Rethinking Anthropocentrism: Nature, Voice and Responsibility in Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain

Abstract

Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain: A Fable for Our Times presents a powerful ecological allegory that challenges the anthropocentric worldview responsible for environmental degeneration. The text narrates the story of Mahaparbat, the Living Mountain, and the people who once lived in a harmonious relationship with it. Through the invasion of the Anthropoi and their extractive desire, Ghosh exposes the violence of modern development, colonial exploitation, capitalist greed, and human arrogance towards the non-human world. This paper examines how The Living Mountain rethinks anthropocentrism by granting nature agency, voice, and moral presence. It argues that Ghosh’s fable does not merely represent nature as a passive background but as a living entity with memory, power, and ethical significance. The study further explores the responsibilities of human beings towards the natural world in the age of ecological crisis. By drawing on eco-criticism, post-humanism, and de-colonial environmental thoughts, the paper shows that Ghosh’s text calls for a radical transformation of human consciousness from domination to coexistence.