The Toxic Legacies of Colonialism: A Postcolonial Environmental Reading of The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali

Abstract

Uzma Aslam Khan’s latest novel The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali (2019),
presents an extraordinary tale of human brutality, human suffering, and
environmental degradation, exploring the deep-rooted and multi-layered
connections between colonialism and neo- colonialism. The novel whilst still
remaining grounded in the geography, culture, politics and environmental
specifications of the region, carries out a historical investigation of the British
and Japanese colonial control of Andaman Island to draw our attention to
devastating impacts of colonialism and neo-colonial capitalist development
models on the environment within contemporary postcolonial societies (e.g.,
South Asia). Thus, Khan builds up a highly necessary alliance between
postcolonialism and ecoriticism, tracing the roots of environmental
degradation within both the colonial and neo-colonial oppressive regimes that
dominate humans as species– who, indeed, cannot be separated from their
links with the trillions of other life forms within the larger biosphere. It is with
this in mind that the text navigates the environmental problems that are also
major concerns in the postcolonial societies, including: Anthropocene, climate
change, humans’ and other species’ migration and genocide, the erasure of
indigenous culture, and the exploitation of natural resources–all of which are
rooted in the oppressive regimes of the colonisation of the Andaman Islands.