Monday, 7 September 2026

Buddha in a Traffic Jam: A Postcolonial Reading of Environment, Development and Marginalization


This blog is a task assigned by Prof. (Dr.) Dilip Barad, Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU). It explores the intersection of Postcolonial Studies and the Anthropocene, with particular focus on climate change, environmental concerns, development, marginalization, and environmental justice. Through a postcolonial reading of Vivek Agnihotri’s Buddha in a Traffic Jam (2016), the blog examines how questions of power, inequality, representation, and development remain connected to the environmental challenges of the contemporary world.


Buddha in a Traffic Jam: A Postcolonial Reading of Environment, Development and Marginalization


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Introduction to the Article




Article: “Postcolonial Studies in the Anthropocene: Bridging Perspectives for a Sustainable Future” — Dilip Barad

🔗 Read the full article on ResearchGate:


“Postcolonial Studies in the Anthropocene: Bridging Perspectives for a Sustainable Future” examines the growing connection between postcolonial studies and environmental concerns in the age of climate change. The article questions whether traditional postcolonial approaches, which mainly focus on colonialism, power, identity, and resistance, are sufficient to understand today’s ecological crisis. It suggests that environmental destruction must also be studied through the histories of colonial exploitation, capitalism, indigenous displacement, and unequal access to natural resources.

The discussion begins with the changing direction of postcolonial studies and the need to respond to the planetary crisis of climate change. It draws attention to Vandana Shiva’s connection between colonialism and ecological destruction and considers how local communities have historically maintained close relationships with their environments. It also introduces Rob Nixon’s idea of “spatial amnesia,” which explains how environmental narratives can ignore the histories and presence of Indigenous and colonized communities by presenting landscapes as empty or untouched wilderness.

The article further connects environmental crisis with multinational corporations, resource extraction, and internal colonialism. Examples such as the struggle of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and tribal resistance in Central India demonstrate that even after formal colonial rule has ended, marginalized communities can continue to face displacement and exploitation in the name of development.

To explain these continuing inequalities, the article discusses Karl Marx’s “primitive accumulation,” Rosa Luxemburg’s ideas about capitalism’s expansion, and David Harvey’s “accumulation by dispossession.” These concepts show how land, labour, and common resources can be appropriated for economic gain, often at the expense of vulnerable communities.

Finally, the article turns to Dipesh Chakrabarty’s concept of the Anthropocene and the idea of “species thinking.” This perspective encourages us to understand climate change not only as a political or economic problem but as a planetary crisis affecting human beings and the wider ecological world. The article therefore calls for a broader postcolonial perspective that brings together environment, history, capitalism, Indigenous rights, and environmental justice.

In this context, Buddha in the Traffic can be read as a significant cultural text for exploring how environmental concerns intersect with questions of development, marginalization, power, and the relationship between communities and their land.


Postcolonial Critique: Reading Buddha in a Traffic Jam Through the Article’s Framework



Film: Buddha in a Traffic Jam (2016)


Director: Vivek Agnihotri
Genre: Political Drama / Thriller
Lead Character: Vikram Pandit


🎬 Film Poster


Poster of Vivek Agnihotri’s Buddha in a Traffic Jam (2016).


🎥 Official Trailer


Official Trailer of Buddha in a Traffic Jam (2016).


Introduction: 


Vivek Agnihotri’s Buddha in a Traffic Jam (2016) provides an interesting way of extending the postcolonial and environmental concerns discussed in the article. The film follows Vikram Pandit, a management student who becomes involved in a social-media campaign and is gradually drawn into wider questions of poverty, economic inequality, political ideology, Naxalism, and the condition of marginalized communities. The narrative moves from the relatively privileged world of a business school towards the conflict-affected region of Bastar, creating a contrast between different experiences of contemporary India.

Rather than treating the film as a conventional environmental narrative, it is more productive to read it through the article’s larger argument that postcolonial questions of power, inequality, land, resources, development, and marginalized communities cannot be separated from environmental concerns. This makes the film a useful, though not straightforward, text for a postcolonial reading.


Internal Colonialism: Colonial Patterns Within the Nation


The film places individual lives within a wider network of political and social conflict.


One of the most significant concepts discussed in the article is internal colonialism. Formal independence does not necessarily eliminate structures of domination. Marginalized communities may continue to experience exclusion, dispossession, and unequal access to land and resources within the postcolonial nation itself. The article connects this problem with struggles such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan and resistance movements in Central India.

This idea helps us understand the movement of Buddha in a Traffic Jam from an urban educational environment to the conflict-affected spaces of Bastar. The film places different social worlds within the same nation but shows that they do not enjoy the same access to privilege, security, education, or economic opportunity.

The film therefore raises an important question:

If colonialism has formally ended, why do deep structures of inequality continue within the nation?

The postcolonial answer is not necessarily that colonialism simply continues unchanged, but that older patterns of exclusion can be reproduced through new institutions, economic arrangements, and forms of political power.


Spatial Amnesia: When Places Become Labels


The article introduces Rob Nixon’s concept of “spatial amnesia,” which draws attention to the way dominant narratives can forget the histories and lived experiences of people connected to particular places. Landscapes may be represented as empty, backward, remote, or simply as resources, while the communities inhabiting them disappear from the story.

This concept is useful for thinking about the representation of Bastar and other marginalized spaces in Buddha in a Traffic Jam. When a region becomes known mainly through terms such as “Naxal,” “violent,” “backward,” or “underdeveloped,” its more complex social history can disappear.

The film attempts to bring these distant realities into the awareness of its urban audience. Yet this creates a second question:

Who has the authority to define a marginalized place?

This is an important tension in the film. The audience encounters these spaces largely through characters who possess greater access to education, institutions, and political language. The film therefore makes marginalization visible, but it also encourages us to question whether visibility necessarily produces agency and voice.


Development and the Question of Dispossession



The article's discussion of Karl Marx’s “primitive accumulation” and David Harvey’s “accumulation by dispossession” offers another productive framework. These concepts draw attention to the appropriation of land, resources, labour, and communal property in the expansion of capitalist systems.

The film’s concern with capitalism, poverty, and development can be read through this question of who benefits from economic progress. Vikram begins within a world of management education, professional ambition, and economic opportunity. As he encounters social realities outside that privileged environment, the meaning of development becomes more complicated.

Development is often imagined as:

growth → investment → employment → progress

But a postcolonial perspective asks:

Who defines progress, and who bears its cost?

This does not require rejecting development itself. Rather, it requires examining whether economic development includes marginalized communities or reproduces the inequalities that already exist.


Environment as Livelihood


The environmental argument becomes stronger when we stop thinking of “environment” only as forests, rivers, or climate statistics. The article repeatedly connects environmental questions with livelihood, Indigenous communities, resource extraction, and economic inequality.

From this perspective, environmental destruction has social consequences:

land → livelihood → food → displacement → poverty → survival

Although Buddha in a Traffic Jam does not centre ecological destruction in the conventional sense, its focus on poverty, marginalized communities, development, and conflict allows us to think about the social conditions in which environmental injustice emerges.

A community that depends upon land and natural resources cannot experience changes to its environment as merely an ecological issue. Such changes can affect economic security, social identity, and the possibility of remaining in one’s place.

Thus, the film indirectly opens the environmental question: what happens when the spaces on which marginalized communities depend are valued primarily for their economic or political usefulness?


Representation and the Question of Voice



Perhaps the most important postcolonial issue in the film is representation.

The film seeks to make social inequality visible, but its story is largely mediated through Vikram and other educated characters. This distinction matters because:

Making the marginalized visible is not the same as allowing the marginalized to speak.

A postcolonial reading therefore asks:

Who speaks?

Who is represented?

Who explains the problem?

Whose knowledge is considered authoritative?

This question prevents us from treating the film as a transparent representation of social reality. Instead, it reminds us that cinema itself is a form of power: filmmakers select what to show, whose perspective to foreground, and how an audience should understand a particular social conflict.

The film’s attempt to expose inequality is therefore important, but its mode of representation also deserves scrutiny.


Capitalism, Marginalization, and Unequal Development


The article places environmental concerns within the larger expansion of global capitalism, which continually searches for markets, resources, labour, and opportunities for accumulation.

This connects closely with the film’s contrast between economic aspiration and social inequality. Vikram comes from a world where management, competition, entrepreneurship, and professional success are presented as pathways towards a better future. Yet the film simultaneously introduces social realities that cannot be resolved through economic efficiency alone. Its political narrative brings capitalism, socialism, poverty, and competing ideas of development into tension.

The postcolonial question therefore becomes:

Can economic development be considered successful if large sections of society remain excluded from its benefits?

This question is particularly significant in a globalized world where national economies are increasingly connected to larger systems of capital.


Beyond the Colonizer and the Colonized


Traditional postcolonial criticism often begins with the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. The article encourages us to complicate this binary by examining how power continues through states, corporations, economic institutions, and other contemporary structures.

Buddha in a Traffic Jam contributes to this shift because its conflict is located within an independent India. The question is therefore no longer simply:

Who is the colonizer?

It becomes:

How does power operate after colonialism?

This is a particularly important question in postcolonial societies where political independence has not necessarily removed social inequality, economic exclusion, or struggles over development.


From Local Inequality to the Anthropocene


The article's final movement towards Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Anthropocene expands the discussion from local social structures to the planetary scale. Human beings have become a powerful force capable of transforming the Earth's ecological systems, making environmental crisis inseparable from questions of history and justice. The related idea of “species thinking” encourages us to understand humanity as part of a wider ecological system.

This broader perspective helps us place the film’s local conflicts within a larger framework. Poverty, development, political conflict, land, and resources are not isolated issues. They are connected to the ways in which human societies organize economic life and use the environments on which communities depend.

At the same time, the postcolonial perspective reminds us that the planetary crisis cannot simply be experienced as a single, equal human experience.

We share one planet, but we do not experience its crises equally.

 

A Necessary Critical Distance



There is also a limitation that should be acknowledged. Buddha in a Traffic Jam is fundamentally a political thriller, dealing with corruption, campus politics, Naxalism, capitalism, socialism, and social inequality rather than directly presenting climate change or ecological destruction.

For this reason, the film should not be forced into the category of a conventional environmental film.

Its value lies in something more subtle: it allows the environmental-postcolonial framework to be extended into questions of marginalization, development, resources, livelihood, and representation. In other words, the film does not provide a ready-made illustration of the article; instead, it gives us an opportunity to test and expand the framework.

This also makes the reading more critical. The film can expose inequality while simultaneously raising questions about its own ideological framing and about whose perspective is placed at the centre. Contemporary reviews have differed significantly in their interpretation of the film's political positioning, making such critical distance especially relevant.


Conclusion


Reading Buddha in a Traffic Jam through the postcolonial and environmental framework of the article reveals connections between marginalization, development, capitalism, representation, and environmental justice.

The film does not directly narrate climate change, but it draws attention to social and political inequalities within contemporary India. Concepts such as internal colonialism, spatial amnesia, primitive accumulation, and accumulation by dispossession help us look beyond the immediate political conflict and consider the larger structures through which power and inequality are produced.
For me, the most important question emerging from this reading is not simply “What does development bring?” but:

“Who gets to define development, and who is asked to bear its cost?”

That question connects the film to the wider concerns of postcolonial thought in the Anthropocene. A sustainable future cannot be imagined only through economic growth. It must also consider whose land, livelihood, voice, and future are being protected.

The most meaningful contribution of this reading, therefore, is not to declare Buddha in a Traffic Jam an environmental film, but to show how environmental questions become inseparable from questions of power and justice once we look closely at the lives of marginalized communities.



Broader Implications for Postcolonial Thought in Today’s Globalized World



The reading of Buddha in a Traffic Jam through the postcolonial and environmental framework of the article suggests that postcolonial thought remains relevant precisely because colonialism has not disappeared into the past; its structures can take new forms in the present. The film moves through questions of poverty, inequality, development, capitalism, political conflict, and marginalized communities, while the article expands these concerns towards environmental crisis, Indigenous rights, resource exploitation, and global capitalism. Together, they encourage us to rethink what it means to be “postcolonial” in an increasingly interconnected world.


From Colonialism to New Forms of Power


One of the broader implications is the need to move beyond the simple opposition of colonizer and colonized. The article shows that domination can continue within formally independent nations through states, corporations, economic institutions, and systems of resource extraction. Its discussion of internal colonialism demonstrates that political independence does not automatically eliminate dispossession or inequality.

This idea changes the central question of postcolonial studies. Instead of asking only “Who colonized whom?”, we also need to ask:

How does power operate after colonialism?

Buddha in a Traffic Jam makes this question visible by placing different social realities within the same nation. Its contrast between the privileged world of management education and marginalized social spaces suggests that contemporary India cannot be understood as a single, equal experience.


Globalization Does Not Mean Equalization


Globalization has connected societies through markets, technology, finance, communication, and cultural exchange. However, greater connection does not necessarily mean greater equality. The article's discussion of Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, and David Harvey shows how capitalism continually seeks new markets, resources, labour, and spaces for accumulation.

This has important implications for postcolonial thought. Development is often presented as a universal goal, but the question remains: whose model of development is being followed, and who benefits from it?

The film contributes to this debate by bringing economic inequality and competing ideas of development into the same narrative. Vikram's movement from a privileged educational environment towards marginalized realities makes visible the gap between development as an economic idea and development as a lived experience.


Environmental Justice Becomes a Postcolonial Issue



The environmental crisis further expands the meaning of postcolonialism. The article argues that environmental concerns cannot be separated from colonial histories, Indigenous communities, resource extraction, and global capitalism. It highlights struggles in which local communities bear the consequences of environmental exploitation while powerful economic interests benefit from natural resources.

This perspective is significant in today's globalized world because environmental crisis is not experienced equally everywhere. A community dependent upon land, forests, or water for its livelihood has a different relationship with ecological destruction from a population protected by wealth and infrastructure.

Thus, environmental justice becomes part of postcolonial justice.

The question is no longer simply:

“How do we save the environment?”

It also becomes:

“Whose environment is being protected, whose livelihood is at risk, and who has the power to make environmental decisions?”

 

From Visibility to Voice


The analysis of Buddha in a Traffic Jam also has a broader implication for the study of representation. In today's globalized media culture, marginalized communities are increasingly represented in films, television, journalism, documentaries, and social media. Yet representation itself is not necessarily empowerment.

The film raises the question of who speaks for marginalized communities. This is important beyond the film because global communication often allows powerful institutions and outsiders to define the problems of communities whose own voices may receive less attention.

Postcolonial thought must therefore continue to examine the relationship between voice, knowledge, and authority.

Being represented is not always the same as being heard.

This distinction is especially important in the digital age, where visibility can increase while control over one's own narrative remains limited.


Reconsidering the Meaning of Progress


Another major implication concerns the idea of development itself. The article's discussion of primitive accumulation and accumulation by dispossession demonstrates that development can involve the appropriation of land, resources, and livelihoods.

This does not mean that development itself must be rejected. Rather, postcolonial thought asks us to make the idea of progress more critical.

Instead of measuring development only through:

growth + infrastructure + investment + profit

we must also consider:

justice + participation + livelihood + dignity + sustainability

This is particularly relevant to formerly colonized nations where economic growth often exists alongside deep inequalities.


Postcolonialism and the Anthropocene



The concept of the Anthropocene further transforms the field. The article, drawing on Dipesh Chakrabarty, suggests that humanity has become a force capable of significantly altering the planet, requiring us to rethink history, freedom, justice, and the human relationship with nature. Chakrabarty's idea of “species thinking” encourages us to see humanity as part of a wider ecological system.

This produces an important challenge for postcolonial studies.

If we think only in terms of nations and communities, we may miss the planetary scale of climate change. But if we speak only about “humanity” as a single species, we may also erase the historical inequalities that shape people's different experiences of environmental crisis.

Therefore, contemporary postcolonial thought needs to hold two perspectives together:

We share one planet, but we do not enter its crisis from equal positions.

 

A More Inclusive Future for Postcolonial Studies


The article ultimately calls for a broader and more inclusive postcolonial perspective that brings together environment, Indigenous histories, premodern cultures, global capitalism, colonial legacies, gender, community, and ongoing forms of dispossession.

This suggests that postcolonial studies should not be treated as the study of a historical period that has already ended. Instead, it can function as a critical method for understanding the present.

The analysis of Buddha in a Traffic Jam demonstrates this possibility. The film may begin with campus politics and ideological conflict, but its wider questions about inequality, development, marginalization, and power connect with larger postcolonial concerns. The article then expands these concerns further by showing how economic and social structures are also connected to environmental crisis.


Conclusion:


The broader significance of this analysis is that postcolonial thought must continually change as the forms of power around us change.

Colonialism may no longer appear mainly through direct foreign rule, but questions of resource control, economic inequality, political exclusion, environmental destruction, and representation remain important. Globalization has made these issues even more interconnected.

For me, this is where Buddha in a Traffic Jam becomes meaningful beyond its immediate political narrative. When read alongside the article, it encourages us to look beyond the visible conflict and ask deeper questions:

Who controls resources? Who defines development? Who speaks for the marginalized? And who bears the consequences of decisions made in the name of progress?

These are not only questions about the past. They are questions about the globalized present and the future.

Postcolonial thought therefore remains relevant not because the world is still exactly the same as it was under colonial rule, but because the struggle over power, resources, identity, representation, and justice continues in new forms. In the age of the Anthropocene, the challenge is to connect these struggles with the urgent need for environmental sustainability and to imagine a future in which development does not come at the cost of people, communities, or the planet.


References: 



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