft, postcolonial ecocriticism weaves together key frameworks from Marx, Nixon, Luxemburg, Shiva, and Chakrabarty.
Ecocritical Intensity Across Key Dimensions
Quantifying theoretical emphasis within the Anthropocene postcolonial framework.
Rob Nixon — Spatial Amnesia & Slow Violence
Geographical ErasureThe tendency of Western environmental discourse to intentionally forget the violent histories and specific geographies of colonized territories. It isolates environmental destruction from systemic historic causes.
Karl Marx — Primitive Accumulation
Violent DispossessionThe ongoing process of forcibly usurping communal property, dispossessing native populations of land, and transforming independent communities into landless wage laborers.
Rosa Luxemburg & Barad — Internal Colonialism
State-Capital NexusPost-colonial state machinery acting in concert with transnational corporations to exploit indigenous frontiers, siphoning wealth to urban centers while burdening marginalized tribes.
Case Study: *The Jengaburu Curse* (SonyLIV)
Nila Madhab Panda's 2023 cli-fi thriller dramatizes the illicit bauxite mining in Odisha's Jengaburu hills. The series renders tangible theoretical concepts, illustrating how corporate entity Dutta Mines usurps the sacred lands of the indigenous Bonda tribe under the banner of modern development.
Indigenous Sacred Valuation vs. Capitalist Extraction
Commodification IndexComparison between traditional ecological resource management by the Bonda tribe versus destructive extraction by Dutta Mines.
Key Cinematic Narrative Elements
- ➔ Sacred Topography turned Commodity: Jengaburu hills transition from spiritual ancestral home to a raw bauxite deposit for international markets.
- ➔ Displacement & Erasure: Bonda tribe members are displaced, systematically marginalized, and turned into disposable laborers.
- ➔ State Collusion: Corporate interests utilize state bureaucracy and physical violence to silence local resistance and activists.
Mechanics of Internal Colonialism & Value Siphoning
Even in decolonized nations, the mechanisms of imperial extraction persist internally. State agencies and global conglomerates form a unified pipeline that extracts natural resources from marginalized peripheries while depositing toxic burdens back onto indigenous populations.
The Internal Colonialism Extraction Pipeline
State machinery grants mining leases on indigenous sacred lands, classifying them as "undeveloped."
Local populations (e.g. Bonda tribe) are violently evicted, severing their historical ecological ties.
Bauxite and minerals are aggressively extracted, converting raw nature into capitalist inventory.
Profits flow to urban centers & corporate boards; ecological collapse & disease remain local.
Disproportionate Stakeholder Outcomes
Visualizing who reaps financial gain versus who bears ecological cost.
Vandana Shiva & Rob Nixon Analysis
As Vandana Shiva highlights, corporate expansion relies on erasing sustainable local cultures to monopolize ecological diversity. The spatial amnesia analyzed by Rob Nixon ensures that urban consumers who benefit from raw minerals remain completely insulated from the physical violence occurring at the extraction frontier.
"Capitalism must constantly seek to access and appropriate resources from outside its existing purview—often by force, fraud, or state-sponsored violence."
Global Implications: "No Lifeboats" in the Anthropocene
Historian Dipesh Chakrabarty reminds us that while global capital disproportionately burdens indigenous communities in the short term, the planetary scale of the Anthropocene ensures that environmental collapse will eventually breach all boundaries. There are ultimately no lifeboats for the privileged.
Historical Trajectory: Capital Encroachment on 'The Commons'
Tracking global capital expansion from colonial origins to Anthropocene tipping points (1850-2040).
Why Postcolonial Critique is Indispensable
Colonial logics of extraction have outlived colonial empires, migrating into modern corporate boardrooms, development ministries, and mining concessions.
Popular narratives like The Jengaburu Curse serve as vital cultural archives—attentive to ongoing dispossession while warning that planetary tipping points will leave no segment of humanity untouched.
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