Assessing Many Layers of Interconnection: An Ecofeminist Reading of Nature and Women in Temsula Ao’s Poetry

Abstract

Ecofeminism, as an academic discipline, results from the intersection of myriad forms of feminist and environmental studies. It claims that the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women are inherently bound up with the notions and workings of class, race, colonialism and neo-colonialism which result from the patriarchal order of society. In Indian English Literature, plenty of evidences of the simultaneous subjugation of women and the oppression of nature can be found. This paper seeks to analyse the poems of Temsula Ao from an ecofeminist perspective. Temsula Ao, a formidable poetic voice from the North- East India , expresses her concern over the gradual degradation of the natural surroundings of the North- East India and the cultural transformation taking place in the region. The longstanding insurgency, which has posed a serious threat at the counterbalance of the region, remains one of the most important issues undertaken by the writers emerging from the North- East India. Temsula Ao, whose poems attest to the authenticity of the experience of local inhabitants under the threats of violence due to the longstanding insurgency, unearths both the devastation of the natural world and the subjugation of the women due to the impact of insurgency.