Some Thoughts on the Posthuman Condition in the ‘Ur-village.’ Reading the Hindi Novel Ādigrām upākhyān by Kuṇāl Siṃh

This article stems from the workshop Pensieri nomadi, corpi in movimento. Exploring InFluxes and Cultures in Motion, that took place in Torino on 16th October 2014 with the aim to activate interdisciplinary lines of research, that can useful in investigating and examining the globalized world we live in, as well as create a bridge between research in the academic flied and activism in the territory. The novel Ādigrām upākhyān (The chronicles of Ādigram) by Hindi writer Kuṇāl Siṃh has been food for thought for this paper, as it presents some features that can be analyzed as nomadic thinking and that deal with the posthuman condition in the context of the clash between State Government and local population in West Bengal. The aim of the paper is an illustration of some possible links between the discourses of posthumanism and postcolonialism in the literary context. I will discuss issues of knowledge, democracy, and hi/storytelling addressed in the novel, drawing on VC Seshadri, Shiv Visvanathan, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Donna Haraway, and Rosi Braidotti.