Emplaced Subjectivity and Arboreal Activism: A Study of Kallen Pokkudan's Oiko-Autobiography

Kallen Pokkudan, renowned as the 'mangrove man' of Kerala,India dedicated his life to reestablishing mangrove forests throughout the state. His autobiography, "Kandalkaadukalkidayil Ente Jeevitham,"[1] not only tells his life story but also sheds light on the mangrove habitats in Kerala's Kannur district and the Dalit Pulaya community to which he belongs. Given recent critical approaches to vegetality, Pokkudan's arboreal activism can be interpreted in a new context. Pokkudan, born into a Dalit Pulaya family of agricultural laborers in Kerala, spent his life planting thousands of mangrove saplings along the banks of the Pazhayangadi River in the Kannur district. By intertwining human life experiences with vegetal histories in his autobiography, Pokkudan has created a valuable collection of ecological knowledge and nature conservation principles. Recognizing that the socio-economic well-being of local communities relied heavily on the land-sea liminal ecology and its mangrove habitats, he constructed mangrove walls along the beaches of Kannur district to combat issues related to sea erosion. In this context, "Dalit eco-narrations of the self," like Pokkudan’s "Kandalkadukalkidayil Ente Jeevitham,"  expresses the autobiographical relationship between an environmental space intertwined with survival and struggle. Additionally, Pokkudan's autobiography can be seen as an experimental form of life-writing, where the subaltern subject is situated within the surrounding ecosystem of the mangrove forest and its unique ecology.

The ‘self/setting’ binary in life narratives can be eliminated by situating the self within the oikos, which signifies the idea of a larger home that consists of human and other-than-human actors. This emplacement establishes a continuum between the oikeion (traditionally associated with women, nature, and subalterns) and the politikon or the public sphere…In other words, Pokkudan’s ‘subaltern oiko-autobiography’ reimagines the ‘I’ in life writing as an “emplaced subjectivity” as opposed to an “enclosed self.” [2]

Pokkudan highlights the historical dehumanization of Dalits within India's caste system, explaining how the pulayas in Kerala were denied their humanity by being given names associated with animals and worms. This relegated them to a lower status in society. However, Pokkudan believes this dehumanization can be challenged and reversed, and he reflects on the potential for a shift in perspective within Indian society. He sees the Dalit vernacular in life narratives as a way to reclaim their place in society. Throughout his autobiography, mangrove is a metaphor for a relational way of being, disrupting essentialist thinking. In Pokkudan's narrative, the mangrove represents the struggles of the poor who face caste-based discrimination and poverty. Venugopal and Rangarajan rightly call Pokkudan’s  ecological activism " arboreal activism" and “dark ecology.”[3] Pokkudan’s dark ecology is grounded is marked by its emphasis on the emplaced human subjectivity. He proposes that all reality inhabits a single plane of immanence by placing human subjectivity in the middle of the ecological entanglements. The idea of emplaced subjectivity underscores the consciousness of environmental (divine)providence and distributed agency. Pokkudan’s approach is a kind of object-oriented ontology (O-O-O), grounded on deep solidarity and zoe-centered egalitarianism, which poses a strong critique against the graded ontology of casteism and other supremacies of the Anthropocene.

[1] Kandal Pokkudan, Kandalkaadukalkkidayil Ente Jeevitam. Compiled by S. Paithalan. (Kannur: Media Magic, 2002), 1.

[2]  J. Pariyadath, Mayilamma: The life of a Tribal Eco-Warrior. Transl. by S. Rangarajan and S. Varma. (Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan. 2018) xxii and xxx.

[3]  Venugopal, Varna Venugopal, and Swarnalatha Rangarajan “Life Writing as Plant-Writing: Ar-boreal Encounters in Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkaadukalkkidayil Ente Jeevitham(2002)”. Lagoonscapes. The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities, 2022: 2(2), 239-252.