Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper


Vol.31, October Suppl Issue, 2025

Page Number: S370-S375

POLLUTION, POWER, AND PRIVILEGE: A POLITICAL ECOCRITICAL READING OF THE WHITE TIGER

Mousumi Paul

Abstract

Literature has become a potent weapon to raise awareness, encourage ethical reflection, and challenge harmful systems as the world deals with growing ecological threats, such as pollution, rapid urbanization by cutting trees, exponential growth of industries, resource depletion, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Hence there is a need to comprehend the natural world with ecocritical lens which reflects the relation between human and nature. Strong environmental narratives have the ability to sway public opinion and affect legislative decisions. It clearly emphasizes the fact that ecological or environmental contamination and degradation are not a natural or scientific problem, but a political one and shaped by capitalism, patriarchy, class, race, and globalization. At this juncture, political ecocriticism plays a significant roleas it explores and examines how most of the environmentalissues are profoundly intertwined with systems like power, politics, and social inequality. The human association with the green nature is the central aspect of ecocriticism; however, the political aspects towards ecocriticism should be addressed with critical analysis through which the role of government and political perspective will be explored. This research paper will explore the political ecocritical perspective of The White Tiger. In addition, it has been critically observed that human day-to-day life activities toward the environment have a direct and extensive negative impact on the health of the planet, which depends on the lustiness of its surrounding ecosystems and the various species that inhabit them. Here comes a dire need to protect our environment through sustainable development, which certainly refers to a better path of establishing a fruitful and symbiotic relationship amongstliving, non-living and the natural world. Ecological disasters are manmade disasters such as different nuclear wars, air pollution, water pollution, population explosion, as well as depletion of valuable natural resources. Writers like Aravind Adiga has performed a significant role in arousing environmental and ecocritical concerns through his literary creation. The human association with the green nature is the central aspect of ecocriticism; however, the political aspects towards ecocriticism should be addressed with critical analysis through which the role of government and political perspective will be explored. This research paper will explore the political ecocritical perspective of The White Tiger.