National Law Institute University

Bhopal(M.P.)

‘PROJECT’

ENGLISH

TOPIC:-MAHASWETA DEVI’S WRITINGS AND REFERENCE TO

TRIBAL UPRISING

SUBMITTED BY:- SUBMITTED TO:-

AYUSHI SHAKYA PROF.MUKESH SRIVASTAVA

2020BALLB24

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 CERTIFICATE:-

This is to certify that the project titled-Mahasweta Devi’s Writings with special reference to tribal

uprising in India has been successfully researched by the bona fide student Ayushi Shakya , 2nd

Semester , BA.LLB.(Hons.), of National Law Institute University (NLIU) , Bhopal under the guidance of

Prof.Mukesh Srivastava , professor in English .It is also to certified that this is a original research report

and this project has not been submitted to any other university nor published in any journal .

DATE:-

SIGNATURE OF STUDENT:-

SIGNATURE OF THE RESEARCH SUPERVISOR:-

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:-

The project has been made possible by the support of many people , I would like to acknowledge

and give my hat tip to Prof. Mukesh Srivastava by guiding me throughout in the preparation of
this project by giving valuable insights and by sharing the expertise.

I would also like to thank my parents , seniors and friends for all the encouragement and support

they provide to me.

Ayushi Shakya

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:-

Certificate

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Review of Literature

Objectives of Study

Statement of Problem

Hypothesis

Research Questions

Literary Works

Social Activity

Personal Life

Death

Justice and Honour

The Power of Dopdi

Abstract

Suggestions/Opinions

Conclusion

Bibliography

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INTRODUCTION:-

The Indian writer and activist in Bengali Mahasweta Devi ( January 14, 1926 – July 28, 2016).
Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali and Aranyer Adhikar are her notable literary works. She was an
auto proclaimed socialist working for the freedom and liberation of West Bangladesh, Bihar,
Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh States tribal peoples (Lodha and Shabar) in India. She has
received numerous awards from literature such as the Sahitya Akademi Award in Bengali, the
Ramon Magsaysay Award and Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan. She has been awarded a
number of literary awards.

EARLY LIFE

Born on 14 Jan 1926 in Dhaka, British India Mahasweta Devi (now Dhaka, Bangladesh). His
father, Manish Ghatak, was a renowned poet, novelist and pseudonymous Kallol movement
writer Jubanashwa (Bengal: lifelong). The filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak's brother has been noted.
Devi's mother Dharitri Devi has been a writer and social activist whose children, such as
renowned artist Sankha Chaudhury and founder-editor of the Indian Economic and Social Week,
Sachin Chaudhury, were also highly distinguished in different fields. First schooling in
Mahasweta Devi was in the Eden Montessori Academy, Dhaka (1930).

She moved to West Bengal afterwards (now in India). She then studied Girls High School in the
Midnapore Mission (1935). She was admitted to Santiniketan afterwards (1936 to 1938). She
then enrolled at Beltala Girls' School (1939-1941), and completed her enrolment there. Then she
received I.A. from Asutosh College in 1944. Later she became a member of the Rabindranath
University in Tagore and graduated from Visva-Bharati with an English BA and an MA in
English, from the University of Calcutta.

LITERATURE REVIEW:-
THATHRI KUTTY

In this literature we come to know about the imagination power of the poet and writing ability. A
young Namboodiri woman was the principal character of the storey also called Dhathri/Savitri.
The entire group was shocked by its bravery and courage. At a time when women from
Namboodiri could not be seen by another man, Thathri used his sexuality to challenge the
misogynist culture. 64 prominent, wealthy Brahmin patriarchs were excommunicated on their
own. It is considered a symbol, and its act was a watershed for the emancipation of women in
Malayalam culture.

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OLD WOMEN

Old Women tells the touching, poignant tales of two timeworn women. In ‘Statue’, we meet
Dulali, a widow since childhood, who is now an old woman preoccupied only with day-to-day
survival. When the government decides to erect in her village a statue of Dindayal—a man who
had fought in India’s struggle for independence from British rule and who also was in love with
Dulali long ago—a tragic, forbidden love comes back to haunt her. And in ‘The Fairy Tale of
Mohanpur’, a combination of poverty, societal indifference, and government apathy leads Andi
to lose her eyesight, even as she persists in her faith in a fairy-tale solution.

OBJECTIVES OF STUDY:-
To know who was Mahasweta Devi

To understand problems faced by her in her life and how she overcame them.

To know about her literary works.

To understand about the important events that happened in her life.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM:-
Via Maria, who is the main character and also a Tribal girl and couldn't be living comfortably
due to a woman, she tells her deep observation about the tribal woman. Mahasweta Devi She
faces problems because of patriarchal society and cannot easily get food.

HYPOTHESIS:-
The portrayal of Devi's people is an exceptional one. The representational nature of the
indigenous people is an exception. There are few writers whom the tribal people have chosen as
subject, add less than they have

The knowledge and sensitivity was written about them with. Although not a tribaL herself—has
been born in the middle class, upper caste in Dhaka—Devi writes about the tribals, their own
way of life and their own deprivation and deep empathy and romanticism in their own lives.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
Who was Mahasweta Devi?

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What were her literary works?

What role her work played in Indian Literature?

How is she important to us?

CONTENT
The storey goes, not apocratized, about Mahasweta Devi asking for Birsa Munda to be shaken
each time she visited Jharkhand. There's a statue of this fiery tribal chief who died in prison
during the British rule of 1900 in Ranchi, on Birsa Munda Chowk. The figure tells him that his
hands are in handcuffs, wearing a turban and dhoti. The officials told her that he was
photographed by the British in chains and that maybe all representations of the tribal hero who
died when he was 25 would become a reference point. They also said that the chains symbolised
his fight for independence.

The old hand of the Ranchi reminds her that it was asking, "Shaddhin deshe keno shekole
bandcha (why he's in the chains when India is free)?" as she gathered for a bonded workers'
meeting in the eighties.

Last month, 116 years after his death and a few years after his writer and activist spoke his
appeal, the Jharkhand government agreed to free Birsa Munda. She may not be there to see a
"clean" Munda, but the tribals — despised, marginalised, landless — who are still in chains —
know that she is in mind. They know that they are there.

In her novel Aranyer Adhikar (Forest Rights), which chronicles the tumultuous time of the late
19th century, and in particular, the tribal armoured rebellion against the British led by Birsa
Munda to rid of forests and slopes of "usurpers, the Birsa Munda legend was woven into
historical fiction. She got the 1979 Sahitya Akademi Prize, but the national, social and
conscientious campaigner Mahasweta Devi, who won the prize, won't be too much bothered
(Padma Shri, Padma Vibhushan, Jnanpith, Magsaysay), who was bagged by the writer
Mahasweta Devi. However, she sold her books well. Her subaltern tales will endure for ever as
long as injustice exists in the country, and the weakest need a voice. It is imperative to read her
work and remind us of her lifelong struggle with those who want to be marginalised, in today's
environment of increased bigotry.

LITERARY WORKS

Devi published more than 100 novels and more than 20 short stories mostly in Bengali, but also
translated into other languages. Her first book, the Jhansir Rani, was written in 1956 based on a

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biography of Jhansi's Rani. She had been in the Jhansi area to document the local people's
knowledge and folk songs for the novel.

The specialisation of Mahasweta Devi was Adivasi, Dalit and Marginalized, with an emphasis on
their women. In view of the colonial UK domination, the Mahajanas and U.S. corruption and
oppression they were affiliated as a protestor. In the village of Adivasi in West Bengal she lived
and learned from and from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh years after years. In her
words and characters, she has embodied their hardships and sacrifices. Her stories are not her
creation, she had said, they are the stories of her country's people. An example of this is her piece
"Choti Mundi Ebong Tar Tir"

SOCIAL ACTIVITY

She started teaching Jyotish Ray College at Vijaygarh in 1964. (an affiliated college of the
University of Calcutta system).

The Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College was a college for working class female students in those
days. She worked as a journalist and an artistic writer during that time too. She researched
Lodhas and Shabars, West Bengal tribal groups, women and Dalits. She also portrayed the
barbaric tyranny by the dominant authoritarian caste landlords, moneylenders, and venal officials
on the tribal people and their intouchable character in her elaborate Bengalesian literature.

Devi sponsored the Industrial Policy Agitation of the former Communist Party of India (Marxist)
West Bengal administration. In particular, it criticised the government for stridently confining it
to industrial homes at drain price from farmers in the large tracts of fertile agricultural land. In
the 2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, she supported Mamata Banarjee's
candidacy which ended the 34-year reign of CPI (M).

PERSONAL LIFE

The revered playwright Bijon Bhattacharya, one of the founders of the Indian People's theatre
movement, was married on 27 February 1947. In 1948, it bore the novelist and political critic
Nabarun Bhattacharya. She was working in a post office but her leaning was shot. She used to do
a variety of work, including selling soap and letters for analphabets in English. After
Bhattacharya was divorced, she married Asit Gupta in 1962. 1976 saw the close of the Gupta
alliance.

DEATH

Devi was admitted to the Belle Vue Clinic at Kolkata on 23 July 2016. A massive heart attack
occurred. On 28 July 2016 at 90 years of age, Devi died of many organ failures. Diabetes, sepsis
and urinary infection have affected her.

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Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal's Chief Minister, tweeted on her death "A brilliant writer has lost
India. The glorious mother has been sacrificed by Bengal. I missed a reference to myself. Di rest
in silence, Mahasweta." Narendra Modi tweeted Prime Minister Mahashweta Devi highlighted
the pen's power beautifully. She makes us profoundly saddened by a message of love, dignity
and fairness. FIRST."

FOR JUSTICE AND HONOUR

As a vast number of tribals in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Gujarat and north-western Europe still escape justice and honour, her stories about
their tight lives are more important than ever before.

One of her most famous plays, Hajar Churashir Maa (Mother of 1084), was adapted for theatre
and movies. Though published at the summit of the Naxalite movement in the tumultuous 1970s,
its message is perhaps much stronger in the prevalent environment of a million muted people.

The book commences with a son's death and his mother wakes up to the awful fact that he is
reduced to several. This is a furious picture of a social movement that has not been successful
and that was brutally forced down; and with Sujata Chatterjee our mother, who wants to
comprehend a movement that has taken her son Brati, is suffering. Her quest is indeed a journey
of self-discovery and of feudalism.

Mahasweta Devi's chromosomes were written and advocated. Her parents were writers, her uncle
Ritwik Ghatak, the Indian People's Theater Association's husband Bijon Bhattacharya and
radical leftist playwright (IPTA). When she was 28, she went alone to Rajasthan, to look for her
first book, Rani of Jhansi. Mahasweta Devi spending three decades of her life listening to them
tell us about these lives outside the edges of society from the tied workers of Palamu to the
denounced tribes of Bengal – the Lodhas of Medinipur, the Khedia Shobors of Purulia and the
Birbheum Dhikars.

The "Draupadi" starts with a brief uniform exchange between two persons. "What is it, a Dopdi
tribal? There is nothing like the list of names I bought! How does someone get a name without a
list?" "Draupadi Mejhen" answers the other man. She bore rice at Surja Sahu's in Bakuli the year
her mother threshed. The wife of Surja Sahu named her."

Since Devi has written and rooted her stories and plots about incidents, tribal languages, dialects,
stories and oral histories are included in her writings. With her creativity, she raised these stories
in different genres and forms. His writing is brutal and lyrical, cynical, humorous in sound.

THE POWER OF DOPDI

She does not want to save Dopdi any miracle. Though Dopdi is chased by her abusers, she
hysterically laughs as she tears her sari up and exposes the nakedness of her in a chilling act of

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distrust that was the kind we saw in Imphal in 2004, when women protested the murder of
Thangjam Manorama.

The heroine Jashoda is paid for her master and mistress' brood, in another novel, "The Breast
Giver." This helps her sustain her disadvantaged family with disabilities. She discusses why
adivasis is so misunderstood in another novel, "Pterodactyl." The Adivasis were civilised and
cultivated for her, hypocritical in their own class.

Mahasweta Devi, throughout her whole life and literature, sought to prevent a rapidly developing
country from unnoticing the distress of "distressed spectators." It was attracted to those who lead
a "subhuman life," people who have no access to schooling or to healthcare or to roads or
revenues. Many may not have been able to read her writing yet, but her stories are out because of
her.

She was not to be afraid of the rough journey. In spite of its apparent left ties, MahaswetaDevi
began a vehement protest against the seizure of land by the state during the Singur and
Nandigram turmoil in Western Bengal, also in its 80s. Her fragile frame of the Kolkata rally
against the Nandigram police shooting encouraged the opposition and Mamata Banerjee to bring
in 'poriborton' in the country. But again, when Mamata Banerjee's newly elected Government
denied permission to hold a rally in Kolkata against government intervention in the Lalgarh
region against the maoists.

It was important for Mahasweta Devi to "try to pull off the curtain of the gloom, look outside,
see in the process our true faces." Mahasweta Devi has a lens for society through her poetry and
activism.

TRIBAL UPRISING IN INDIA

Devi Mahasweta (1926-2016) is one of Bengali's foremost writers. Devi was a fierce warrior and
her weapons were her political writings and fiction. Her prolific writings are well known to her.
She wrote between 1981 and 1992 outstanding books including novels, tales of youth, plays and
activist literature.

Mahasweta Devi is not only recognised because of her political style but also because of her
tremendous commitment to landless societies of East India where she has served for years. She
was able to understand and start reporting grassroots topics, thus making her a media and socio-
political commentator in the excluded society.

This led her to publish a quarterly Bortika Bengali – a forum for the impoverished farmers,
tribals, agricultural workers, manufacturing workers and even the pullers who didn't have a word
or room to represent each other. Devi used the fictional area of fantasy to start a dialogue and
conversation on the ground with the actual people, all of which had been ignored.

life and work

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The life of Mahasweta Devi's writing can be divided into important phases, with her first novel,
the Queen of Jhansi (Jhansir Rani) in 1956, which was a biography of the ruler of a woman in the
Prince's State against the British, published in 1857. Although Devi lacked a background in
research, he did careful research on this book.

She did so with assistance from relatives and friends who generously helped her journey to
libraries, as well as recording oral histories of storey and legends shared over centuries. They
also supported her. Since the first novel she wrote voraciously and published 96 titles—not
counting non-fiction, political essays, kids' stories, or her editorial work during her lifetime.

If Devi's appeal as a writer began in 1956, she published in four stages. The four steps are as
follows to help the reader understand the work's corpus: It was released 19 titles between 1956
and 1965. Nine titles between 1966 and 1966. The second period seems to be the slightest of its
prose. But she developed some of the sharpest and most important writing in this period.

The titles were: Kavi Band Ghoti Gainer Jivan a Mrityu, who portrayed the battle of a low caste
boy in Bengal in the 15th century. During this period she wrote her most popular and prolific
novel, later adapted as a filmmaking picture, the tale about the Naxalite radical left movement,
Hajar Churashir Ma (Mother, 1084), in the 1970s.

The Person

At the age of 13, Mahasweta Devi began writing, but was only recognised after the publication
of her first novel, at the age of 30. This is the landmark from which Devi started her journey as a
writer and activist – not only to chronicle social realities, but to record injustice consciously.

One crucial question that one might raise is – in her novels do the characters she writes read
these stories? There are several anecdotes to this topic, where one can see instances of certain
people reading and being influenced by their work. One such anecdote is from a petty rickshaw-
puller who asked Devi about the significance, in one of her books, of the Bengali word Jijibisha
(will to live). This rickshaw puller was fascinated by the passion for reading by Mahasweta Devi,
who invited him to collaborate with her on Bortika, their quarterly Bengali magazine.

Manoranjan Byapari, an afflicted man, was the rickshaw puller and a former Naxalite who had
been taught to read while in Alipur Jail jails. He finally became one of the best known authors in
the Dalit in Bengal and wrote more than a hundred short stories and nine novels on Dalit living
in Bengal.

The Writer

The texts of Devi are unusually feel-good. She does not touch the hearts of her readers and is
very frank about the marginalized perspectives. Her vocabulary is straightforward – an ironic
contrast with the ambiguity of her problems. Really, it is accurate because it speaks about
abstract truths, and uses plain words to address the reader.Her fiction enables the reader to

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examine culture, society, sexuality, sexual functions and how they function across areas of
diverse dynamics of influence. Both these are arranged in her stories in order to show that the
inequalities in caste, age and gender are exploited.

Devi's work points to a certain shift in the debate on sexuality, in which poor women are no
longer oppressed but instead the foundation of political emancipation. The character threats the
masculinities of her oppressors by her fiery self-confusion and forced them to look upon its
nakedness in a defiance that manifests its strength and sovereignty in her popular short storey
Draupadi, on the rape and mutilation of a tribal woman, named Dopdi.

Mahasweta Devi has received the Padma Shri, not as a writer but as an activist working with the
tribal communities in West Bengal Purulia and Medinipur.

The Activist

Devi wrote extensively and criticised the trickle-down principle on aspects of major
developments. Her work is necessary to consider subordinate politics and her struggles to visibly
manipulate them invisibly. She has been involved and founded many more organisations. She is
as relaxed as she is behind her desk writing about this fighting in the processions of citizens
fighting for the interests of limited workers.

Despite the demands of her growing generation, Mahasweta Devi has continuously been active
in various struggles and belonged to many organisations. Throughout her life she filled these
different positions and the protester remained alive and resistant to her last breath.

ABSTRACT:-

The artistic writings of Mahasweta Devi focused on fighting socially disadvantaged

people. She was trying to portray people's battles against corruption and tyranny. Her
female actors come from marginal segments of society. Their stories reveal the forces
that tyrannise many of them, including the influence of sex, economy and society. Her
work is inspirational, and she reminds us that gender is just an axis of sexism. Her
approach to talking about the lives of the poor is clear.

She's all about complicated truths. Their fiction enables readers to look at cultural
traditions, social structures, gender groups, sexual functions and how they function in
spaces with various dynamics of influence. In her novels, the arrangement is combined
to show exploits dependent on race, age, and sex differences. Men and women in India
have been distinguished since time immemorial. Women have always been at an
inconvenience box. They spent their lives in the kitchen, looked after the entire house,
and were always tortured by men. That's what her novels emphasise

SUGGESTION/OPINIONS:-

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She has written over 120 books throughout her semester-literary career, consisting of
20 short stories collections and some 100 novels, and contributed countless newspaper
and journal articles and columns with a wide range of them tied to tribal life.

Taking a distinct, non-sentimental style, Mahasweta vividly depicted the sufferings of

tribal rulers, moneylenders and officials in the grip of upper-caste landlords and
chronically told tribal opposition and dissent.

CONCLUSION:-

Initially, Sanichari was oppressed as a female, and at a young age she was forced to
marry. She often scolded her saying that she was born on Saturday, because her name
was inauspicious. Those mothers were also blamed for her marginalisation. She also
said Sanichari's life was full of hardship and gave her family bad luck. This made
Sanichari revolt against her birthright mother.

Shanichari was forced to work as a paying mourner (Rudali), for no one provided her
with the basics of life.

"Nothing has ever been convenient for them. Just daily fighting is frustrating for a small
grey maize and salt. Whereas people pay a great deal of money at ceremonies of death
just to win prestige..."

Finally she became a Rudali just to receive her everyday bread. It is about the survival
of Rudali. Her tears had to be selled, but the loss of her landowners, which she never
shed when her own people died, so she could gain her living.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:-

https://feminisminindia.com/2017/03/14/mahasweta-devi-essay/

https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/tribal-uprisings-in-18th-and-19th-centuries/

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english/mahasweta-devi-rudali.php

http://14.139.213.3:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/125/12/12%20%20CONCLUSION.pdf

https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/mahasweta-devi-lived-like-she-wrote-fearlessly-and-
without-restraint/story-ypNPCoE1gX1D0VDKjjaueO.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahasweta_Devi

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https://muckrack.com/mahasweta-devi/articles

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