Reclaiming the City’s Nature: An Ecocritical Reading of Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi.

Abstract

Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi (1940) provides a rare opportunity to explore how literature can register ecological concerns in the midst of colonial upheaval. While the novel is conventionally examined for its historical and political insights, it also offers a subtle meditation on the interdependence between human societies and their environments. This paper undertakes an ecocritical reading of Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi (1940), exploring the complex intersections between urban space, nature, and colonial modernity. While the novel is often studied for its historical, political, and cultural resonances, its ecological dimensions remain largely overlooked. By situating the narrative within the framework of ecocriticism, this study examines how Ali juxtaposes the natural environment with the decaying cityscape of colonial Delhi. The imagery of gardens, flowers, seasons, and the Yamuna River not only evokes nostalgia for a precolonial past but also reveals the ways in which colonial urbanization disrupts the organic relationship between humans and nature. Nature in the novel functions as both a site of cultural memory and a metaphor for dispossession, reflecting the erosion of traditional lifeways under imperial domination. At the same time, the persistent presence of natural cycles resists colonial temporality, offering subtle forms of resilience and renewal. Ultimately, this reading argues that Twilight in Delhi reclaims the city’s nature as an integral part of its cultural and historical identity, challenging the erasures of colonial modernity and foregrounding ecological consciousness in the discourse of decolonization. His vision highlights how rivers, gardens, and ecological cycles function as living archives of memory and resistance, while also warning of their vulnerability to neglect and exploitation. In connecting ecocriticism with postcolonial critique, the novel speaks to ongoing debates about ecological justice, sustainability, and the reclamation of urban ecologies in the Global South. It demonstrates that decolonization must be conceived not only as political freedom but also as the recovery of ecological balance and integrity.