The Illusion of Progress: State, Capital, and Ecological Crisis in Anita Desai’s The Village by the Sea

Abstract

This article examines Anita Desai’s The Village by the Sea: An Indian Family Story (1982) as a literary interrogation of postcolonial development and state-led capitalist modernity in India. Centred on the proposed fertilizer complex at Thul – modelled on the government-owned Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited and financed through global capital – the novel exposes how the rhetoric of progress conceals ecological destruction and socio-economic dispossession. Drawing on ecocriticism, political economy, and environmental humanities, this study situates Desai’s narrative within wider debates on industrialisation, urbanisation, and sustainability. It argues that although the industrial project is state-sponsored, it operates within a capitalist developmental logic that commodifies land, labour, and nature, marginalises indigenous ecological knowledge, and integrates local ecosystems into global market circuits. By juxtaposing the self-sustaining coastal life of Thul with the looming industrial city, Desai anticipates the ecological degradation, cultural erosion, and forced livelihood transitions that accompany developmental capitalism. The novel thus emerges as an early environmental warning, foregrounding urgent questions of survival, sustainability, and ecological justice in the contemporary world.