In Kamala Markandaya’s novel, Nectar in a Sieve, the woman of great courage, Rukmani, is forced onto the commencement of a fast changing India caused by an increase in economic activity, urbanization and centralization of power. Rukmani resists and then is forced to conform to changes in her environment. Unlike those around her who threw their past away with both hands that they “might be the readier to grasp the present,” Rukmani “stood by in pain, envying such easy reconciliation” (Markandaya 29). Markandaya writes about Rukmani’s attempt to recover the aspects of her rural life that she cares most about, revealing her adoration for a traditional rural life and her belief that all women enjoy amicable, personal relationships with their outer surroundings. The author conveys her ideals that traditional/conservative Indian women who challenge the change of their village will keep order within the chaos developing throughout their social environment, precluding Rukmani from falling under the category of the stereotypical passive peasant woman. Rukmani 's improvement at the criticism of her community and the development her own views and beliefs on the future of India is advanced through her conversations with Kenny, the doctor that she begins to develop a relationship with. In Rukmani 's character and newfound sense of action, you can establish relations to ecofeminist theory, a form of feminist criticism, about the relationship between rural women in India and the