https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.087
Indigeneity, Environmental Commodification, and Decoloniality in The Race to Save the Amur Falcon
DR. MRIDULA KASHYAP
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Nowgong Girls’ College, Nagaon, Assam
Email: mridula07ghy@gmail.com
Abstract: Through the conservation story, the documentary The Race to Save the Amur Falcon, directed by the wildlife filmmaker Shekhar Dattari, unfolds the underlying conflict between the indigenous practices of the Naga community and the widespread harvesting of the migratory Amur Falcon as a result of colonial modernity. Colonial modernity has complicated man’s relationship with nature and dissociated the indigenous community from its environment, inducing a ruthless commodification of nature. As a consequence, the indigenous Lhota tribe of the Naga community inhabiting the territories of the Doyang Valley and the Pangti Village, who historically relied on hunting traditions, engaged in large-scale persecution of the Amur falcons in order to earn resources. The indigenous community viewed these migratory birds as eninum, which meant ‘mysterious creatures’, and osenvoro, which meant ‘foreign bird’ in their native tongue and never consumed them as they were considered to be alien to the indigenous environment. But coloniality regimented the mindset of the community and re-ordered the indigenous knowledge system dismantling the ethical relationship between man and nature whereby nature became merely a resource for human utility. The documentary brings to fore the anthropogenic havoc inflicted upon these guileless avians and how, after unveiling such gruesome killings on camera, the government intervenes to restrict such acts by adopting conservation measures, transforming the hunters into conservationists and the hunting grounds into reserve forests. Reckoning with these issues, the paper shall seek to highlight how such conservation measures shall in no way alter the already-transformed utilitarian mindset of the indigenous people, and these green initiatives are nothing but the by-products of the capitalist ideology nurtured during the colonial era.
Keywords: Lhota Naga, Indigeneity, Environment, Decoloniality, Colonial Modernity
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