Violation of Human Rights as Visible in Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi

Violation of Human Rights as Visible in Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi

              Dr Meera Rao I K

HOD & Associate Professor

Dept. of English

Govt. Women’s College

Vijayanagar,

Mysore, Karnataka.

Mahasweta Devi is not only a Bengali writer of repute but also a Human Rights Activist. She, no doubt, owes her decision to write and pursue social work to her parents from whom she has inherited these qualities. She was born on 14 January, 1926 in Dhaka, British India, in an affluent family to literary parents. While her father was a well-known poet and novelist, her mother too, was a writer and a social worker. Mahasweta Devi has spent her entire life spearheading the cause of the marginalized, the dispossessed, the voiceless, the suppressed and the exploited. Her pen has always been a tool for expressing the stark realities faced by the downtrodden dalits, the helpless tribals and the vulnerable women in an inhuman world. Her focus is on the struggle of the tribal communities of West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In recent years, Mahasweta Devi has been deeply involved in the study of the ‘life history of rural tribal people’ in West Bengal. She has shown a lot of interest in issues pertaining to women, the dalits and the tribals and upheld their cause. These issues have always been the thematic consideration of her writings throughout her literary career. Her fiction speaks of the atrocities on women, the tribal people and the dalits by the moneylenders, the potent upper caste landlords and the inhuman government authorities. This is what Mahasweta Devi states, regarding the source of inspiration for her writings:

I have always believed that the real history is made by ordinary people. I constantly come across the reappearance, in various forms, of folklore, ballads, myths and legends, carried by ordinary people across generations. ... The reason and inspiration for my writing are those people who are exploited and used, and yet do not accept defeat. For me, the endless source of ingredients for writing is in these amazingly noble, suffering human beings. Why should I look for my raw material elsewhere, once I have started knowing them? Sometimes it seems to me that my writing is really their doing.

Mahasweta Devi writes in Bengali and most of her writings have been translated into various Indian and foreign languages and this, no doubt, has brought her universal recognition. Her prolific literary career began with her first book, Jhansir Rani (The Queen of Jhansi) published in 1956. The coming years saw the soaring of her literary career to unimaginable heights. She has published twenty collections of short stories and close to a hundred novels, primarily in her native language of Bengali.  

Most of her works have been translated to English by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak who is considered as ‘the doyenne of postcolonial analysis’. Some of her well-known works are: Agnigarbha (Womb of Fire, 1978); Breast Stories (1997) translated by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak; Bitter Soil (1998) translated by Ipshita Chanda; Breast-Giver (1987) translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Draupadi  (1987) translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Of Women, Outcasts, Peasants, and Rebels (1990)translated by Kalpana Bardhan; Imaginary Maps: Three Stories (1993) translated by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak; Our Non-Veg Cow and Other Stories (1998) translated by Paramita Banerjee; Mother of 1084 (1997) translated by Shamik Bandyopadhyay; The Wet Nurse (1990): In Truth Tales-Contemporary Stories by Women Writers of India.

This paper intends to briefly examine the violation of Human Rights as visible in Mahasweta Devi’s short story Draupadi, which is one of the three stories from the collection Agnigarbha. It is considered one of Mahasweta Devi’s most famous short stories and centres round the life of a rebel woman Draupadi. As the dalit tongues cannot pronounce the name Draupadi it becomes the tribal version Dopdi. It is based on the retaliation by the West Bengal State Government on the Naxalite activities of 1967-72 wherein the Police and the military forces used brutal and inhuman force, including kidnap, murder and rape to quell the Naxalite uprising. The central character Dopdi Mejhen is a twenty seven year old Santhal tribal woman who upholds the cause of the tribals. She is not only proud of her ‘pure unadulterated black blood of Champabhumi’ but also her forefathers who ‘stood guard over their women’s blood in black armour’ (Holmstrom, 100). She is targeted by the Government because she is considered a naxalite informer and part of a revolutionary guerrilla maoist group. Hence, she is on the hit-list of the police who think that her arrest would lead them to the others.

Dopdi, a lower caste woman was named after the mythic Draupadi of the Mahabharata by her upper caste mistress whose husband Surja Sahu, a landowner and money-lender is killed for having refused to share water with the Dalits. Hence, Dopdi and her husband Dulna are considered the prime suspects in the murder.  Both Dopdi and Dulna go into hiding after the incident but Dulna is shot dead when he is drinking water from the falls by the soldiers. On the instruction of Senanayak, the elderly Bengali specialist in combat and extreme-Left politics, Dulna’s corpse is kept as a bait to trap anyone who comes to take it away. However, no one turns up to the disappointment of the soldiers who are in hiding and Senanayak. The search for Dopdi continues as she becomes the trustworthy courier and the savior of her group. She ‘loved Dulna more than her blood’. Hence, after his death, she takes on herself the responsibility of saving the fugitives. She sees at the Panchayat Office, with her own eyes, that there is a reward of two hundred rupees for her head. If caught, she knows that she would be tortured. She tells Mushai’s wife that when the police counter, “. . . your hands are tied behind you. All your bones are crushed, your sex is a terrible wound. . .” (Holmstrom, 98). Senanayak befriends the tribals and betrayed by her own lot Dopdi, who is on the run, is successfully apprehended by Senanayak at 6.53 p.m. In an hour she is brought to the camp and questioned. Before leaving for dinner, Senanayak states to the soldiers, ‘Make her. Do the needful’’ (Holmstrom, 102).

Dopdi is sexually assaulted and gang-raped the whole night by the soldiers who think that they are teaching her a lesson. The next morning Dopdi is ‘thrown on the straw. Her piece of cloth is thrown over her body’ (Holmstrom, 103). When she is asked to go to Senanayak’s tent she ‘tears her piece of cloth with her teeth’. The commotion brings Senanayak out of his tent and he is shocked to see Draupadi, ‘naked, walking towards him in the bright sunlight with her head held high’ (Holmstrom, 103). While the guards become nervous, a shocked Senanayak is about to cry, ‘What is this?’ However, he stops when he finds Draupadi standing naked before him with her ‘thigh and pubic hair matted with dry blood. Two breasts, two wounds’ (Holmstrom, 104).

Rape is always seen as an act of dishonor, loss of chastity, loss of respectability and humiliation for a woman. However, Dopdi confronts her abusers boldly instead of cowering before her tormentors. She redefines the definition of rape with her ‘nakedness’ by making use of her body as a weapon to thwart and mock her rapists. While she walks with her head held high, Senanayak who had asked his soldiers to ‘make’ Dopdi and the guards become nervous and shocked. Infact, the menfolk are made to hang their heads in shame. She challenges the ‘masculinity of her rapists’ when she ‘spits a bloody gob at Senanayak and says, There isn’t a man here that I should be ashamed. I will not let you put my cloth on me. What more can you do? Come on, counter me – come on, counter me - ?’ (Holmstrom, 104). She then ‘pushes Senanayak with her two mangled breasts and for the first time Senanayak is afraid to stand before an unarmed target, terribly afraid’ (Holmstrom, 104).

The cold-blooded murder of Dulna, while he is drinking water, is certainly, a violation of human rights and as for the gang rape on Dopdi, a helpless tribal woman by the soldiers, no right-thinking man in a civilized society would approve of the barbaric and monstrous act. The hounding of the tribals by the government in the name of Operation Bakuli and Operation Jharkhani Forest and the police atrocities on the innocent tribals are questionable. Thus, Mahasweta Devi dons the role of a Human Rights Activist and asks: Why after confrontations are the skeletons discovered with arms broken or severed? Could armless men have fought? Why do the collar-bones shake, why are legs and ribs crushed? (Holmstrom, 96). These questions stand as a testimony to the violation of Human Rights on the part of the government, the Police force and the Army.

The deftness and the mastery with which Mahasweta Devi handles the situation both as a writer and a Human Rights activitist is seen at the end of the story. She addresses the injustice meted out to Dopdi and restores the reader’s faith in the machinery of justice by projecting Dopdi as an ideal representative of womanhood and not as weak and helpless as the mythic Draupadi of the Mahabharata. While the mythic Draupadi turns to Lord Krishna for help, Dopdi handles the situation on her own. The subaltern defies Senanayak himself, laughs at him and says, The object of your search, Dopdi Mejhen. You asked them to make me up, don’t you want to see how they made me? . . . What’s the use of clothes? You can strip me, but can you clothe me again? Are you a man? (Holmstrom, 104).

In conclusion it can be contended that throughout history, literature has always upheld the dignity, the self-esteem, the self-respect and the pride of the downtrodden. In fact, literature has always represented the ‘voice of the voiceless’. In that sense, Mahasweta Devi has provided justice to her powerful character Dopdi by making Senanayak and his men hang their heads in shame. A feeling of helplessness, nervousness and fear is seen in Senanayak when Dopdi refuses to put on her clothes. His ‘unarmed target’ proves to be a ‘deadly missile’ which Senanayak himself cannot confront. The reader’s empathy too, would go a long way in making Dopdi a heroic character.  While Human Rights is embedded in rules and regulations, literature crosses all boundaries—caste, sex, religion, race, etc. and provides justice to the downtrodden and in that sense, Mahasweta Devi has proved herself to be a spokesperson of the subaltern, the marginalized and the downtrodden. It can be stated that among the short stories of Mahasweta Devi Draupadi is not only the most thought-provoking but also a disturbing one. The short story throws light on the fact that the government tries everything within its means—force, kidnapping, murder, rape and custodial death to quell the naxalite movement which at times ends in atrocities and victimization or the death of the innocent. This, inturn, results in the violation of the rights of human beings who deserve to live and lead life with dignity. The fugitives are never given a fair hearing as in the case of Dulna and Dopdi and the police atrocities are never questioned because the subaltern is voiceless. Mahasweta Devi has disproved this aspect and made her protagonist the voice of the ‘wronged’ women. Through the voice of the powerful character Dopdi’s Mahasweta Devi has shown the means of obtaining social justice which is the birthright of all human beings.

References

Holmstrom, Lakshmi. Ed. The Inner Courtyard: Stories by Indian Woman. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2007. Print.

            Hameed. Syeda. S. Sexual Abuse in Revenge: Women as Targets of communal Hatred. The       Violence of Normal Times: Essays on Women’s Lived Reality. Ed. Kalpana kannabiran.           New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2005. Print.

Rani, T.Jyothi and K.Katyayini. Violence on women in the Context of Indian Political     Economy – A study of Mahasweta Devi’s Sri Ganesh Mahima and Draupadi. Kakatiya   Journal of English Studies.Vol. 18, 1998. 123-132. Print.

******************************************************