Influence of Technology, Reconfiguring Identity and Power in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest
https://doi.org /10.5281/zen od o.14974050
Author(s): Sonam Yadav
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14974050
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Volume 16 | Issue 1 | Feb 2025
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
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Influence of Technology, Reconfiguring Identity and Power in Manjula
Padmanabhan’s Harvest
Sonam Yadav
MA Student,
University of Delhi.
Article History: Submitted‐31/01/2025, Revised‐06/02/2025, Accepted‐20/02/2025, Published‐28/02/2025.
Abstract:
The world today is transforming at an unprecedented rate, with technology serving as the
driving force of this rapid change. Catalysed by the global pandemic of 2020, the virtual space
became the only space available for interaction to us, making it as tangible as the realm of the
physical world and thereby erasing the once sharp distinction between the two. Deriving from
Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory, Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra and hyperreality and
Teilhard de Chardin’s idea of the noosphere, this paper demonstrates how the constant interaction
between technology and humans redefines human identities and challenges the very fundamental
natural process of evolution replacing it with an anthropocentric, hierarchically directed process.
By closely reading Manjula Padmanabhan’s play Harvest, this study aims to discuss the social-
ethical dimensions of technoscience and their influence on the human world.
Keywords: Technology, cyborg, noosphere, virtual reality, identity, hyperreality.
“Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert” (Haraway 11), says
Donna Haraway in her Cyborg Manifesto. This paradox captures the complex dynamics between
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humans and machines, where technology increasingly influences individual identity in a world
which lives in the virtual realm more than it does in the real one. Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest
published in 1977, eerily anticipates how technological advancements redefine the self and
perception of one’s identity by insinuating individuals within the larger matrix of technological
advancements and interconnections. How social hierarchies and inequalities of the real world play
a role within this matrix is an interesting question to engage with. This paper situates Harvest in
the contemporary debates on the intersection of technology, identity and social hierarchies.
Harvest is a futuristic dystopian play set in a chawl in Mumbai in 2010. Om Prakash, a middle
class Indian who has lost his job due to automation, agrees to sell his organs to a corporate
association, Inter Planta Services, that facilitates organ trade from the first world to third world
countries. Om and his family are closely monitored by Ginni through a “contact module.” Ginni,
who later revealed to be Virgil, a white American man, acquires Om’s brother Jeetu’s body. The
play explores the issues of commodification of the body resulting from scientific progress in a
world driven by capitalism. Existing scholarship has primarily looked at Harvest through the lens
of bioethics, Marxism, neo-colonialism, the dynamics between the first world and the third world,
disability studies and a gendered analysis of the dystopian world presented in the play.
Primarily, most of the analysis of the play centres around the issue of organ trafficking. Dipanjan
Kundu in his essay Padmanabhan’s Harvest as a Dismordenist Narrative: A Critical Posthumanist
Exploration, references Schepher Hughes, who describes organ trafficking as “neo-cannibalism”,
“bioterrorism”, “bio theft” and “bio lust”. In a capitalistic framework, human organs become
commodities, much like furnished industrial products thereby altering traditional notions of what
it means to be a human. To be a human in possession of capital means that one can buy healthy
organs and replace their dying ones in exchange for money. In other words, the haves can purchase
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life and the have-nots can purchase luxury for whatever life they have left to live after trading their
body parts. Dipanjan Kundu calls this narrative a “neo-Faustian narrative.” Om’s body is available
for an exchange in a contract for the customer, Virgil. This indicates that the life of a human born
in a first-world country is more valuable than the life of someone like Om inhabiting the
developing world. This commodification of the human body is further viewed through the lens of
Marxism by other critics.
Jodi Kim, in her essay Debt, the Precarious Grammar of Life and Manjula Padmanbhan’s
Harvest, argues that the market functions on the principle of exchange. Capital is earned in
exchange of labour. In this case, there is no labour. Land is a commodity that has intrinsic value,
like the human body that needs to be nurtured to function properly. Therefore, the literal biological
selves have become a commodity in itself, like land. A commodity in which the self has willingly
surrendered its agency. Jaya’s (Om’s wife) attempt to reclaim her body in Act III, scene II by
threatening to commit suicide has been interpreted as a way to challenge the status quo and to
restore her control on her own body by embracing death-the only possible way of defiance to
achieve liberation from the matrix of oppressive hierarchies. Jaya’s body is subjected to
objectification by the male gaze along with the gaze of the coloniser.
Jodi Kim also talks about the idea of the “gendered racial debt.” It refers to the idea that certain
groups of people by virtue of their gender or race are obliged to pay a “debt” for simply being who
they are. They are unfairly burdened to pay this “debt” because of existing social inequalities and
expectations. Om, as the patriarchal head of his household, is expected to be the breadwinner. To
avoid the debt from unemployment, Om fulfils his gender role by entering into a new contractual
debt with Inter Planta Services. In Kim’s words, he pays his gendered racial debt by “the
commodification of his very material, organic life as it exists now” (Kim 220). In addition to this,
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Harvest has also been read through the lens of disability–an acquired impairment which is
contractual, granted with consent and the powerlessness of the state to regulate such exploitation.
Roshni Prabhakaran uses the idea of the “panopticon” by Michel Foucault that renders invisible
power at the centre–the panoptic which is established through the contact module–the ultimate
surveillance system in the play, placed literally at the centre of Om’s house having absolute access
to every movement and conversation that happens inside the house.
While the existing scholarship on the play Harvest extensively addresses significant ethical and
philosophical questions, including organ trafficking, commodification of human bodies, the gaze
of the panopticon and neo-colonialism however, there persists a gap in how the perception of the
self, i.e. one’s identity is reconstructed with the excessive interaction, interruption and integration
of the self with technology in the everyday reality leading to a hybridisation of the very organic
biological human entity, therefore, aligning with Donna Haraway’s idea of the cyborg.
Furthermore, this hybridisation extends beyond the individual to disrupt even the processes that
govern the logic of human evolution. By utilising Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the
“noosphere,” this paper proposes that not only are human identities redefined with technological
progression, but the fundamental phenomenon of evolution is affected and perhaps becomes
anthropocentrically directed by those possessing higher social and technological capital within the
global social hierarchy.
In the contemporary context, as presented by Padmanbhan in Harvest, the concept of the “survival
of the fittest,” which is central to the theory of evolution, has shifted from being determined by
nature to being defined by social constructs of power and wealth, personified by the character of
Virgil in the play. “This is my fourth body in fifty years” (Padmanabhan 96), informs Virgil to
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Jaya in Act III Scene II. Virgil’s act of acquiring Jeetu’s body illustrates how technological
progress enables those with greater access to technological capital to artificially manipulate DNA.
JAYA: There’s only one way to define death!
VIRGIL: (softly) Not where I live. (pause) We have some new definitions. (pause)
We speak of a body-death and a self-death. (pause) The body you knew is… still
alive. Come! Doesn’t that count for anything?
JAYA: (whispers) And the self?
VIRGIL: (briskly) The self you knew is also alive.
JAYA: Huh! Without his body?
VIRGIL: He was willing to sell, I was willing to buy – (Padmanabhan 93)
The fact that Virgil redefines death by actively selecting a body to continue living challenges the
very concept of natural selection. Although this has not yet become an absolute reality in the
contemporary world, the intersection of medicine and technology makes such ethical concerns
highly relevant today, especially as technoscience has successfully cultured tissues in laboratories.
As advancements in biotechnology and artificial intelligence accelerate, the natural phenomenon
of evolution is replaced by a systematic, deliberate, structured process raising questions concerning
power, equality and human identities.
Teilhard de Chardin, in his work Phenomenology of the Noosphere, introduces the concept of a
new emerging layer– “a thinking layer.” Hub Zwart, in his analysis of this idea, explains-
Via global human activity, a new layer is added, over and above the abiotic,
inorganic geosphere and the biotic, organic biosphere, namely the noosphere, the
“thinking layer” which, besides noetic processes and activities (thinking,
calculating, modelling, communicating, deliberating, etc.), also involves noetic
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products (technologies, devices, infrastructures, computers, industrial plants,
airplanes, and so on). (Zwart 219)
To simplify, concerning technology, particularly the internet, which operates through a network
of “noetic products” (e.g. mobile phones, computers) constantly interconnected with invisible rays,
through which various “noetic activities” are carried out, including transfer, exchange of data,
communication etc., is in itself a “new sphere” beyond the tangible geosphere and biosphere. De
Chardin talks about the evolution of this whole noosphere, where technology plays the
fundamental role in determining the trajectory of evolution. At each point in these interconnections
sits an individual consciousness that operates these noetic products. The distribution of individuals
with the privilege of being one of the nodes of this vast network is not egalitarian. It is determined
by their respective subjective positions in society. This is where social hierarchies and inequalities
enter into the process of determining the direction of evolution.
The character of Virgil in the play occupies the privileged position of being one of the nodes in
the matrix of the noosphere at the cost of Jeetu’s body. Ginni, the symbolic representation of
Virgil’s consciousness, can be metaphorically interpreted as what we see as avatars in the
contemporary world of social media. Ginni is not real but symbolic, in fact, as several critics have
pointed out, we do not even know if the final appearance of Virgil in Jeetu’s body in the contact
module is authentic or just another way of catering to the female desire of Jaya in order to convince
her to offer her womb to carry Virgil’s child.
JAYA: And Ginni! Who is Ginni?
VIRGIL: Nothing. Nobody. A computer-animated wet dream. (Padmanabhan 95)
Ginni is nothing but a “computer-animated wet dream,” yet she was once a reality for Om, Jaya,
Ma, and Jeetu, who lived their lives according to her directions. Metaphorically, Ginni represents
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the version of us that we want the world to perceive–a constructed idea of ourselves which is
sometimes more or less perfect than our everyday reality. Our sense of the self is reflected and
influenced by this digitized version of ourselves, which becomes a part of the larger matrix of the
noosphere.
Jean Baudrillard’s idea of hyperreality further explains how abstract symbols in the digital space
replace the tangible leading to a constructed reality which is inherently paradoxical as real and
virtual at the same time. Like Virgil’s Ginni, social media platforms provide a sense of control
over what and how much of us should be in the frame available for the world to see. The
constructed self on the internet is an extension of the tangible self, blurring the lines between the
virtual and the real. Baudrillard explains that “to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one
has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn’t have” (Baudrillard 3). He gives the analogy
of a sick person. When a person fakes an illness, they can remain in bed to make everyone believe
in them, but when a person simulates an illness, they produce some symptoms of the illness. So,
simulation, “threatens the difference between the ‘true’ and the ‘false’, the ‘real’ and the
‘imaginary’.” (Baudrillard 3). So, in the digital space, the curated, idealised representations of
realities and lifestyles become the “simulacra” sustained by an illusion of agency and choice of
representation.
Just as Jaya stands disillusioned and entirely confused between what is real and what is a mere
representation on a screen, the modern individual is left disoriented when it comes to the question
of their identity. Modern algorithms are designed not only to learn our choices but also to influence
them, all while maintaining the illusion of user control. These algorithms are exploited by the
people in positions of power to direct our attention towards a specific ideology, thought or
consumer choices. This raises the significant question of how the perception of the self can be
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altered, modified and even manipulated by algorithms designed to reinforce a particular idea on
our “personalised feed” constantly. If the world of virtual reality—a term contradictory in itself,
disappears tomorrow, our sense of identity will still be influenced by what we have seen/heard on
the internet. Therefore, distorted and manufactured truths have always been a cause of concern for
controlling agencies. Technology, henceforth, becomes a medium of not only perpetuating
selective ideologies directed by people in positions of power but also sustaining these ideological
standpoints while still maintaining the illusion of autonomy of the individuals responsible for
making their respective choices. Virgil’s dominance, as observed by critics, resulted from his
ability to manipulate the symbols of power– technology, being one of the most important among
others.
Donna Haraway calls the idea of the blurring of boundaries between the human and the machine–
the cyborg. She argues that the body of the cyborg can transgress the boundaries placed by society,
particularly the binary distinction between genders. She argues,
“Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have
explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves” (Haraway 67)
However, this utopian vision of a cyborg, which portrays technology as a liberating force, is far
from reality. This is because although it is true that the body of the machine is born genderless but,
it is situated in a society which inherently operates on dualisms and hierarchies. Ginni, in Harvest,
is designed to cater to the male gaze (of Om and Jeetu). Jeetu is mesmerised by her beauty and is
convinced to be taken away by the guards. Similarly, Virgil’s image as Jeetu in the last act is to
seduce Jaya in order to convince her to give her body for the artificial conception of Virgil’s child.
Hence, the promise of technology as a socially liberating force stands questioned when we look at
how the hierarchies are at play in the social sphere.
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In essence, after the close reading of the play Harvest by employing the concepts of Noosphere by
De Chardin, Hyperreality by Baudrillard and the idea of the cyborg by Haraway, we can say that
technological advancements have more significant impacts on our lives than what we perceive of
them. The artificial manipulation of the very natural phenomenon of evolution raises ethical
questions about power, equality and identity. The distinction between the virtual and the real has
become increasingly blurred, and our perception of ourselves may undergo innumerable mutations
as we interact and engage daily on social media platforms, where specific ideas are insinuated
while still maintaining the illusion of control. In addition to this, the promise of technology as a
force helpful in creating an egalitarian society comes out to be a utopian vision. All in all, this
exploration makes an effort to open new debates surrounding the influence of technology on
human consciousness and its role in shaping the course of evolution of the entire society at large.
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