Ecological Romanticism and the Critique of Civilization in Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas

This paper argues that Arun Joshi's The Strange Case of Billy Biswas represents a reductive image of the otherwise complex and plural community of Indian tribals. The novel promises its reader an intellectual foray into the world of Indian tribals through the narrative of its protagonist Billy Biswas; but Biswas's voyage as mapped by Joshi lacks serious, rigorous, analytical depth. The novel emulates colonial anthropology and popular culture of early postcolonial India in creating/ consolidating the notion of noble savage and a false civilized/ Hindu- adivasi binary. Our study critiques Joshi's insistence on the separateness and otherness, his exoticization of the tribal world, and his failure in presenting a fuller, complex view of the lives of those who still remain on the periphery of modern India.