Volume : 11, Issue : 9, SEP 2025

ETHICS AND EXPLOITATION: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF ORGAN DONATION IN MANJULA PADMANABHAN’S HARVEST

DR. LAXMIKANT KARAL

Abstract

In an age defined by rapid biomedical advancements and stark global inequalities, Manjula Padmanabhan’s dystopian play Harvest (1997) offers a searing critique of organ donation when it intersects with poverty, globalization, and bioethics. By imagining a future in which corporations contract with impoverished individuals to harvest their organs, Padmanabhan lays bare the moral compromises and systemic exploitation that underpin a commodified human body. This paper unpacks the ethical ambiguities in Harvest through close textual analysis, examining how economic desperation and postcolonial power imbalances render the poor vulnerable to dehumanizing practices masquerading as medical progress. Drawing on feminist theory and postcolonial scholarship, the study interrogates the play’s depiction of bodily autonomy, gendered exploitation, and virtual surveillance, ultimately challenging readers to confront the human costs of an unregulated global organ trade.

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IESRJ

International Educational Scientific Research Journal

E-ISSN: 2455-295X

International Indexed Journal | Multi-Disciplinary Refereed Research Journal

ISSN: 2455-295X

Peer-Reviewed Journal - Equivalent to UGC Approved Journal

Peer-Reviewed Journal

Article No : 21

Number of Downloads : 196

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