Women in India

Women Writers in Our Time: An Introduction to Mahasweta Devi with
Major Thematic Concerns.                                          
Abstract: Women in India have been engaged in some or other form of literary activities for centuries now. But we are able to find very few significant names in the field of women’s writing because the work of Indian women writers have been undervalued due to patriarchal assumptions about the superior worth of male experience. The cultural authorities of the society have also made strong influence on women’s writing. Any discourse which violated the standard norms or tried to challenge the well-established male kingdom of authority was bound to put aside as a worthless object. There have been a number of examples pertaining to this fact when feminist text was either sanctioned or punished by claiming it as a product of mindless creature.
But there are a number of women writers who have marked their presence steadily in this men-dominated terrain. They have refused to follow street and state censors and succeeded in bringing unheard voiced to the fore. Mahasweta Devi, veteran Bengali writer is among those irresistible voices who puts a question mark on the so-called progressive, democratic and civilized nation called India. Even after so many years of independence, the marginal are deprived of their basic rights. Through her novels, stories and a number of articles; Mahsweta exposes the feudal system which is anti-tribal, anti-women, anti-poor and anti-tiller. Present study is an attempt to explore and throw light on Mahasweta’s vision with the help of selected creative works by her.
Keywords: Activist, History, Tribal, Democracy, Social Justice.

Women Writers in Our Time: An Introduction to Mahasweta Devi with Major Thematic Concerns.                                          
                                                                                                    Jyoti Yadav                                                                         
There are two pictures of modern India; the first one shows us the bright picture of India Shining while the second one is a grim picture of India reeling under poverty, hunger, debt and unemployment. The first picture shows consistent growth in every field, be it education, healthcare, industries, service sector etc. This picture tries to project India as a nation continuously moving on the path of progress. The other picture puts a question mark on the reality behind the first picture. In the same nation called India we have millions of landless farmers reeling under poverty and debt; tribal who are losing their lands and are forced to become farm workers (or bonded laborers in many cases) and common man who are making die-hard efforts to make their ends meet. But the tragedy with these people is that their lives are below the radar of national attention. Mahasweta Devi one of the foremost writers of modern time, is more concerned about the second picture rather than the first one. Born in 1926, in an affluent Bengali family Mahasweta received greatness in legacy from her artist father Manish Chandra Ghatak and social worker cum activist mother Dharitri Devi. Not just her parents, her entire family and relatives were a pool of intelligence and knowledge. Assorted aunts and uncles won prominence as artists, journalists, actors and filmmakers: among them the pioneering British trained cinematographer Sudish Ghatak, actor and film director Ritwick Ghatak( younger brother), journalist Sachin Chowdhury and sculptor Sankho Chowdhury. Together with her sisters and brothers, Devi was raised to love books and develop an interest in music, theatre and films. Mahasweta’s first work Jhansir Rani (The Queen of Jhansi) was a fictional reconstruction of Luxmibai, the picture of woman ruler who died fighting the British army in the mid- nineteenth century. Several of her other early works such as Amrita Sanchay (1964) and Andhanmalik (1967) are also set during the British colonial period. The Naxalite movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s were also an important influence in her works. Devi’s popular novel Hazar Churasir Maa (The Mother of 1084) (1973) is written to document the beginning of Naxalite movement and its impact. It is the story of an upper middle class woman whose world is forever changed when her son is killed for his Naxalite beliefs.
After 1970’s Mahasweta has focused her attention primarily on the tribal communities within India. She has been a long time champion for the political social and economic advancement of these communities, whom she characterizes as “suffering spectators of the India that is traveling towards the twenty first century”. These concerns can be seen in works such as Aranyer Adhikar(Rights of the Forest) and anthologies such as her Nairhite Megh (Clouds in the Southern Sky). Through her lifelong struggle she has redefined the role of a writer in a society. Throughout her literary career, she has written passionately about the tribal, downtrodden and the underprivileged and tried to bring their unheard stories before the world to make the people sensitize about these people. And she is still active in her eighties talking to people, forming self-help groups, writing letters to authorities, visiting to people, protesting against government atrocities.
If we make an attempt to list out the major themes in Mahasweta’s literary canvas, they can be listed as above:

As a History Writer Celebrating forgotten heroes : From the very beginning of her literary career, Mahasweta has undertaken the task of retelling past stories and finding out truth about Indian heroes which has been often neglected in history books and presented through Western perspective. In her stories Mahasweta re-examines the dominant nationalist history and exposes its elitist bias by focusing attention on the neglected and marginalized locations. She articulates the erased oral history of tribal leaders and thus makes an attempt to return to the subalterns as role models. The following words by Mahasweta clearly convey her message to the main stream society:

Mainstream society is carrying on a continuous, shrewd and systematic assault on his social system, his culture, his very tribal identity and existence…History should be re-written, acknowledging the debt of mainstream India to the struggles of the tribals in the British and even in pre-British days. The history of their struggles is not to be found only in written scripts but in their songs, dances, folktales; passed from one generation to another. So much of it has perished with the people who have died withal this history carefully protected in the very depth of their hearts. But so much still exists. (Devi 150).

  Mahasweta Devi’s first work Jhansir Rani ,written in 1965 was a fictionalized biography of a women ruler of a princely state in North India, who fought against the British in 1857 in the first war of independence by the Indian people. In preparing to writer this novel, in 1954 she demonstrated uncommon seriousness and tenacity. She traveled all alone to Bundelkhand area in the then United Province (now Utter Pradesh) to collect archival data and oral history. She traveled on foot through remote villages and desert plateaus collecting scraps of legends and folk ballads, getting first hand knowledge of the places where Rani Jhansi fought against the British army. Jhansir Rani earned her reputation as a writer. It was followed by later novels on Birsa Munda (Choti Munda and His Arrow) and Aranyer Adhikar (Rights of the Forest).

Social Activism: For Mahasweta writing is not a profession to earn money and recognition, it is a medium for her to change the society, to fight for the cause of the tribal, downtrodden and underprivileged. Through her lifelong struggle and hard work done for the upliftment of tribal community, Mahasweta has redefined the role of a creative writer. In all the works of Mahasweta Devi, social activism remains as a dominant theme. These concerns can be seen in the works such as Aranyer Adhikar (Rights of the Forest), Nairhite Megh (Clouds in the Southwestern Sky), Bashai Tudu, Of Women, Outcasts, Peasants and Rebels, Dust on the Road and a number of articles published in various newspapers and magazines.
Mahasweta Devi’s social activism took concrete shape in 1965 when she visited Palamau, a remote and impoverished district in Bihar whom she calls “a mirror of tribal India”. Moving from place to place on foot she witnessed the savage impact on indigenous society of landlordism, a despoiled environment, debt bondage and utter state neglect. In India’s other tribal districts she subsequently the same dismal conditions. There was no education, no healthcare, no roads, and no income. Devi had been dimly aware of the presence of the tribal people, but it was the Palamau experience that brought her face to face with the misery of the people largely excluded from official mainstream society. This process of social activism was triggered by her popular novel written in 1970’s, The Mother of 1084. In this play, the mother of a Naxalite martyr discovers her son and in the process herself a year after his death. Through this play Mahasweta represented the neglected and suppressed plight of women through Sujata. In the following years Mahasweta wrote furiously. The stories written in this period demonstrated an appetite for chronicling social realities. These stories include Agnigarbha, Bashai Tudu , Breast stories and a number of articles written in newspapers and various magazines. She has contributed a lot to unite the tribal and make self-help groups so that they can demand their right for a better life from the government. She has not confined her domain to West Bengal only; she has traveled from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Gujrat to Arunachal Pradesh to unite people and motivated them to make demand for a dignified respectful life.
Representation of the True Face of Indian Democracy: In her fiction Mahasweta Devi seems to question over the nationalist slogans like ‘Unity in Diversity’, ‘Mera Bharat Mahan’ (My India is great). In her literature she critiques the political “Constition of India” as it gives the marginal basic rights and representation only in law, not in application. Why the poor people have remained poor even after sixty six years of independence? The policies meant for tribal people have served to fill the pockets of government officials and corrupt leaders. Land reform policies have remained at the top priority of every political party fighting election. But we see zero development in this direction. Conditions have become so dark that the poor farmers are forced to sell their lands and work as laborers and bonded labors. Every year thousands of farmers burdened by debt and poverty are committing suicide but no sincere effort has been made to improve their lot. These concerns can be seen in Mahasweta’s novel Bashai Tudu which evokes a modern myth of a tribal peasant revolutionary who turns up whenever the landless farm laborers are driven to a crisis.
Entire fiction of Mahasweta reflects women and tribal revolutionaries in their confrontation with an exploitative system. While projecting the feminist issues Mahasweta never romanticizes the truth. She lays it bare before the readers; raw and unpolished. We rarely find any instance of physical love and romance in her stories. Her stories reflect the continuous struggle of women to liberate herself from the censors of the patriarchal society. She also reflects the impact of cruel state machinery, industrialization and unemployment on women and through her stories we can see that women are the most sufferers in so-called advance India. It is her strong belief that everyone should fight against injustice rather than accepting it passively.

Celebration of Tribal Life: Mahasweta is deeply concerned about tribal people that constitute 67.6 million people roughly eight percent of the national population. But it is sad that they are not allowed to retain their culture and tradition in this fast-moving world of globalization. The government is intruding brutally in their dwelling place which is surrounded by natural beauty and full of resources. They are forced to leave their land which is as dear to them as their mother. Singur, Lalgarh and Nandigram examples are sure proof of government atrocities against people.
Mahasweta deeply loves tribal people and makes every possible effort to make their life better. She openly criticizes government policies which are meant for a selected group people. She not only writes about tribal people, she has taken many significant steps to uplift the underprivileged people. In 1980, she launched a Bengali quarterly, Bortika which has become a forum for marginalized people to voice their opinions and stories. In 1983 she formed Paschim Bangla Kheriya Sabar Kalyan Samiti, a welfare society to train the tribal to earn their livelihood. In her stories and articles, she celebrates rustic beauty and innocence of tribal people which has become so rare in today’s materialistic world. She feels angry when people separate the tribal people calling them different:

“Who says they are different? You deny rights to these people make them invisible and label them as different! I live, eat and sleep with them like one of their family.”

Mahasweta believes that there is much to be done for the tribal people. Driven by hope and anger in equal parts, Mahasweta soldiers on, even in an age of eighty eight. The tireless firebrand keeps on moving to benefit the de-notified tribes, to provide them respect as a common Indian citizen, to provide them all the amenities of human rights like education, housing, electricity, water and training programs for men and women. She thinks that India cannot be really independent until we liberate the poor people from the shackles of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and other evils. All this remains the soul of Mahasweta’s fiction and her journey still continues.

Works Cited
Devi, Mahasweta Chotti Munda and His Arrow. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Calcutta: Seagull, 2002.
___Dust on the Road. Trans. Maitreya Ghatak. Calcutta: Seagull, 2010
___.Mother of 1084. Trans. and intro. Samik Bandyopadhyay. Calcutta: Seagull, 1997.
Gupta, Vandana.Mahasweta Devi: A Critical Reading. New Delhi: Creative Books, 2009.