Abstract
In this article I attempt to show the Ao-Nagas’ experience of living in the hills under pre-industrial and industrial systems as represented in the poems of Temsula Ao, an award-winning poet from Nagaland, India. Ao represents the pre-industrial cultural landscape as peaceful, simple, and harmonious and uses the devices of idealization, nostalgia, and return and retreat, and represents the industrial cultural landscape as discordant and as constituting a struggle for survival. I argue that the powerful critical tool of post-pastoral reveals the dynamic ecopoetics in Ao’s poems.
Temsula Ao is a poet from Nagaland, 1 India. Her poems reflect environmentalist thinking that leads to ecologically sustainable living. She is also the author of two short story collections These Hills Called Home (2006) and Laburnum for My Head (2009), and the latter collection received the highest Indian literary honour, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013. She is a retired Professor of English at North Eastern Hill University. As a Fulbright Fellow she visited the University of Minnesota (1985–86) where she became aware of the predicaments of indigenous cultures, and on her return she produced a study on her community, The Ao-Naga Oral Tradition (1999). For her contribution to Literature and Education, Ao was conferred the prestigious civilian award Padma Shri in 2007 by the Government of India.
Her poems are widely anthologized and taught at university level. In most of her poems, she depicts the cultural relationship of her community with the physical environment at different stages of the community’s social formation. The lyric poems “Lament for Earth” included in Songs that Tell (1988), “My Hills” included in Songs of Many Moods (1995), and “The Bald Giant” included in Songs from Here and There (2003) deal exclusively with the relationship of the Ao-Nagas with the Naga Hills, as we shall see in this article, and I call these poems hill-poems. Rather than taking up the poetic gamut of Ao, I focus on Ao’s hill-poems since these poems address exclusively the Ao-Nagas’ existential question and capture the cultural function of the hills as the Ao-Naga indigenous social system shifts from agrarian to industrial. This shift has brought about manifold changes and generated acute tensions. The hills stand as the symbol of communal identity and I refer to the centrality of the hills in Ao-Naga discourses, history, and cultural productions as topolectics. 2 In the hill-poems, Ao engages with the Ao-Nagas’ everyday negotiation between traditional and industrial social relations with the hills, and the present condition, when rural and urban and past and present values, ideas, metaphors, beliefs, and practices clash, which can be read from the perspective of post-pastoral. Post-pastoral is a challenging reworking of the pastoral and the antipastoral; it rejects anthropocentrism and offers the possibility for ecologically and geographically informed conceptualizations of interconnections in a world of complex relations, and seeks environmental and social justice.
The possibilities of post-pastoral representation
Pastoral as a “contested term” (Loughrey, 1984: 8) has distinct “historical shifts in meaning” (Gifford, 2014: 17). It refers to the Idylls of Theocritus and Eclogues of Virgil and in the broader sense to any text that idealizes simplicity and harmony with nature. Terry Gifford describes the broader use of pastoral as “an area of content” which refers to “any literature that describes the country with an implicit or explicit contrast to the urban” (1999: 2). Contrary to the pastoral, the anti-pastoral explicitly depicts the complexities of urban life as “a bleak battle for survival” and is intended to be a “corrective in a dialectical relationship with the pastoral” (Gifford, 1999: 120). However, in the era of global capitalism, the abstract generic division between pastoral and anti-pastoral needs proactive revision; post-pastoral is deeply informed by the specificities of both the genres in a new intellectual and critical development.
With the globalization of capitalism, both rural and urban life has become extremely complex since unprecedented global processes affect local lives and environments and break down cultural specificities. The ideologies of development have promoted a culture of consumption which is environmentally unsustainable and invariably marginalizes humans and human welfare (Dirlik, 2012: 11). However, the “fetishization of development” (Dirlik, 2012) is viewed as only human development, and such development can be achieved, argues the renowned economist Amartya Sen, if only we can remove the “major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states” (1999: 3). According to Sen, development means “economic growth”, which fosters “the expansion of human capability to lead more worthwhile and more free lives” (1999: 295). Such a humanistic or anthropocentric concept of development “pays absolutely no attention”, de Rivero argues, “to social and environmental considerations, and expects everyone to submit passively to this” (2010: 74). Post-pastoral, drawing on the ecological philosophy of interconnection and interrelationship, challenges the humanistic concept of development, taking into consideration the “combined” understanding of “the economic/political and the environmental in the contours of the historical condition of uneven development” (Mukherjee, 2010: 22).
Rob Nixon attempts an investigation of the interface between the memories of colonial violence and the peaceful visions of pastoralism to expose the hidden structures of violence, which he calls slow violence: “a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all” (Nixon, 2011: 2). According to Nixon, postcolonial pastoral “refracts an idealized nature through memories of environmental and cultural degradation in the colonies” (2011: 245). Central to Nixon’s postcolonial pastoral is the colonized subject’s experience of spatial dislocation, which exposes the irony of inhabitation. He points out, taking V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival (1988) as one of the examples, a colonized subject’s dual experiences of the pastoral and the anti-pastoral: the English Wiltshire natural world of calmness is set against the colonial violence of the Trinidadian sugar plantation. The contrasted environmental reality is a revelation about the location of the colonized subject, who never experiences ecological wholeness and invariably struggles for reconciliation with the two realities. Nixon calls the two encounters with two different natural worlds environmental double-consciousness, which through the animation of certain binary oppositions, such as harmony/discord, simplicity/complexity, peace/violence, tranquility/anxiety, unsettles stability and foregrounds the irony of inhabitation. The problems that the postcolonial pastoral engages with that Nixon highlights are: spatial dislocation, irony of inhabitation, ecological dissociation, and struggle for reconciliation. However, postcolonial pastoral is not particularly accomplished, since it inherits the anthropocentric bias of traditional pastoral, neglecting the significance of the place of human inhabitation where living beings coexist with other nonliving objects, and it barely suggests any way out of the problems. More so, the possibilities of pastoral representation of postcolonial experiences become doubtful, especially when we take into consideration the major disagreements between the issues addressed by pastoral and postcolonialism.
Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin have succinctly pointed out three major disagreements between pastoral and postcolonialism: first, as William Empson in Some Versions of Pastoral (1935/1968) and Raymond Williams in The Country and the City (1973) have argued, through this literary mode, directly or indirectly, “bourgeois ideology” is articulated; second, it is unable to face “social injustice” and is hardly capable of bringing out “active transformation of established social structures;” third, since it is “predominantly European in sensibility and form” and “value-system”, the stylistic conventions can hardly be “mapped onto non-European landscapes” (2010: 83–84). These problematic aspects do not conform to the revolutionary and transformative aspirations of postcolonialism. Nevertheless, postcolonial writers have appropriated the colonizer’s genre. Huggan and Tiffin have attempted to address the attraction of pastoral for postcolonial writers. First, pastoral has “a utopian dimension” which inspires writers to search for “alternative, more socially and environmentally conscious visions of the world”; and second, it serves to demonstrate “the tension between ownership and belonging in a variety of colonial and postcolonial contexts” (2010: 84–5). However, the inherent tension in pastoral — the suppression of violence that makes the pastoral peace possible and the tendency to escape from the histories of violence — makes it “a spectral form” (Huggan and Tiffin, 2010: 85).
Perceiving the problems with traditional pastoral, Gifford argues, “[p]ostcolonialism needs a post-pastoral theory of ecopoetics” (2010). He coins the term post-pastoral as a critical tool to go beyond the limitations of conventional pastoral — “the closed-circuit of idealized pastoral and its anti-pastoral corrective” (2014: 26) — while being in the pastoral tradition. He argues that post-pastoral is “more about connection than the disconnections essential to the pastoral” (2014: 26). He considers the “post” as not temporal but conceptual (2010; 2014: 26). Gifford tentatively identifies six questions that are fundamental to post-pastoral texts; I will add that these six questions are initiations of reflection. He suggests that all the six elements might not be present in a single text, but the presence of any one element would suggest departure from the traditional pastoral: first, the consideration of respect for nature or “awe in attention to the natural world”; second, the natural process of creation and destruction; third, the relationship between inner human nature and external nature; fourth, an awareness of the cultural discourses of nature and embracing of natural processes as integral parts of culture; fifth, a conviction for responsible ecological relationship; sixth, the realization that environmental exploitation emerges from the same mind-set that generates social exploitation (1999: 150–65). Martin Ryle rejects the first element of post-pastoral on the grounds that it “implies that post-pastoral texts must include memorable descriptions and evocations of nature” (2009: 16). Ryle fails to observe that Gifford’s point is not just about the inclusion of such environmentally sublime passages in a text but rather the exploration of the cultural, historical, and environmental contexts of such passages. Moreover, I argue, “awe” can be found not just in “nature writing” but also in “good eco-politically savvy fiction” (Ryle, 2009: 16).
I argue that it is not enough to have revelation or “awe”; we need to consider the contexts and conditions that inspire “awe” since awe has a distinct cultural function in the appreciation of nature. The recognition of “a creative-destructive universe” (Gifford, 1999: 153) and that “the inner is also the workings of the outer” (Gifford, 1999: 156) is a simplistic romanticization of nature that barely overcomes the limitations of pastoral idealization if one is not aware of the ecological processes of one’s place of inhabitation and is not emotionally related to the environment. Such awareness can improve the bioregional relationship with nature and promote social responsibility for sustainable living. The relationship between nature and culture is a significant, and perhaps the most difficult, area of investigation, but it should be kept in mind that relationships constantly evolve and mutate under certain conditions and such understanding will expose the forces that exploit nature. For cultures with experiences of colonization, Gifford (2010) considers the necessity for the reconsideration of the relationship between culture and nature and of the subversion of the ideologies that facilitated colonial exploitations of both nature and people. He proposes to identify the distinctive aspects of culture and of nature and to search for the values and relationships necessary for the cultural inhabitation of a place. Post-pastoral opens up the scope for analysing the diverse environmental experiences under pre-industrial and industrial social systems, and the environmental philosophies of not only Western but also non-Western and indigenous peoples. Post-pastoral rejects “the universal myth of Arcadia” (Marinelli, 1971: 5) and overcomes the anthropocentric bias of conventional pastoral by embracing a more-than-human worldview which highlights the complex ecological and geographical relationships to the physical environment.
Post-pastoral ecopoetics in the hill-poems
Ao’s post-pastoral engagement concerns an innovative representational technique of blending pastoral vision and anti-pastoral realism. She combines the device of idealization, nostalgia, and return and retreat of traditional pastoral with the dangerous human potential for destruction of anti-pastoral. The “dialectical experience” (Gifford, 1999: 174) renews her capacity for reimagining and reinscribing identity, which is in ineluctable relation with the Naga Hills. Ao’s post-pastoral engenders reverence for nature, recognition of the creative–destructive process of nature, personal relationship with external nature, realization of environmental exploitation, and responsibility for ecological relationship.
To the Ao-Nagas, the hill is the attribute of place and the context of several myths and folktales of the Ao-Naga oral tradition. In several local dialects the word “ao” means the dwellers of hills or mountains (Imchen, 1993: 20), and hence the Naga Hills, the place where the Ao-Nagas dwell, are determinate signifiers of singular cohesive identity and cultural specificity, evoking memories of a common past. Moreover, the hills and the physical environment around the habitat of the Ao-Nagas are integral to the traditional Ao-Naga myths and folktales, rites and rituals, and the discourses of the oral tradition influence the Ao-Nagas’ sense of place. The Tsüngrem Lijaba, the oral tradition says, is the creator of the earth and everything that exists upon it (Imchen, 1993: 32–4). Lijaba’s close associates are Tekong Tsüngrem (mountain or hill god), Arem Tsüngrem (forest god), Ayong Tsüngrem (river god), and numerous other Tsüngrems. To the Ao-Nagas, hills, forests, rivers, and other objects of nature, are totems. Since Lijaba is the most important supernatural power, the worship of Lijaba, Tsüngrem Mong, an agricultural ceremony, is the most important, and all the procedures for this worship are strictly observed to invoke Lijaba’s blessings for good agricultural yield (Imchen, 1993: 55–6). Agriculture is the primary means of sustenance for the Ao-Nagas and they collect the necessities from the hills, rivers, and forests. The belief system and subsistence pattern evince the integrality of the hills in Ao-Naga lifeworld.
The Ao-Nagas’ subsistence pattern has undergone radical changes since development initiatives were undertaken. In the colonial period Northeast India experienced excessive logging for revenue generation (Chatterjee et al., 2006: 12). Development as a means of improving the socio-economic and living standard of the tribes was adopted in the post-Independence period; but unfortunately, the economically and politically dominant sections of society neglected sustainable means of development, and the economic development of marginalized peoples has been strangled to underdevelopment (Hussain, 2008: 15–22). In Ethnic Life-Worlds in North-East India, Prasenjit Biswas and Chandan Suklabaidya observe that in the tribal lifeworld the physical environment has a distinct cultural function and it helps sustain their traditional “livelihood practices”; however, the destruction of the physical environment through developmental projects has terminally threatened tribal cultures and their means of livelihood (2008: 18).
The shift from agricultural to technologically advanced industrialized society brought about new sets of values that counter the traditional ones. So, development has deconstructed the determinacy of the traditional signification of the hill. The Ao-Nagas negotiate with the indeterminate significations through retreat into the past to search for a traditional mythical origin and return to the present to interrogate the contemporary significance of the myths of place. This tension-ridden condition exposes a crisis in the relationship, a disconnection and estrangement from the hills which have been a fixed site, a symbol of a stable relationship: “I no longer know my hills” (Ao, 1995: 49).
Grieve for the rape of an earth That was once verdant, vibrant Virgin. (Ao, 1988: 47)
This elegiac stanza directly articulates in an urgent tone the social problems which form the justifications for the pastoral sources. The “earth” refers to Lijaba’s creation and the image of rape, antithetically foregrounded through “virgin” and “rape”, connotes insult to Lijaba’s creation. Central to this image is a tension between honour and insult, humility and hubris, spirituality and consumption, and creation and destruction. Through a post-pastoral lens I aim at probing the “dynamic, self-adjusting accommodation to ‘discordant harmonies’” (Gifford, 2014: 28). This stanza is the crux of the discourse of retreat, a pastoral conceit depicting the present cultural location which it both wants to explore and escape from. But the escape is not an end in itself since there are no attempts to resist return to the present urban reality of ecological loss and identity crisis; it is a conservative retreat to those cultural essentials and insights for the reassertion and reclamation of traditional identity.
Once they hummed With bird-song And happy gurgling brooks Like running silver With shoals of many fish. The trees were many Happy, verdant, green The seasons playing magic On their many-splendoured sheen. When summer went, The hills echoed With the wistful whispers Of autumnal leaves Fluttering to their fall In the winter-smelling breeze. (Ao, 1995: 48)
This rosy idyllic picture is of the Naga Hills and its surroundings: the humming of birds in a green forest; the sights, sounds, and smell of the forest in different seasons; and, an unpolluted small stream full of fish. Ao reiterates the same images in “The Bald Giant” and “Lament for Earth”. The pastoral passages in the hill-poems describe the past visualscape, soundscape, and smellscape
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of the physical environment of the Naga Hills. The visualscape describes the scenic panorama of the hills in different seasons, the changing colour of the hills with the changing seasons: the greenness of summer, goldenness of autumn, and misty whiteness of winter: He looked gorgeous then. His green cloak of summer Shimmered in the sun, And when autumn came Golden patches dotted The fading green velvet. Winter brought a different glory Shrouding him in mystery As he seemed to retreat Behind the swirling mist. (Ao, 2003: 1)
The soundscape consists of the different biorhythms of the acoustic environment: birdsong, rustle of dry autumnal leaves, and the gurgling sound of the flowing river. Sounds produced by organisms, such as birdsong, are examples of biophony, and sounds produced in nature by wind, rain, and river, such as the rustle of dry leaves and the gurgling of the river, are examples of geophony. 4 Notably, the soundscape consists of natural sounds which are discrete with clarity. Smellscape consists of the distinct smell of winter borne by the breeze. The geographical relationality exemplifies sensuous attachment and the authenticity of environmental experiences.
Sensuous engagement with the physical environment inspires emotional participation (Malpas, 2011: 14), and it is widely accepted that seasonality deeply affects humans. 5 The “gorgeous” (Ao, 2003: 1) and “majestic splendour” (Ao, 1988: 45) of the hill make it “vibrant” (Ao, 1988: 45) and lively in spirit. The gurgling sound of the flowing river and forest full-of-trees evoke happiness. The emotional words express a positive note and a moral tenure. The change of seasons — dry leaves of autumn and green leaves of summer — represent the cycle of life which rotates through the natural process of decay and regeneration. The cycle of life emotionally affects the persona, that is, ecological sensibility is entwined with emotional relationality. Ao’s nostalgic ruralism explores an ethical and meaningful inhabitation of place maintaining a harmonious interaction with the environment.
Ao’s power of representation lies in her depiction of what Kort, while discussing in general the features of the natural world, calls “the untamed in nature, the sublime, in its ineffability” with a “spiritual force” (2011: 31). The spiritual force in the poem is a celebration of Lijaba’s creation and the Ao-Nagas’ respect for Tekong Tsüngrem, Arem Tsüngrem, and Ayong Tsüngrem and evinces “a deep sense of the immanence in all natural things” (Gifford, 1999: 152). The spiritualization of nature affirms a deep connection between nature and culture, and it promotes the ethical attitude of respect for nature. It implies that nature is culture and culture is nature. The “representative anecdote” (Alpers, 1982; 1996) of Ao’s unpopulated pastoral, which is an inversion of traditional pastoral, 6 is not “the lives of shepherds” (Alpers, 1982: 449) but the lives and experiences of hills, forests, seasons, rivers, birds, and fish, which act and behave like humans in a pastoral landscape. Ao’s pastoral is both representative and anecdotal because of the typicality of the reality it represents and her selection of nature as the primary agency in the pastoral is indicative of priority given to the hills and environment. The persona/poet’s attachment to the hills is an image of marriage of the personal (inner) and the environmental (outer): the hill is the persona, and the personal is the hill.
Interestingly, the pastoral passages in “Lament for Earth” and “My Hills” begin with the adverb “once” and all the stanzas are in the past tense. The past tense usage points at an indefinite and uncertain past condition, implying that the past is irrecoverably lost. This formal feature reminds me of Rachel Carson’s “A Fable for Tomorrow”, the introductory chapter of Silent Spring (1962), which begins: “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony of its surroundings” (1962/2000: 21). The reference to Carson is intended not to contextualize Ao in the American pastoral tradition, but to point out that Ao, too, shares similar formal features in the use of pastoral with a powerful environmentalist text like Silent Spring. For both Ao and Carson, the use of the pastoral concerns the depiction of movement: through pastoral, they first create “a picture of essential changelessness, which human activity scarcely disturbs”, and then gradually “pastoral peace rapidly gives way to catastrophic destruction” (Garrard, 2004: 1). In Ao’s poems, we can anticipate the movement from “pastoral peace” to “catastrophic destruction”.
Pastoral is “a dangerously prodigal signifier” since it “affirms the inescapably dialectical relation of urban and rural environments” (Entwistle, 2011: 136). The return after sensuous renewal and rural retreat invariably destabilizes the determinate locationality and traditional relationality of the Ao-Nagas with the hills, and it provides an opportunity for understanding and criticizing those unsettling issues which are inherently unsustainable. Ao’s urban images with sharp undertones of fright and tension unsettle the pastoral images. These images foreground the inroad of industrialization into rural life, and this incursion does not have an escape: The lorries rumble Loaded with her treasures Bound for the mills At the foothills. (Ao, 1988: 45)
Unambiguously, these lines create an image of the commodification and commercialization of the forest resources, especially by the timber industry. Besides the timber industry, which has led to reckless deforestation of the region, the commodification of river resources, especially the destructive technique of blast fishing (also known as dynamite fishing), has severely affected the riverine ecosystem by not only killing fish but also the habitat of other organisms that support the ecosystem: Alas for the river It is muddy now With the leavings Of the two-legged animals Who bleached her banks And bombed her depths Foraging for the little fishes. (Ao, 1988: 46)
With sharp mocking undertone, Ao euphemistically describes humans as “the two-legged animals”. Ao describes through “bleaching” the chemical modification of the riverbanks, and technological aggression through “bombing”. The previously “clear and content” (Ao, 1988: 46) river is now running “muddy”, symbolizing water pollution. One reason for the river running muddy, as in “Lament for Earth”, is heavy silting of the river bed due to massive erosion. Another reason is the pollution of the river by the disposal of untreated industrial waste from the mills, especially paper mills. Since the late 1960s, the Northeast has experienced exponential sprawl of paper mills that have appallingly increased the level of environmental pollution and decisively decreased the green forest cover (Hussain, 2008: 37–9). Besides paper mills, the region has experienced a mushrooming of innumerable saw mills which meet the national demand for timbers. In “Lament for Earth”, Ao speaks about the commercial utilization and indiscriminate exploitation of the forest resources of the area. Consequently, excessive deforestation has severely affected the rich biodiversity and ecological balance (Chatterjee et al., 2006: 12).
Deforestation has led to massive top-soil erosion that increases the risk of landslide. Ao depicts the image of landslide through the word “furrowed” (2003: 2; 1988: 47). It has severely affected the seasonal cycle, as Ao describes in “My Hills”: “The hillsides are bare / And the seasons / Have lost their magic” (1995: 49). The “deer” (Ao, 1988: 46), indicative of the presence of wildlife, has lost its habitat due to deforestation. Again, the forest that was filled with birdsongs is now “silent” (Ao, 1988: 45) because no bird sings due to the loss of their natural habitat. Ao highlights numerous forms of crisis caused by human agency — deforestation, endangerment of fisheries, loss of habitat, disposal of toxic wastes, loss of agricultural land, and water pollution. These are instances of development without sustainability, and such forms of development disturb rapprochement with nature: No life stirs in her belly now. The bomb And the bleaching powder Have left her with no tomorrow. (Ao, 1988: 46)
The rhetoric of sterility articulates reproductive disability: chemical and technological modernization and modification has inflicted reproductive disability on Lijaba, who is traditionally considered as the creator of the earth. The sterile waste land image represents death and decay, but this decay does not imply regeneration and completion of the cycle of life. This image is emotionally repulsive.
Another reason for the emotional repulsion is sensuous estrangement. The present landscape is without seasonal charisma and full of artificial sounds: The birdsong is gone, Replaced by the staccato Of sophisticated weaponry. (Ao, 1995: 49)
The sound of machines, such as saw mills and rumbling lorries, has replaced the birdsong and fluttering of dry leaves, and the gurgling sound of a flowing brook is replaced by the sounds of bombs. It implies that the sounds produced by humans through machines, that is anthrophony, 7 have replaced biophony and geophony. Moreover, the presence of the machines in the garden is a radical break away from the conventional pastoral design.
The present landscape is emotionally disturbing. “The Bald Giant” subjectively begins with the “sorry sight” (Ao, 2003: 1) of the present condition of the hill which sits “glum and shorn” (Ao, 2003: 1). The colour contrast, past “green” (Ao, 2003: 1) and present “brown” (Ao, 2003: 2), symbolically represents rapid deforestation and disappearing forest cover. The hill which was previously “gorgeous” (Ao, 2003: 1) is presently “a bald giant” (Ao, 2003: 1): the “bald” image of the hill depicts deforestation and “giant” is an image evocative of fear: Once I thought him friendly But now he looks menacing And I resent his presence In my horizon Because I dread That when the earth shakes He will surely disintegrate And carry me to our common doom. (Ao, 2003: 2)
The poem ends with a catastrophic realization that since regeneration and renewal in external nature is impossible, the future of the community bodes ill, with unpredictable uncertainties. The existence of the hill means the existence of the hill-dwellers, and as a corollary the extinction of the hill means the extinction of the hill-dwellers. Traditionally, the hill is a fixed site, a symbol of stable relationship and identity, but the present destabilization of the traditional relationship engenders constant negotiation between tradition and modernity, past and present, and determinacy and indeterminacy. This negotiation has generated existential anxiety and unpredictable uncertainties, an undecided relationship which is both friendly and menacing, harmonious and discordant.
Beginning post-pastoral
Ao’s hill-poems shift between pastoral, anti-pastoral, and post-pastoral. Ao brings in the Ao-Nagas’ experience of living in the Naga Hills, both under pre-industrial and industrial conditions. She turns towards folk context for a veritable historicization of the hill — from the celebration of Lijaba’s creation and the Ao-Nagas’ respect for Tekong Tsüngrem, Arem Tsüngrem, and Ayong Tsüngrem to the contemporary commodification and commercialization of the hill, forest, and riverine resources. The pastoral passages in “Lament for Earth”, “My Hills”, and “The Bald Giant” express the spiritual force of Lijaba’s creation and the Ao-Nagas’ sensuous attachment and emotional relationality with the hills. And, the anti-pastoral passages in “Lament for Earth”, “My Hills”, and “The Bald Giant” express the present commodification of resources and the Ao-Nagas’ estrangement from the hills.
Ao’s political engagement foregrounds the present socio-historical and environmental conditions of underdevelopment, the local struggles and tensions of the Ao-Nagas. Her post-pastoral is powerfully ironic about the promises of development, and this irony permeates in the juxtaposed image of the pastoral past against the anti-pastoral present, images of natural beauty against natural depredation. Ao represents “a world which is more ‘real’ into juxtaposition with an idyllic vision” (Marx, 1964: 25). Through this juxtaposed image she captures the slow violence — the invisible violence — that the Ao-Nagas and the Naga Hills are undergoing over a period of time. Through such non-escapist representation, Ao advocates a “bioregional ethic” which is “regionally rooted” and carries forward “place commitments” (Nixon, 2011: 238). Such place commitments, as Nixon observes, “can help us integrate into the powerful conventions of pastoral the violence beneath colonial and postcolonial uprootings” (2011: 245).
For Ao, the place commitment is extremely problematic. She belongs to the natural space, but the space as she knew it no longer exists; moreover, she now lives in the urban space, but she does not belong to it. The roots of her relation with the place are uprooted, and she cannot relate herself to the place. However, she cannot disown the place because it is the very cultural landscape to which her history, her identity, her tradition are inseparably attached. She can’t accept; she can’t reject. She is in tension, negotiating her own location with the landscape of memory and of lived experience. The success of the post-pastoral lies in opening up a space for reflection on this liminal locationality, since post-pastoral is “a discourse that can both celebrate and take some responsibility for nature without false consciousness” (Gifford, 1999: 148). Although Ao recognizes the importance of negotiation of new identities and forging of new grounds for the cultural inhabitation of place, she articulates geographical and psychological concerns upholding the significance of the past oral pastoral value of interaction with the environment which enabled the Ao-Nagas to subsist in the hills. This means of mutual sustenance needs a sincere rethinking and reworking of the tradition—both the pastoral tradition and the cultural tradition—embracing an “ecocentric view of the post-pastoral” moving away “from the anthropocentric position of the pastoral” (Gifford, 1999: 152). This rethinking and reworking of the tradition needs a responsible means of sustenance which does not propose to do away with the human but rather suggests a responsible role for the human, defining accountability towards nature and culture; hence, post-pastoral is posthuman.
I am a bit uncomfortable with the word conclusion because it pushes an argument towards an end. I propose a dynamic beginning for post-pastoral ecopoetics. This developing critical tool needs more scholarly attention accommodating interdisciplinary exchanges with history, geography, anthropology, economics, ecology, and other areas.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.