Biopolitics of Marginalized Lives Amid State Surveillance and Bureaucratic Oppression in Perumal Murugan’s Poonachi or the Story of a Black Goat

Abstract

The inclination towards reducing the work of Perumal Murugan, Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat to another fable with an anthropomorphic hero sounds too simplistic. However, the text is a rather complex and highly interesting reflection on the dynamic between the modern state and its population, which frequently goes unappreciated by literary critics, who reduce it to the imagination technique employed by the author to express rural life. The present study attempts to explore how literary criticism approaches Poonachi as a romantic story about life in the country as opposed to an intricate allegory. Using the approach of detailed qualitative analysis, based on concepts such as biopower (Michel Foucault) and bare life (Giorgio Agamben), the study highlights similarities in the methods of managing livestock and human beings. More specifically, it is suggested that Poonachi serves as an example of the use of a non-human perspective to transcend the framework of political realism and to create a representation of the Regime as an omnipresent authority that transforms each person's biological nature into an easily searchable datum. Additionally, in terms of Poonachi's color and the problems she faces, it may be viewed as an allegory of Dalit experience in today's rural India. Crucially, the protagonist's struggle involves more than biology; it becomes a political resistance against total lack of privacy.