Ecocritical Resistance and Environmental Justice in Contemporary Tamil Cinema: A Comparative Study of Jai Bhim (2021) and Asuran (2019)

Abstract: This paper examines the ways through which contemporary Tamil cinema represents ecocritical resistance through the case studies of Jai Bhim (2021), Asuran (2019), exploring the environmental impacts as well as the social impacts of development from the critical lenses of ecocriticism, political ecology, or environmental justice’s theories. Based on these theories, the paper tries to outline the ways through which the films represent nature as a sites-of-discord over the matters of caste politics, indigeneity, and state or through which the films represent land or the forests as the sites through which the narrative develops surrounding the themes related to identity or the politics related to survival or the politics through which the film narratives develop within the frames of resistance. The comparison between forest and agricultural ecologies in the study draws attention to the ways in which environmental injustices occur in varied environments to create similar scenarios of displacement and marginalization. The paper contributes to the study of cinema and the environment because it links Tamil cinema with the global debate on environmental justice and extends ecocritical work on Indian cinema from aesthetic representations to structured stories for action on the environment.

Keywords: Ecocriticism; Tamil Cinema; Environmental Justice; Political Ecology; Caste and Ecology; Development and Displacement