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[edit] Mahasweta Devi

Dawn

June 10, 2007

AUTHOR: A small victory

By Asif Farrukhi

IF literature was to have any icons today, she would undoubtedly be one of them. But one wonders as to how icons like her are in person. If I had not known her to be a one-woman whirlwind, I would have thought she resembled my grandmother with all her disarming simplicity. “Grandmother? I am old enough to be your great-grandmother,” she shot back with her characteristic dry humour. But then she decided that she was Didi to me, as this is what everybody else calls her. Mahasweta Devi, the towering figure in Indian literature is like a loving older sister for everyone.

I missed Mahasweta Devi in Delhi this time around as she did not attend this year’s Saarc Writers Conference. That is where I had first met her in 2005. She was conspicuous by her absence from a ceremony where she was to be awarded a literary prize. Instead, she sent a letter accepting the prize and announcing that she was donating the entire amount for the rehabilitation of peasants, victims of state excess and police brutality, in Nandigram. I was finally able to see her in her element at her home in Kolkata.

I must have passed through half of Kolkata searching for her address that Easter weekend. Looking at an endless array of decaying buildings, it began to appear that Kolkota was the mother, the inevitable future of my own city — a city which in the present moment could be the bleak setting of Hazar Chaurasir Maan, one of Didi’s splendid novels.

Mahasweta Devi lives in frugal and dignified simplicity. She sits at her desk and looks out at a clump of trees from her window. “From here, I can hear crows. You know that in Kolkata, you cannot hear the sound of crows. No birds remain. There are no ants left,” she says. With great conviction, she talks about how natural resources are being depleted and the earth’s longevity destroyed, and how all concerned people must act together. I was drawn to her conversation.

I went to see her again the next morning along with Kishwar Naheed, one of Pakistan’s well-known poets, and walked straight into her meeting with several committed activists. One could see why Didi is described as a one-woman resource centre. But she very kindly introduced us to the activists gathered there as well as the issues they were struggling against.

Mahasweta Devi’s powerful, haunting stories portray the exploitation and struggles of the dispossessed. Her story Rudali and the novel Hazar Chaurasir Maan are well known to larger audiences in their film versions. Combining literary work with unrelenting activism, she is working with tribal and marginalised communities, especially landless peasants. A leading writer in Bangla, she is better known as a socio-political commentator for the English press.

Her works have been translated in major European languages and she was made an Officier Del’ Ordre Des Artes Et Des Lettres by the French Academy. She has won several honours including the Sahitya Akademi award, the Jnanpath award and the Ramon Magsaysay award. She was given India’s top civil award, the Padamsree in 1986. A series especially devoted to her selected writings is being published by Seagull Books from her home town, Kolkata.

Talking to Didi is like being immersed in the cross-currents of social issues and socially committed literature — an education in itself. All the questions I ask her somehow come down to the issues she is dealing with, and what begins as a discussion on the art of the novel from my side turns into a history of bonded labour and peasant movements in South Asia.

When asked as to why she has not written fiction for the last two or three years she says, “I haven’t written fiction for quiet some time but my collected works are coming out soon.” She shows me a thick book in Bangla and explains, “This is the 17th volume. It is on-going.” According to her she has not felt like writing a story since the last two years. “But I have written a lot, not now, but many years ago, about the Naxalite movement, for I have been very close to people’s movements.”

Didi’s passion for writing and social work is immense. “I write because writing is the only thing that I know I can do. It is what I have learned,” she says. When asked whether it is necessary for a writer to come out in the streets, she begins to tell her story, “I spent my childhood in Tagore’s Shanti Niketan when he was alive. My father was a government servant in transferable service. So at the age of 10, I was sent there. I was there for three years and after I finished college, I went there again.

“I have seen Tagore closely, the way he used to run his institution, and I have seen Mahatma Gandhi. In my time, I have seen people who gave us a nation. Shanti Niketan, in my childhood, was a place where people from all over undivided India would come. There was a concept of togetherness,” she recollects.

Talking of her lifelong commitment to the marginalised people, she says, “I am very close to the tribals and many of my important books are on tribal life. I have been greatly interested in their history.” For Didi, history does not insinuate the printed word alone. “History exists in the blank spaces between the lines,” she says.

This powerful statement is her credo as she has written about legends such as Rani of Jhansi, Titu Mir and Birsa Munda. “History does not constitute the kings’ annals alone. The people’s version is also very important. In order to know them, I have to go and meet the people and stay with them. This is what my life has been like. I am a very unconventional person. This is why I protest and do what I do,” she says in earnestness and with a smile.

When asked whether she will ever go back to writing fiction, she is quick in affirming. “But of course. I will write fiction. I will write stories. But right now I am in the heart of things, for important things are happening,” she says and begins to explain her current preoccupation. “You must have heard the name Singho, near Kolkata. Geologically, it is the most fertile spot in West Bengal and our Chief Minister has very conveniently sold that piece of land to the Tatas, who want to build a factory there. About fifteen to twenty thousand peasants owned the land,” she explains.

“If they go ahead with their plans, this will turn out to be a huge ecological disaster because this is a multi-crop area with rivers and water sources and so many bastis where thousands of people live. This is part of what is going on in India, what are called the special economic zones and the latest is what is happening in Nandigram. Now our Chief Minister has made it available to America’s Dow Chemicals. The same group which was responsible for making the Napalm bombs which killed several thousands in Vietnam,” she vents her anger.

The police opened fire on protesting men, women and children, killing many. “This is a global issue and all globally-concerned people have to understand corporate land-grabbing and do something about it,” she says. The significance of her concern is just, for the Indian government is acting more like a corporate sector agent pushing the agenda of globalisation and acting against the very interest of the people. A small victory has been won in Nandigram but the struggle is not over. “The CPI has been ruling West Bengal for over 30 years and basic services like roads, drinking water, sanitary facilities, schools and hospitals are yet to reach or benefit the people,” she says emphatically.

It is with great passion that she speaks of her involvement with the so-called de-notified tribes. “These people were treated like criminals. I did not know that such things still existed and thus I started fighting and writing,” she says, adding, “I have not learnt from theories but from experience.”

Mahasweta Devi has not been afraid of taking risks when it comes to work, but she is quick to shrug off any heroism. “I don’t think I am brave. I just have no sense of fear,” she says. “I am 82 years old. What have I got to lose? Our only ray of hope is the young generation. We have to touch their hearts. They have to be proud of the soil and the people because the highly educated few don’t feel close to the common people.” When I tell her that her books can contribute a great deal when it comes to making such a connection, she replies modestly, “I am doing the only thing I can do.”