Transmodernity and the Commons: a Reading of Anita Agnihotri’s Mahanadi

The Argentine-Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel’s theory of transmodernism envisions a noncapitalist world system based on interchanges among cultures without the master sign of Eurocentric modernity. Given that Dussel sees the role of politics as perpetuating life on earth, the transmodern world must also be based on politico-economic institutions that use natural resources sustainably. The institution of the commons, or communal management of natural resources, both predates capitalist modernity and is found in most of the cultures that constitute the periphery of the current capitalist world system. In this context, this article examines the tensions between capitalist modernity and commons-based social arrangements in Anita Agnihotri’s 2015 Bengali novel Mahanadi , arguing that Mahanadi envisions the commons as a creation through mutualistic relations between humans and nonhumans, and also that the vision of the commons that Agnihotri’s novel puts forward could be read as a transmodern institution.