Recast(e)ing the Future: Caste, Technocapitalism, and Climate Change in Vauhini Vara’s The Immortal King Rao

Vauhini Vara’s The Immortal King Rao (2022) is a Dalit Futurist novel that seeks to foreground Dalit agency, historical memory, and ethical resistance in a rapidly intensifying techno-capitalist dystopia. Through the intertwined stories of Dalit tech-genius King Rao’s rise and fall from the position of CEO of an all-powerful AI-driven Shareholder governance, and his daughter Athena’s quest for justice and selfhood, the novel depicts how technocapitalism deepens the existing socio-political divisions whereby caste and gender inequality, technological progress, and environmental crisis get inseparably interlinked. Thus, the chapter seeks to understand how Vara’s novel illustrates the transformative possibilities of Dalit Futurism by reclaiming Dalit marginalized histories yet simultaneously critiquing King Rao’s transhumanist aspirations in favor of Athena’s posthuman resistance. The chapter articulates in opposition to King Rao’s doomed techno-utopian project, Athena’s transformation into a Cyborgian (nonhuman) witness, transforms the novel from a mere dystopia to a critical dystopia, which in turn signals hope and resistance against the bleak techno-oligarchy-led climate extinction while also expanding the contours of what it means to be a posthuman.