Abstract: The focus of this paper is to study the representation of industrial disaster, power politics and social inequity in the novel, Animals’ People by Indra Sinha. The setting of this novel is the fictitious city of ‘Kaufpur’ representing the city of Bhopal, India, that experienced the Gas Tragedy occurred in 1984. The narrative illustrates what happened after the toxic gas emissions from an American-owned chemical plant. The novel follows a 19-year-old boy’s life named Animal who was severely deformed by the disaster caused by the factory and how he perceives its social consequences on himself, and subsequently how corporate negligence and Western political dominance have affected the environment and have negatively impacted society as a whole. The novel addresses eco-crime and the notion of “slow violence” as a long-term way for those causing eco-crimes to inflict pain on both the ecology as well as the people who inhabit that space. This study examines these issues and the themes of marginalized voices, the effects of eco-crime on both human as well as the nonhuman world, and the critique against colonialist hegemony throughout the text.

Keywords: Anthropocene, Disaster fiction, Ecocriticism, Slow violence.

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