Jim Corbett

Jim Corbett’s My India: A Study of Ideological Otherness

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Parul Rani1 & Nagendra Kumar2

1 Research Scholar in English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India.Email Id: parulnet.e@gmail.com, ORCID Id: 0000-0002-9934-3585

2 Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India. Email Id: naguk20@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.36

 Abstract

The present article draws on the ideological “othering” of the colonized subjects in Jim Corbett’s story collection My India. The text assimilates the non-fictional stories of the Indian people at a time when Corbett operates as an influential colonial hunter, and as a fuel inspector in the different parts of the colonized India. By and large, the stories advocate the proximity between a colonial master (Corbett) and the colonized people (Indians). However, this paper argues these narratives fall into the space of colonial discourse where the erection and dismantling of the racial overtones are happening simultaneously. As a mode of representation, the repeated articulations: “the poor of India,” “Indians are fatalists,” and “superstitious” function a differencing category “other.” The development of the discussion leads to the ironic reconstruction of caste through its subversion at the imperial hands. Precisely, this study probes into what Homi K. Bhabha says “mode of representation of otherness” and argues that Corbett’s discourse loses to the ideological otherness against his experiential closeness to the Indians.

Keywords: colonial discourse, difference, Jim Corbett, My India, othering.

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Demystifying the Non-human Animal: Analyzing Animal Agency through the Select Narratives of Jim Corbett

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Parul Rani1 & Nagendra Kumar2

1Research Scholar in English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India.

Email Id: parulnet.e@gmail.com, ORCID Id: 0000-0002-9934-3585

2Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India.

Email Id: naguk20@gmail.com

Volume 11, Number 3, October-December, 2019 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v11n3.07

 Abstract

The present article revives the jungle knowledge of a renowned Anglo-Indian hunter cum conservationist; Jim Corbett. The contemporary significance of Corbett’s first-hand experiences with the animals lies in providing an insight into the ways of the wildlife; unraveling the multilayered relationships of animals with their environment; including humans. The focus on animal behavior takes this paper to exemplify how the interspecies and intraspecies interactions validate the non-human agency. There is an attempt to bring Corbett’s select narratives from the collections — Man-Eaters of Kumaon, The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon, and Jungle Lore in dialogue with the ethological studies, that complement and precede the debate of the animal agency. Concerned with the question of the animal, this study evolves a critique of Heidegger’s dichotomy between the human and animal that sprouts on the idea of the relative non-agent(ic) functionality of the non-human animals. This study opts for an interdisciplinary approach of ethology and philosophy to execute a textual analysis of Corbett’s narratives to analyze the animals as agents.

Keywords:  animals, human-animal relationship, Jim Corbett, non-human animal agency

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Foregrounding the Animal Stance: A Critical Study of Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag

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Parul Rani & Nagendra Kumar

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. Email: parulnet.e@gmail.com. ORCID Id: 0000-0002-9934-3585

Volume IX, Number 3, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n3.16

Received July 30, 2017; Revised September 01, 2017; Accepted September 18, 2017; Published September 20,  2017.

Abstract

The present article argues that the representation of the animals in the colonial texts try to reassert and reconfigure the colonial rule on the colonised subjects. Likely, the handling of the non-human animals by the colonials in sporting or non-sporting ways erects an invisible and persistent hegemonic control over the native land. As far as the processing of the big cat animals, particularly a man-eater is concerned; it emerges with convoluting the sound factors of race, gender and supremacy. The shooting of the man-eater animal by a white is purely a forefront which designs an imperial masculinity. Through a critical analysis of Jim Corbett’s text Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, the study aims exclusively at: first, to explore the role of an animal (Leopard): a vital object in contouring masculinity. Secondly, to foreground the animal stance, questioning the human authorised version of a man-eater and the enduring human rule over the non-human animals. The discussion implants the leopard, a subject of explication, as an essential character; liable to his ‘natural’ proviso.

Keywords: Imperial masculinity, animals, the man-eating leopard, animal studies, Jim Corbett.

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Man-Eaters of Kumaon: a Critique of Modernity

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Parul Rani & Nagendra Kumar

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee. Email: parulnet.e@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.21

Received February 14, 2017; Revised April 14, 2017; Accepted April 20, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

The present paper attempts to link the animals’ colonization with modernity as a form of European ‘mind-set’ through a short story collection of Jim Corbett, Man Eaters of Kumaon. The focus is laid on the disfigurement of the non-human entities in the colonial anthropocentric advancement; manifested through the hunting practices in colonial India. This study analyzes: first, the hunting practices as a power mechanism of colonials to dominate native subjects: human and non-human, and traces the conflict it creates between human life and wildlife. It also studies the sporting and systematic controlling over the wild animals with the help of technological enrichment. Secondly, it investigates the ambiguous presence of Jim Corbett, primarily a hunter, vacillating between his duties for the British colonial administration and for the native people, as a sahib.

Keywords: wildlife, modernity, Jim Corbett, colonialism, colonial ideology.

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