jignasa: OPPRESSION OF TRIBALS

Introduction

Mahasveta Devi is one of the greatest contemporary Indian writers. With many short stories, novels to her credit, she has emerged as a major force to reckon with in the realms of social-political activism and literature. There are very few writers in India who write with more authenticity and commitment. There are few writers in the world who want to be sure of their information and art. To be more authentic in her information she personally visits places, and gathers information. The content, coherence and narrative style perfectly coalesce in her writings. Samik Bandyhopadhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak write that

She personally visits places, gathers information, interacts with the tribals, gains first-hand knowledge about their living conditions, customs and habits and then transforms the material into a story or a novella. Coherence and narrative style are her hallmarks.¹

Mahasveta Devi has a spirited and abled personality. There are six million Adivasis. She has done extensive field work and research in tribal areas of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and then transformed her field work into stories, novels and journalistic writings. Her writings, and her activism, have particular appeal to activists intellectuals, writers, and people with sensitivity and commitment. Every time she writes, her voice and the voice of the tribals become inseparable. One does not know whether a tribal of India is writing a big novel or Mahasveta Devi is writing a novel or a story about the tribals. Mahasveta Devi says,

I see my countrymen without food, water and land, and reeling under debts and bonded labour. An anger, luminous and burning like the sun, directed against a system that cannot free my people from these inhuman constraints is the only source of inspiration for all my writing. All parties, those to the Left and those to the Right alike, have failed to keep their promises to the common people. There is little prospect of any significant change in these things, at least in my life time. Hence I have to go on writing to the best of my ability in defence of the dispossessed and the disinherited, so that I may never have reason to feel ashamed to face myself.²

Mahasveta Devi’s well researched and expounded facts are considered dangerously authentic and real, as the documented inhuman miseries make the readers awestruck. In an interview to Enakshi Chatterjee she said,

All my work, in varying degrees, is based on research.³

The author makes a poignant presentation of how the tribal men mortgaged their labour, their women and their entire life to the feudal lords as a result of which they live like slaves. Devi says,

And when independence comes, it is not reflected in the tribal region, leaving the tribals untouched by the historic change that has overtaken the country. Nothing changes for them. Tribal zones exist as ‘islands of slavery’ in the ‘vast ocean of independence’. Opportunities for expansion and growth are offered by the new economic-political scenario, but only to the well-off; they do not come the tribals’ way. The questions of land, drinking water, proper wage-payment, education, health-care, as if for them are eternal ones, with no solutions being looked for, and therefore, not in sight.⁴

Mahasveta excels in many aspects and genres of literature. She is multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. She is a novelist, a story writer, playwright, essayist, columnist, magazine-editor, and also a social-cultural activist. She feels that writing is a pious and noble vocation and hence follows the practice of giving voice to the marginalized sections of Indian society. She lives what she writes, and writes what she lives. It is a rare instance of synthesis between word and action. Kamala Das once said about her:

Mahasveta Devi….is a wonderful, fearless woman. She has learned of the tribals, she has lived with them, and she’s dealing with material she’s acquainted with. Write about her. Make a cult out of her.⁵

Mahasveta writes voluminously as her field word is extensive. She records and articulates with profound understanding the misery and destitution, victories and defeats, suffering and the indomitable spirit of the tribals who have been oppressed and exploited all along.

The exploitation of the starving peasant continues. The jotedars have cornered almost all the cultivable agricultural land today. The extortion of interest on loans at a compound rate and forced labour in repayment of debts have grown into a system. Rural India has the appearance of an enormous graveyard.⁶

The stories that Mahasveta writes are true to every word reflecting some real life incident or the other of the downtrodden. All her protogonists are embodiments of some form of exploitation and oppression and/or resistance. Through her writings she wants to remind them of their glorious past. She writes,

You see tribal rebellions are never mentioned in the history of the freedom struggle. This was the first time that the mainstream came to know about the tribal heroes, their rebellions. This gave them a sense of joy. Sense of pride in themselves. After that it became easy. They were coming to me, I was going to them.⁷

Through Mahasveta’s writings we can understand the weaknesses of the tribals, as well as strengths, their sense of inferiority, simplicity, their insularity against civilized ways. Going through her works is an experience, as rare as in the words of V Garisn:

The first thing that occurs to anyone who has read or seen a lofty creation of art is that it is very familiar, very true, very likely, and nevertheless it is the first time that anyone has been able to see it or become aware of it. The artist has been able to see it, to understand it, to place it before the eyes of everyone so that now, all those who have been hitherto blind can see it.⁸

Mahasveta argues for a radical change in the existing social system. Even after so many years of independence, she still finds people landless, indebted, starving, and not having minimum needs essential for survival. Even after six decades after independence, the tribals donot know what is independence? She writes,

Ten per cent of the agricultural labourers said that they did not know that India was independent. They thought that the Englishmen had been given a new name, the Indian government. One hundred per cent of them said that they had never heard of the minimum wages for the agricultural labourers.⁹

Poverty has not been eliminated and the plight of the tribals remained the same in India. The Indian government provided a special Schedule in the Constitution to the tribals not implemented in letter and spirit.

This ocean of money that flows for the removal of poverty among the tribals and the other deprived groups doesnot show up in the tribal quotas are another hoax, for how many tribal PR officers, computer scientists, oceanographers, and particle physicists have been produced in forty years?¹⁰

In her writings, Mahasveta Devi gives a message of hope to the dejected lot. Besides bonded labour, oppression, indebtedness, starvation, she concentrates on forced prostitution, sexual exploitation of women thus focusing on gender politics. Mahasveta says,

They force these young girls to sleep with the owners, the supervising staff, the truck drivers, khalasis and local mastans. Anyone who refuses to co-operate is first locked up in a room, beaten and then seared with a hot iron. It is usual to make a girl drink heavily and then send her for the master’s pleasure.¹¹

Mahasveta Devi, was born in Dhaka on 14^th January 1926, to Manish Ghatak, a poet and novelist, and Dharitri Devi, a writer and social worker. About her family she says,

I was fortunate to be born in a family where both sides were very liberal and women were held in great respect. The women were terrors, indomitable, fearless. And all received education. This had a great influence on my work, on my life. I love people. ¹²

Mahasveta Devi studied at Shanthiniketan. She took her graduation degree in 1946. She completed her post-graduation in English in 1967.

There are many pre-independence events that have a profound effect on Mahasveta Devi. The second world war, atom bombs of 1945, Salt Satyagraha of 1930, the looming presence of Gandhiji, Quit India Movement of 1942, The Bengal famine in 1943, partition of India and communal strifes before and after independence, the era of Stalin, these and eminent persons of the period made her look at life and history from close quarters. These colourations formed a local and national consciousness in her.

In her early days Mahasveta Devi was a sympathizer of the undivided Communist party. She was a government employee. Her marriage with Bijon Bhattacharya did not last long and she divorced him in 1962. Afterwards she married Asit Gupta.

In all, Mahasveta wrote 94 books. Apart from these, there are non-fictional works, books edited by her, text books written for children and translations. Her books are translated into Hindi, Assamese, and many Indian languages and also into English, Italian, Japanese, and French. Her literary career could be divided into four phases as the areas of concern and creative zest shifted from one field to another. Her writings have all along been committed to the socially marginalized, the poor, and the tribals.

1^st Phase 1956-65 19 Titles.

2^nd ” 1966-75 9 ”

3^rd ” 1976-85 27 ”

4^th ” 1986-95 39 ” ------------ 94 ”

Mahasveta’s works have endeared her to the people who live and struggle. This octogenarian has made their plight known to the outside world. Her relentless struggle spanning over half a century and still continuing even at the age of 82 years to do something to the bandhuas has no match in the contemporary Indian literature. Through her writings she wants to bring them back their dignity.

Mahasveta is not an individual but a one-woman institution, fighting for the cause of the downtrodden, the bandhuas, the untouchables, the tribals, etc.

Her accomplishment cannot be understood purely in literary terms. At least from the 1980s onwards, she has been actively associated with many grassroots level social movements around the question of bonded labour, persisting feudalism in rural polity, state negligence and forceful acquisition of agricultural land. ¹³

Mahasveta presents the rare combination of an activist, and a writer who has been leading a spirited crusade against social injustice meted out to the marginalized and the dispossessed. Commenting on how she plans her fictional works, Mahasveta says,

A lot of thought and planning goes into my major writing. I have a habit of jotting down words, phrases anything which strikes me. Sometimes I write down the points of a story without knowing what will come out of it. Often that story does not get written at all. Anyway, after I begin writing, the story often takes a course I had not intended. ¹⁴

Mahasveta Devi’s sincerity, her life’s mission compels her to bring the travails of the tribals to the notice of the mainstream world. She probes the causes of their exploitation and how they have been treated inhumanly for generations by their own countrymen. She writes,

But the problem everywhere is not necessarily about land. As a labourer working on land, the peasant is denied what is rightfully his. For him, it is a never-ending battle for water, seed and fertilizer. He lives in the midst of starvation and poverty. No middle-level cultivator has gained from the economic prosperity of the post-Independence period. However, the rich have become richer and a self-satisfied, illiterate, uncivilized affluent class has emerged. The ordinary middle class has become poorer after losing its few possessions and the lower middle class today is facing extinction. The small farmer has sold whatever he had to the zamindar, and now stands in the long line of landless peasants.¹⁵

Any writer, takes for his/her subject material from the society. What they write reflects creatively man’s lifescape, inner and outer, and holds a mirror to one’s position socially, politically, culturally and economically. Mahasveta gives equal importance to the written as well as oral traditions. Sen Nivedita writes,

Most of the tribals whose life Mahasweta documents in her works belong to a non-literate culture. The orality of these original participants adds a further dimension to a complex mediation that the text undergoes during the process of translation.¹⁶

Mahasveta says oral traditions are more important than written as some facts are handed over from one generation to another generation. Mahasveta Devi makes a very effective use of the oral tradition. To a question she replied that, fables, folklore, riddles, rituals, death-rites – all are very important. Sen Nivedita writes,

Mahasveta’s first book was Jhansir Rani. Jhansi Rani was a queen who fought against the British in 1857. It is considered by the historians as the first war of independence. Rani’s presence was an inspiration to the soldiers in the battle field. She had led an uprising in Central India. Rani’s soldiers were the Pathans and the Afghans. To publish that book, Mahasveta could raise 400 rupees. Her commitment was so much, Mahasveta Devi left her husband and a 6 years old son to develop the subject.

Mahasveta Devi is a writer with purpose. She wants that the purpose should be made known to the public and justice denied to them must be restored to them. That is her ambition. In her own words,

To build it you must love beyond reason for a long time. For a few thousand years we haven’t loved them, respected them. Where is the time now, at the last gasp of the century? Parallel ways, their world and our world are different, we have never had a real exchange with hem, it could have enriched us.¹⁸

Mahasveta desires that her writings be read with more concentration. She says that she considers herself an Indian writer because what she has been writing could be true of any part of India. She writes,

I consider myself an Indian writer, not a Bengali writer. I am proud of this.¹⁹

Mahasveta who is a highly committed writer refuses to be classified as only a Bangla writer. She claims herself more an activist than a writer. She characteristically regards her works as being true to the lives of indigenous people all over the world.

She is also a celebrated icon of Third World literature in the First World academia. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil.²⁰

That is why Mahasveta encourages translations of her writing. If her books are translated the whole world will come to know the plights of the tribals. Sen Nivedita says,

However, most of Mahasweta’s predominant concerns – the predicament of tribal backwaters, the exploitation of the Adivasis by the landed rich or the urban administrative machinery callously perpetuating a legacy of complicity with the colonizers, bonded labour and prostitution, the destitution and misery of city dwellers who are condemned to live at the fringes and eke out a meager livelihood, the plight of women who are breadwinners and/ or victims of male sexual violence, dependent widows, ill-treated wives, and unwanted daughters whose bodies can fetch a price—are adequately represented through these translations.²¹

Mahasveta has a single-minded mission in her life. She strives for the emanicipation of the tribals from the clutches of oppressive forces. Behind every line of hers, there is irony and pathos born out of her interaction with the tribals. Mahasveta writes,

Exploitation is a common phenomenon in a capitalist society where the weaker sections and tribals are the victimized lot.

If one were to sum up in a word the theme of Mahasveta’s works and the motive force of her life, it invariably would be : FIGHT AGAINST EXPLOITATION. Tribal exploitation, women’s exploitation, non-tribal and other backward castes’ exploitation, are the different layers of the running theme. ²³

Mahasveta says whatever be the society women are more exploited and marginalized. Firstly because of traditional values, secondly because of gender politics. Mahasveta acknowledges the validity of the women’s position, women’s identity, but at the same time maintains that her work focuses on class exploitation in which the underclass is exploited---both men and women.

Mahasveta’s fiction too chronicles the ‘silent revolution’. She has been a witness to, and indeed been instrumental in bringing about, among the fifteen-thousand strong tribal communities of Purulia, a district in West Bengal. She says,

Such agitations compelled the governments to pass the Estate Acquisition Act in 1954, which would prohibit an individual from possessing more than twenty-five acres of land. While the intention behind this Act cannot be doubted, in practice, it hardly affected the affluent landowners. For them, the loss of land was marginal. Most of it remained with them through “benami” transactions. Even the subsequent amendment in 1971 did not benefit the landless peasants to any great extent. It is well-known that the law is silent about the acquisition of land in the name of aqua-culture, tea plantations or industries.²⁴

III

Mahasveta’s writings are a natural corollary of her commitment and activism. Two years ago, two young boys---very keen activists---were arrested by the Purulia district police and were framed in a false case of murder. If a tribal is taken to the court, he is normally given life imprisonment or a death punishment. They can’t engage a lawyer as he charges upto Rs.6000/- So Mahasveta Devi raised the issue in her newspaper columns and made appeal to people for help. Lots of money poured in. The case was fought as a public interest case and the tribal youths came out of the fabricated case.

Mahasveta Devi collected mass signatures to force the West Bengal government to pass a law which will make witch-doctor practice illegal, and anyone killing a so-called witch must be treated as a murderer. Otherwise those who want kill somebody use this sentimental issue as a means to escape punishment either for political purpose or for one’s own grudge. After her perusal there has been awareness on the part of the masses and different attitude towards witch killing.

Mahasveta Devi published a series of articles about the tribals ( Lodhas, Kheria Shabars of Purulia ) in the Economic and Political Weekly focusing on the sub-human level of existence they had been reduced to.

Those tribals were killed for petty offences – real or imaginary. These articles made the plight of the poor tribals known to the world. The government too started thinking in different way. Till these articles are published, even the government was in the dark about such incidents. Mahasveta says,

I say, there is crime all over the state of Bihar. All over India. All over the world. Do these tribes commit all these crimes? They are your easy victims, they are your prey, you hunt them. The system hunts them. And wants to brand them. The system which hunts them and uses them as target is the criminal.²⁵

During the process of working with tribals, Mahasveta Devi inspired them to organize themselves. Her advice gave them confidence, and they refused to die anymore. Her sympathetic approach made them realize the importance of their individuality and the dignity of a human being. Spivak writes,

They are Indians who belong to the rest of India. Mainstream India had better recognize that. Pay them the honour that they deserve. Pay them the respect that they deserve.²⁶

Mahasveta Devi realized that there is nobody who bothers about the tribals. Nobody to guide them properly towards what is right and what is wrong. If proper attention is given and guidance is shown to the tribals, there would have been improvement in their lives. She feels it her duty to tell the world the miserable living conditions of the tribals.

Wherever there is exploitation, I report it immediately. I write directly to the pertinent ministerial department. I send a copy to the area, they make a mass-signature effort and go to the local authority. Each minister has one or two hundred of my letters. I think a creative writer should have a social conscience. I have a duty toward society. Yet I don’t really know why I do these things. This sense of duty is an obsession, and I must remain accountable to myself. I ask myself this question a thousand times: have I done what I could have done?²⁷

Mahasveta organized intensive training programmes for the tribals to enable them to be self-reliant. She focussed her attention on water resource management, para-veterinary requirements and philosophy of afforestation. She has come to the conclusion that educating and motivating the tribals to participate in such programmes and treat these programmes as their own, has proved considerably fruitful in at least sixty tribal villages.

Whenever something happened to a tribal and it was brought to her notice. Mahasveta will not keep quiet. She goes to the police, to the court, if need be takes out processions and writes to newspapers to focus public attention. She treats them as if they were of her own family. She is associated with about two dozen voluntary tribal welfare organizations. She is convinced that it is through these and such other organizations that the tribals can be really awakened and enabled to stand on their own. She hopes that the tribals will be seeing things with their eyes and taking charge of measures that can provide redressal to their grievances.

Mahasveta Devi’s relentless efforts are oriented to changing the existing social system. It is because the politics on which it is based is rotten. The present system is not based on some common welfare principle. When money and muscle dominate the system, one loses faith in the polity. Even after these many years of independence one finds tribal people still coping with hunger, landlessness, indebtedness and bonded labour. It is the pathetic situation that transforms into fictional material in Mahasveta’s hands. She writes,

In M.P., thousands of poor tribals and non-tribals are turned into slaves by moneylenders, and silently work in the farms owned by them. Contractors use them as slave-labourers all over India.²⁸

Mahasveta explains how the innocence and poverty of the tribals is exploited. She writes,

They have apparently abolished the bonded labour system. But the bonded labour system is no longer confined to the agricultural sector. …….Women after or before marriage are taken away when husband or father has borrowed money from the money-lending upper caste. They are taken straight to brothels in the big cities to work out that sum. And the sum is never repaid because the account is calculated on compound interest.²⁹

Mahasveta is not a Left-wing activist, and is not affliated to any party she is treated as a sympathizer of left activism. She repeatedly said that her political agenda is more than evident in her writings.

Devi, presumably belongs to no tradition, no cluster of thinking, avows to no aesthetic principles and is utterly unique in her engagement with tribals and rural poor.³⁰

Devi’s humanistic views as reflected in her writings repeatedly emphasize the need for humanity, a holistic understanding of the role and position of tribals, and a possible solution to all the problems of the bandhuas. This clearly establishes that she is a humanist to the core, and leftist or otherwise later. She writes perennially and tirelessly to the government in the form of letters and to the common man in the form of articles. The Ramon Magsaysay Award committee writes,

She listens and gives advice, makes referrals to her extensive network of contacts, or personally intercedes for them by bringing their grievances to the attention of state agencies and officials. Each year, she tirelessly writes several hundred letters of complaint or petition addressed to the government and publishes columns and articles documenting abuses by police, landlords, and politicians. She has made the cause of the tribals and the poor her own, and her reputation as an advocate has spread far and wide.³¹

History fascinates Mahasveta. Whenever possible, she studies data, statistics, government gazettes, human rights laws, laws regarding tribals. The way she collects information shows us how particular she is in presenting the data with accuracy and authenticity. Whether we believe it or not the facts that she puts forth bewilder the government, and a shiver generates in sensitive readers’ spines. She has lived among the tribals, loved them, worked for them. She described her instincts as a writer in the preface to the story collection by Shrestha Galpa (1985):

I have found authentic documentation to be the best medium for protest against injustice and exploitation. . . . I have a reverence for materials collected from folklore, for they reveal how the common people have looked at an experience in the past and look at it now. . . . To capture the continuities between past and present held together in the folk imagination, I bring legends, mythical figures and mythical happenings into a contemporary setting, and make an ironic use of these. . . ³²

Mahasveta Devi has been pleading the Government, and with the people all over India that they must give the tribals the respect they deserve. She claims that just allotting some funds is not enough – the money does not reach them. It is because of her involvement with the tribals that they also appear as humans to the dominant sections. And she keeps going back to them just to see whether there is any change. She says,

The poor have to beg for everything they need. They do not understand mainstream machination, so although there are safeguarding laws against land grabbing, tribal land is being sold illegally every day, and usurped by mainstream society all over India, especially in West Bengal.³³

Mahasveta is concerned with incidents which are more authentic and practical which show the suffering of the tribals. She seems to point out that there is no difference in their lives prior to independence and after 60 years of independence. The irony she drives home is that once people fought for independence from foreign yoke and got liberated, but now started fighting for survival with their own people. The fighting continues within the system, and the nation. Mahasveta once said,

Need I tell you that the sense of duty is an obsession with me. I think I have a duty towards society – every creative writer should have a social conscience.³⁴

Mahasveta Devi has based her writings on facts, and not on imaginary happenings; it is substantiated by the harijan killings and caste wars in Bihar, UP, West Bengal and other places. There are 6748 castes in India. Caste is ingrained in Hindu social system. In India it is one of the very effective weapons to the politicians. They make use of this, in order to instigate caste wars for their own benefits. They never try to educate the masses but to exploit tme on broader permutatives and humanitarian point of view. The innocence of the masses is a boon to the politicians. Vandana says,

One may not agree with everything that Mahasveta Devi offers as the casuistry, but the fact remains that the analysis is very close to the objectively existing reality as reflected in the suffering of the masses and the activism and idealism of the cadres who are committed to changing the existing social order that brazenly seeks to legitimize exploitation, oppression, inequality etc., in the name of democracy reducing majority of the masses to the sub-human level of slavery.³⁵

Mahasveta Devi feels that the violence by the downtrodden is justified. The violence is justified because they express themselves in initial stages through these methods. They crave for human dignity which they have been deprived of for so long. She says,

The coolie jhopris are within the towns and cities, yet the tribals stay imprisoned there, closely guarded by the musclemen of the owners. Theirs is a medieval existence far beyond the reach of statutory labour law benefits and democratic rights.. ³⁶

Mahasveta believes in anger, in justified violence, and thus peel the mask off the face of India which is projected by the Government, to expose its naked brutality, savagery and caste and class exploitation. She contends that because of the inherent violent tendencies, the oppressed and the innocents are made targets. Their innocence, lack of knowledge of the world, illiteracy, orthodoxy, are investment to others. They have to go for miles even for small benefits. They cannot fight. If they fight Mahasveta says,

Who else was there to lend them paddy and money during the lean months? Who was there to support them if they ever demanded the minimum wages fixed by the government ? You, Officer-babu? There was none to stand by them. None, none, there was none.³⁷

Mahasveta compares India, with a hydra-headed monster. That monster is ready to swallow people especially the innocent. Regarding the land system Mahasveta Devi said,

For the benefit of the reader, let me explain the land system that I am critical of. In 1947 came independence. Systematic and thorough land reform by the Government redistributing rural and urban land above the land ceiling to landless and marginal farmers, could have saved India from lop-sided development. This was not done.³⁸

Mahasveta Devi’s creative oeuvre is informed by a historiographic discourse that not only interrogates conventional historical wisdom but also redefines the mythical historical so as to insert within its ambit the hitherto ‘de-historicized’ subaltern voices.

Mahasveta is not only an activist, writer but also founder of many organizations for the tribals. The various organizations as per 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award committee,

Devi has been involved with numerous other initiatives in grassroots organizing, even serving as president of the Berhampur Municipal Sweepers Association in her home district of Murshidabad. Among the other organizations she is associated with—she took the initiative in founding a few of them—are Paschim Banga Munda Tribal Samaj Sugar Ganthra (Mighty Union of West Bengal Munda Tribal Society); Paschim Banga Lodha Sabar Denotified Tribe Kalyan Samiti (West Bengal Lodha Sabar Denotified Tribe Welfare Society); Paschim Banga Bhumij Tribal Samaj Kalyan Samiti (West Bengal Tenanted Tribal Welfare Society–Medinipur and Purulia districts); Paschim Banga Oraon Tribal Kalyan Samiti (West Bengal Oraon Tribal Welfare Society); Paschim Banga Sahis Scheduled Caste Kalyan Samiti (West Bengal Sahis Scheduled Caste Welfare Society); Paschim Banga Harijan Kalyan Samiti (West Bengal Harijan Welfare Society–North 24 Parganas district); Bharat Ker Adim Jaati Tribal Samiti (The Indian Ker Aboriginal Tribal Society–North 24 Parganas district); Adibasi Kalyan Samiti (Adibasi Welfare Society–South 24 Parganas district); and Paschim Banga Baul Fakir Sangha (West Bengal Baul Fakir Union–Murshidabad district).³⁹

Regarding her mission Mahasveta said,

I find my people still groaning under hunger, landlessness, indebtedness, and bonded labor. An anger, luminous, burning, and passionate, directed against a system that has failed to liberate my people from these horrible constraints is the only source of inspiration in all my writing. All the parties to the Left as well as those to the Right have failed to keep their commitment to the common people. I do not hope to see in my lifetime any reason to change this conviction of mine. Hence I go on writing to the best of my abilities about the people, so that I can face myself without any sense of guilt or shame. For a writer faces judgment in his lifetime and remains answerable.⁴⁰

This interventionist in Mahasveta Devi manifests itself in her delineation of the struggles of the tribals against oppression and discrimination by the dominant. Her fiction participates in the subaltern debate by subverting the established authority of the mainstream through a host of diverse strategies. In response to 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award committee about why her protagonists are only tribals, she wrote,

I have seen how the tribals are being constantly deprived of their control over forests and lands, their only means of livelihood. The process started under the colonial rule of the country and still continues. In fact, it has accentuated in the name of development. The tribals are being pushed out of their homelands and become bonded and migrant labor. And why the tribals are alone. The landless agricultural laborers, the poor peasants are all being denied the benefits of development despite huge amounts of resources being spent in their name. I have seen how the resources meant for the poor evaporate even before they reach the people for whom they are meant. It would seem that the system has a vested interest in keeping the poor in their poverty. In denying them of their basic rights of food, shelter, clothing, drinking water and literacy.⁴¹

The instances of the subaltern cunning that mark Dulan’s character in “Seeds”. He befools the government into giving him seeds every year for barren land; collects sarkari fertilizer and sells it off, extracts money for a plough and buffalo by displaying the Pahaan’s plough and buffalo every year, poisons Rajput Mahajan’s buffaloes, sells off their skins, cheats the mahajan in many little ways. He gets a little more sophisticated in “Rudali” where combined with his pragmatism, his cunning comes out as the only possible survival strategy for the subaltern. Fight for survival has become primary issue of the rural people.

Mahasveta Devi is not a journalist or a writer with material ambitions. She has not written these stories to please her readers either. If they get under the skin of these stories and feel as the writer feels, that will be a reward enough for her as she fondly hopes. Devi’s single woman’s venture to emancipate the tribals cannot be judged in a writer’s point of view. Sen Nivedita says,

Incidentally, “Seeds”, “Little Ones” and “Salt” also feature her experiments with a language which is blunt, brutally sarcastic and at times unbelievable.

In Mahasveta Devi’s writings the themes generally cliche. It is because the subalterns are exploited in various ways and she exposes these operations. The places are different, but the theme is same; the characters are different, but the problems are same; the narrative manner is different, but the concern is same; the time periods are different, but the modes of oppression are same. The equation between -- the exploiters and the exploited classes—is same for generations. Talukdar Shashwati writes,

Her writing has given Indian literature a new life and inspired two generations of writers, journalists and filmmakers. A celebrated writer and tireless activist; for the last two decades, she has led a battled on the behalf of the De-notified tribes of India-indigenous groups who were branded “natural criminals” by the British Colonial State, who face discrimination to this day, despite being “de-notified.” ⁴³

Going through her works, Sen Nivedita one of the translators of Mahasveta Devi, writes,

Mahasveta’s writings became so popular that they are translated into many languages of the world.

Some of her works have been translated into English, Italian, Japanese, and French. Although her work may not conform to the cosmopolitan "Indian fiction" currently fashionable among Western readers, she is slowly gaining an international readership, in part because of the admiring attention given to her work as sites of postcolonial and feminist discourse by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the world’s foremost literary theorists.⁴⁵

Sen Nivedita says,

Devi, presumably belongs to no tradition, no cluster of thinking, avows to no aesthetic principles and is utterly unique in her engagement with tribals and rural poor.⁴⁶

Writing about Mahasveta Devi’s works in the Indian Review of Books in 1997 Jaidev had remarked that,

Her works are dangerous for readers in country like ours where it is risky to have a conscience. Her books are dangerous because they try to create a conscience in us.⁴⁷

In an interview to The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award Committee, Mahasveta made it clear that she was not about to abandon her causes for less stressful pursuits. She also felt pity towards present tendencies.

An escapist culture of consumerism is fast replacing the tradition of mass struggle. Writers are obsessed with the loves and the lives of the urban middle class. These are bad times, these are the times to work.⁴⁸

In The Telegraph Prafulla Roy says that,She has transcended the barriers of time and has wedded real life into literature. This is all the more reason for today’s generation to be grateful to her for her humanism.⁴⁹

REFERENCES

1. Devi, Mahasveta. Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Bandyho padhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, [THEMA, Calcutta 1990]xx

2. -------, Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Bandyhopadhyay and Spivak,Gayatri Chakravorty. [THEMA, Calcutta 1990] xx

3. Chatterjee, Enakshi. The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Katha, 1996) 172

4. Arya, Sachi. Tribal Activism – Voices of Protest [Rawat Publications, Jaipur 1998]102

5. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Ka tha, 1996) 161

6. Devi, Mahasveta. Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Bandyhopad hyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, [THEMA, Calcutta 1990]xvi

7. The Rediff interview, [on the net 24-12-1997] 4

8. Arya, Sachi. Tribal Activism – Voices of Protest [Rawat Publications, Jaipur 1998]129

9. Devi, Mahasveta. Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Bandyho padhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, [THEMA, Calcutta 1990] 63

10. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) 170

11. Devi, Mahasveta. Land Alienation among Tribals in West Bengal” dust on the road (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 33

12. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Katha, 1996) 161.

13. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criti cism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 11

14. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Ka tha, 1996) 172

15. ________. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Ka tha, 1996) 191

16. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criti- cism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 22

17. ________. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criticism, [Pencraft Inter national, New Delhi] 22

18. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) 197

19. ________. Imaginery maps, [Thema, Calcutta, 1993]xii

20. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criti cism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 12

21. ________, Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criticism, [Pencraft In ternational, New Delhi] 13

22. Arya, Sachi. Tribal Activism – Voices of Protest [Rawat Publications, Jaipur 1998]102

23. ________. Tribal Activism – Voices of Protest [Rawat Publications, Jaipur 1998]80

24. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Ka tha, 1996) 189

25. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) x

26. ________. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) x

27. ________. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Tema, 1993) ix

28. Devi, Mahasveta. Land Alienation among Tribals in West Bengal, dust on the road (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 174

29. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) xii

30. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criti cism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 25

31. Biography for Mahasveta Devi, The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Jour nalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts,[ Internet]6

32. Biography for Mahasveta Devi, The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Jour nalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts,[ Internet]7

33. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) iii

34. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Ka tha, 1996) 173

35. Beniwal, Anup. & Vandana, The Quest, (Vol.21, No.1 June 2007) 115

36. Devi, Mahasveta. Land Alienation among Tribals in West Bengal, dust on the road (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 34

37. ________. Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Bandyhopad hyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, [THEMA, Calcutta 1990]64

38. ________, Introduction, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) viii

39. Biography for Mahasveta Devi, The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Jour nalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts,[ Internet]6

40. Biography for Mahasveta Devi, The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts,[ Internet]5

41. Response of Mahasveta Devi. 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies Manila, Philippines[On the Net]1

42. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criti cism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 11

43. Talukdar Shashwati. Mahasveta Devi: Witness, Advocate, Writer [Internet] 1

44. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criti cism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 13

45. Biography for Mahasveta Devi, The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Jour nalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts,[ Internet]8

46. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criti cism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 25

47. ________. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criticism, [Pencraft Inter national, New Delhi] 236

48. Biography for Mahasveta Devi, The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Jour nalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts,[ Internet]9

49. The Telegraph, Calcutta, Sunday, February 05,20[06 from Internet] 2

P A L A M A U :-

In the 1981 census, India had 5,16,28,638 tribals. It is a large number, yet the history of their struggles is not considered fit for inclusion as part of Indian history. Many millions of India manage to survive without knowing about these 51 million.

Palamau lies on the western border of Bihar. Once it was full of jungles but today a normal plain land.

Palamau is still an inaccessible district, the poorest in the state of Bihar, perhaps one of the poorest in India. In such back-ward feudally oppressed districts, the bonded labour system survives. The bonded labour system was introduced by the British. They created a new class, which took away tribal land and converted the tribals into debt-bonded slaves.¹³

Palamau is a mirror of India. It reflects the land lordism deeply rooted in India. Ignorance and fear of what may happen make the tribals lose a lot. The poor have to beg for everything they need. They do not understand mainstream machinations, so although there are laws against land grabbing, tribal land is being sold illegally, and usurped by mainstream society all over India, especially in West Bengal.¹⁴

Visiting Palamau I came to know of the miserable existence of the bonded labourers. That experience, on one hand, took me to Palamau time and again, and on the other made me start writing for the Economic and Political Weekly and Frontier. I brought to light the sad plight of the brick-kiln workers, contract labourers and concluded that they were nothing but bonded labourers. ¹⁵

Caste and class exploitation is very common in rural side. Land lordism dominated the economy of rural India in such a way that most of the farmers are tenants. Every year their contract will be revised with the land lord. If anyone fails to pay the rent, the landlord hands over the land to someone else who can pay him regularly. So farmers donot have rights over the land even if they work on the land all their lives. There is no land ceiling. Distribution of excess land to the landless never occurred to our great leaders. Zamindari system is abolished in 1956. But land ceiling is not implemented.

The maliks used to torture the debt-bonded labourers. Those labourers could not go anywhere to get work because, the present malik should permit them to go.

“I saw this man, whose right side, from arm to ankle, was deformed. Why ? because he was a debt-bonded labourer. And in the month of May, his malik made him lift a paddy-laden cart to take to the village market. He fell and his right side was crushed under the heavy cart. I asked the malik, why not use bullocks ? he answered, if a bullock dies in this heat, I lose a thousand rupees. The worker is just a bonded labourer . His life is of no value. ” ¹⁷

On the precise purpose of her writing actively she says, “So the sole purpose of my writing is to expose the many faces of the exploiting agencies : The feudal-minded landowner, his henchmen, the so-called religious head of the administrative system, all of whom as a combined force, are out for lower-caste blood. “ ¹⁸

And when independence came, it is not reflected in the tribal region, leaving the tribals untouched by the historic change that has overtaken the country. Nothing has changed for them. Tribal zones exist as ‘islands of slavery’ in the ‘vast ocean of independence’. Opportunities for expansion and growth are offered by the new economic-political scenario, but only to the well-off; they do not come the tribals’ way. The questions of land, drinking water, proper wage-payment, education, health-care, as if for them are eternal ones, with no solutions being looked for, and therefore, not in sight In 1979, the Government of India had supposedly liberated a handful of bonded labourers in Seora village on top of a hill. And, on paper, had given them land. What land ? Land on top of the hills, no water level, where nothing could grow.

But how did the brick-kiln owners get access to the land they are occupying ? In 4 out of a total of 5 cases, some money has been paid to the owners and then the land has been transferred to fictitious tribal people. It should be noted that this is the most widely prevalent method for registering sale of tribal land. Land is purchased in the name of people who do not exist, or don’t have anything to do with the transaction other than their lending their name. ¹⁹

There were many agitations for land by the downtrodden. The government came down and passed the Estate Acquisition Act in 1954. According to this, one agriculturist family should hold only 25 acres of land. The intention behind making that law was good but that really effected an ordinary ryot. Landlords did not lose anything. They changed the ownership on benami and retained their lands as they had. Even the subsequent amendment in 1971 did not benefit the landless peasants to any great extent. It is well-known that the law is silent about the acquisition of land in the name of aqua-culture, tea plantations or industries. The same is the story in the rest of India as it is except in West Bengal and Kerala where some steps have been taken to distribute land to the landless poor.

The feudal mind is so criminal that most of the landlords have never taken steps to develop the people in their areas. They have not allowed electricity to come to villages. They never allowed roads to be laid. They are afraid that by the new development the people would awaken and may lose grip over them. Even the dwelling area is mostly unsuitable for the humans to stay. These unfortunate beings live in jhopris worse than pig-holes. There are no sanitary arrangements, nor any drinking water where they work through the summer days. The kiln is closed with the onset of the monsoons and the rejas are sent home. The coolie jhopris are within the towns and cities, yet the tribals stay imprisoned there, closely guarded by the musclemen of the owners. Theirs is a medieval existence far beyond the reach of statutory labour law benefits and democratic rights..

The villagers are very primitive in their thinking. Their lack of reasoning is exploited by others. Even more and more orthodoxy is spread among them. The qualified doctors are not available in rural sides. Where there are PHCs, compounders sometimes even attenders take the role of a doctor. In some remote tandas or hamlets even such people are also not available. So the people, use their own logic to the epidemics. This leads to further complication of the matters. The lack of doctors and medicine cause death. And when death, disease or epidemic frequents the lonely villages, the villagers launch a witch-hunt, identify someone as a witch and kill her. There is no education to these people. There is no one to guide them rational thinking. In what proportion the population is exploding in that proportion the medical facilities are not provided.

The long standing Adhiar system is so designed that the big landowners advance seeds, bullocks and ploughs, fertilizers and paltry sums of money to the peasants. In return, they claim the lion’s share of the harvest. Also, those with larger holdings deprive small peasants of their land. The innocence and their gullibility is a boon to the landlords. This challenges man’s almost primitive instinct for possession of land and provokes reaction. Thus the peasants have been consistently agitating against exploitation and oppression. As they donot know the law they cannot fight against the system but only against some individuals.

For the last five decades, one India has remained basically feudal, while the other has remained a victim of class and caste oppression. The basic nature of rural India remained unchanged. The low caste people have not been allowed to enter temples; to move with the higher caste people; to see when the higher caste people dine; etc. The landlords feel that they are not only lords on the lands but also on the rural women. They impose such rules as the low caste villagers should not wear shirt, chappals, or enter the houses of the upper caste people or temples. In the process of expansion of economy and society the adivasis were exploited and were further excluded from the society. If at all they are integrated it is done to meet the needs of economy and state, either in the form of farm labourers or soldiers at the lowest rung.

Zamindari system still continues prominent in rural India. A zamindar is a zamindar to 30 or 40 villages. Whatever he says is final verdict. All the records are manipulated and favourism is high in vogue. It is he, who allots lands to the farmers to till. The farmer, as far as he is in good records of the zamindar, he can continue to be a farmer, otherwise he cannot. Anybody who goes against him, will be brutally murdered. He plays all sorts of tricks to retain or annex the lands of the tribals.

Any tribal without clout would ultimately have to abandon his rights and hand over the land to the land sharks because they have money and influence. Those showing the audacity to seek legal redress would get lost in the labyrinth of unending civil suits. ²⁰

Generally land is not by right but one gets it to work on only at the mercy of the landlord. It has been coming since Zamindari days. There are countless instances where land eviction of the poor by the rulers and where if any body revolts he will be brutally murdered.

The landlords follow many methods to retain land from land ceiling Act or not to lose land to the tribals. The tribals are very innocent. They don’t preserve the documents. They don’t get their land registered on the name of their family diety.

Transfer of land in the name of a family deity was very much within the purview of the law. Only, in this specific case , he who got the land transferred in his family deity’s name did not have a right to the land. But such small problems are easily surmountable for people with money and influence.²¹

One aggravating factor in the case of a tribal is that he often does not keep papers and documents properly. If he is told that all the papers should be preserved , he is nonplussed and wonders why, since everyone knows that he owns a particular piece of land , he needs papers to prove it…..They just do not understand many of our ways, the ways of mainstream society. Their own innocence devastates their lives. The landlords follow any inhuman method for this purpose. After independence , Vanodyog or forest development work came into existence. And that sealed the fate of Palamau. Land hungry outsiders usurped all the cultivable land, evicting the original tenants.How the non-tribals operate: land is often bought in the name of a non-existent tribal or a tribal who acts as a front for a non-tribal buyer. The concerned departments oblige by registering the sale-deed, once a few palms are greased. No inconvenient queries are made, of course. In more blatant cases, a non-tribal manages to procure or buy a certificate identifying himself as a tribal, and through further fraudulent means gets the land transferred in his own name without the knowledge of the actual tribal owner.

The landlord submitted a forged document and got the land recorded in the name of his own brother-in-law to the son of the landlord. Thus the same piece of land was transferred twice, all on the basis of forged documents, in total violation of section 5(A) of the relevant law. ²²

….the machinations of the landlord,. antisocials and the police working together.²⁷ It is also a harsh reality that people belonging to the various political parties are themselves involved in depriving the tribals of their land.²³

The labour classes spend most of their time how to earn a rupee extra for their food. Their earnings are so meagre that they can only subsist. The question doesnot arise for them to send their children to schools and improve their lives.

The law provides for universal education, but the Mundas are in no way encouraged to send their children to school, and in case some one reaches there, the teacher takes no time to pack him off saying “Go graze the cattle”. ²⁴

What they have never seen or tasted in their lives, they cannot impart to their children. Their earnings are so meager that they will not allow them to get new ideas. There are 6,00,000 villages in India. About 20% of the people are living in inhuman conditions. About 14,000 villages have no road facility. Some remote villages, tandas, gudems have no electricity provision. Even today in weekly markets{santas} the forest collections of the tribals are exploited by the so called civilized people. The contractors pay a least amount to the tribals and they themselves become billionairs.

The downtrodden have all along been treated as slaves. When they speak to the upper caste people they should say that they are their slaves (baanchan dora, gulapodni dora…) There is no human value to the bandhuas.

…these bullocks are costly. If I send a bullock,. It will suffer in the heat and it might collapse. But these bonded labourers don’t count for much, A man can be wasted, a bullock cannot.”²⁵

Vetti is another form of exploiting the lower castes. For generations they have been doing slave’s work in landlord’s houses but their debt is never cleared. The debt may be just something as a loan by somebody of their family long back. Though some of the amounts are very small, they can never repay. It is because the landlord calculates the loan amount with compound interest.

Secondly, the account can not be understood as the bandhuas are illiterates.

Thirdly, they are afraid of because they may lose whatever meagre that they have.

Fourthly they console themselves, telling that they might be in debt in the previous birth.

“ They have apparently abolished the bonded labour system. But the bonded labour system is no longer confined to the agricultural sector. Women after or before marriage are taken away when husband or father has borrowed money from the money-lending upper caste. They are taken straight to brothels in the big cities to work out that sum. And the sum is never repaid because the account is calculated on compound interest. ²⁶

Most of the landlords who became politicians, maintain their henchmen and keep the government in their pockets. Whatever they say and do is the law. {eg. The killings of farmers of Nandi Gram, West Bengal; killings of Harijans of Karamchedu, A.P}

In Nandigram, men, women and children have been- and are being killed. Women are being raped. And there have been no redressal steps taken by the state government. On the other hand, CPI(M) cadres and hired killers – recruited from adjacent districts, Jharkhand and other places, are killing people with great irregularity. Hindus and Muslims are facing and fighting the enemy together. The CPI(M) has ultimately managed to enter Nandigram. Hundreds of houses have been demolished rice, clothes and utensils have been looted, ponds and other water resources have been poisoned and women were raped. Rape is a tactic that the CPI(M) uses^{. 27}

The CPI(M) has ultimately managed to enter Nandigram. Hundreds of houses have been demolished; rice, clothes, and utensils have been looted; ponds and other water resources have been poisoned. And women were raped. Rape is a tactic that the CPI(M) uses. (Mahasveta Devi) ²⁸

Taking advantage of the low caste peoples’ poverty, their girls are attracted by the glitter of cities. Later they are sold in brothel houses at some price. It is a very big underworld business. Only in Bombay there are about 3,00,000 women and girls in this profession. When they cannot attract males, they will be shot dead and thrown into acid drums. No trace of the body is found and no witness is found.

Women are just merchandise, commodities. In the border districts of West Bengal there are women from Bangladesh being sold in the name of marriage in the bridegroom’s house. For the flesh trade all you have to invest is two saris, a bit of food, some trinkets, and a bit of money for the parents. Poverty, poverty, poverty.²⁹

Bihar is full of mines and very industrialized. The upper caste people become oppressors within their own spheres of power and exploit and oppress the poor to their hearts’ content. The bonded labour system is abolished on the records. Mahasveta Devi laments the lopsidedness, unimaginativeness and also in the sensitivity of the governmental policies and priorities, and feels that much could have been achieved even within the limited available resources, only if the Central Government is a little less interested in squandering money on seminars and workshops that signified nothing.

Bonded labour system is still prevalent in Bihar, A.P., M.P., U.P., and Gujarat. Officially we cannot prove it. The district officials, the landlords, the contractors and their henchmen all feel that the poor are born to serve them. They get most of their services for personal works without any payment. It depicts the problems caused by forced displacement of tribals and their subsequent worse-than-bonded employment at the brick-kilns or at agriculture farms in Punjab.

In Back to bondage of Dust on the Road Mahasveta Devi narrates that the Sahus lend money at 6% interest per month. Not only have these landlords usurped the land of the harijans, muslims, and adivasis but also have deprived them of the land given to them after their liberation from bondage. In Samera 84 bonded labourers were identified and 43 were set free by the govt. Mangru Mian, a bonded labourer has been given, as given to many others rocky tanr land unfit for cultivation There grows nothing . Nothing has been done to provide irrigation facility. Now Ayodhya holds the parcha held by Mangru’s grandmother, one of 12 bhuiyas who were allotted comparatively better land near the villages Bahera, Chatur, Makar, Sudan, Durjan, Prabhu. He tills and enjoys the benefit of the land though the bhuiyas are parcha holders. Tax is paid in the name of bhuiyas. On the paper the bhuiyas are the owners of the land but in reality they are not.

To possess land is a dream a Munda, in particular and a tribal in general, is born with. And it is a constant companion as well. The landlords would now and then give them patches of uncultivable land and reclaim the same once it comes to their notice that the land’s character has been transformed.

Mahasveta narrates how they are fixed back into bondage even if they are free from the bondage by some officials. Among them are people who have borrowed as little as Rs.80 and have been serving their maliks for over 3 to 4 years. The owners are of upper caste , mostly Brahmins. Each malik has 5, 6 or 7 bonded labourers with him. They are paid 21/2 seers of kutcha paddy a day, 5 cottahs of phaltu land after 1 year. phaltu land is given to a harwaha as long as he is in service. With the termination of the service, the land reverts back to the possession of the maliks. When husband and wife both work, the maliks give foodgrain for only one person.

The change or regime at the national level brings with it no difference in the character of the concern for the downtrodden. India is the largest country where maximum Acts are enacted but least implemented. Let any leader come and go, or any government nothing changes in the lives of the tribals. Jwala Pande is another malik and mukhiya of Semra. The camp which had freed them, given them a lot of good hope for future. But the land parcha, agricultural equipment, domestic and agricultural cattle, all came through these mukhiyas and serpanchs. They distribute things as if they are doing that out of compassion.

Mahasveta underlines the danger inherent in such research. On the economic front they seek to subvert the agro-industrial complex to their own market needs. They do not care a fig for the damaging implication of their dubious designs for the already suffering masses. On the social front, they seek to blunt the fighting spirit of certain tribes and communities that have an acknowledged capacity and temperament to stand up against those responsible for injustices.

III

About 2000 men, women and children came from 50 villages in this district of Palamau, Bihar. The official figure is 1014. Most of the officials depend on mukhiyas and sarpanchs for information. They never go into the villages. They donot have interaction with the labourers. As officials complement the landlords and beneficial to each other, they never ask the labourers to go against them. The bonded labourers cannot unite themselves. It is like a blind leading another blind.

Both the identification and the rehabilitation of people would go directly to the malik to ascertain the number of bandhuas, who would be too terrified to come forward and declare themselves. There were instances when a non-bonded labourer was declared bonded and rehabilitated in Palamau. So to unite the bonded labourers and urge them to come forward jointly and fight against exploitation, one needs courage and guts. The editor of Ishumaan Rameswaram is one such person who stands by the bonded labourers. Through his efforts the plights of the bandhuas came to the notice of the world. He feels that after fifty years of independence, though one can see some progress in the productive forces, the production relations have basically remained unchanged. The results of the development, whatever may be its level, has not percolated to the downtrodden.

The bandhuas of Palamau are given names like kamia, seokia, harwaha, charwaha, etc. Among them dharumaru is a special category. Sachita Panre of Bhandar has kept Tetri Bhuyin and her family as dharumaru for two generations. In the same village Amresh Panre forced Bideshi Bhuiya to become his dharumaru. Ameresh usurped their land also.

The malliks demand huge sums of money to release bandhuas. Though the sums mentioned by the owners are high, there is no one who can challenge them, fight against them or at least question them. They raise the debt figures simply because they donot want to leave the bandhuas. Lest their agricultural and domestic works will come to stand still with out bandhuas.

….the hollowness and insensitivity of the upper-middle class, their sophistication devoid of humanism, their blindness to whatever is happening around them are projected in a very natural manner suggesting that all is not well with our cultural –political milieu. ³⁰

The over dependency, not knowing the ways of life, not knowing anyother work except labour work, they are easily attracted by the malliks. If one becomes bandhua, at least one time meals, though of inferiority quality is guaranteed. Except two hands to work they have nothing else to survive. Even the land on which their huts stand is owned by the maliks.

Anyone who thinks that Zamindari system has been abolished, bonded labour system is abolished should visit Palamau. There is no such word as land ceiling Act. This situation is not only seen in Palamau but also in other parts of India.

Like children, women are also attracted towards bonded labour system. Naturally they are weak. On top of that they are exploited sexually. A lady too became a commodity. The contractors well understood that , where they are, there will be rain of money. So they are also lured into skin trade. The contractors hire them as labourers and force them into skin trade. The poor tribal women, having no other alternate, are compelled to enter this. Here also they are brutally exploited .

Palamau in bondage: forever ? ³¹ :-

The tribals, the harijans, the poor and the muslim people need to be liberated from the clutches of the bonded labour. These bandhuas formed a mukthi morcha which is affliated to the Bandhua Liberation Front. The district organization was formed on May Day in 1981 at Semra. They conducted a meeting at Choupal. They took processions and submitted memorandam to the District Collector. The D.C. talked to the main leaders. With his assurance Mahasveta Devi covered long distances and visited very remote villages under Ranka and Chainpur blocks. The govt.’s scheme was to give Rs.4000 worth of seeds, bullocks, agricultural tools etc. apart from land for each of the liberated bandhuas. Mahasveta Devi has given many suggestions to the Collector in proper way of implementing the scheme.

The commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Tribes has been reporting to the parliament about this system since 1951-2. It was only in 1974-76 that the abolition of the system, identification of bonded labourers, and their rehabilitation started, as part of a package of populist measures by the Govt. of India……..I also found , as Mahasveta’s reports amply demonstrate, that the rehabilitation measures had, by and large, failed, because they were inadequate, and moreover provided through officials and sometimes the very people who were owners of bonded labourers. The land given was insufficient and unfit for raising any crop. The animals provided by the contractors mostly died within days. Some of the released labourers were getting entrapped into bondage again. Others were being taken away, as far away as the ‘green revolution’ belts in northern India, as contract labour, on terms which were extremely harsh.³²

Mahasveta Devi has explained to the collector that the schemes imple-

mented by the government will not reach the bandhuas as the mukhias, and the sarpanches are the owners of the bonded labourers. Apart from the problems of bonded labourers, the luring of poor children from the district to the carpet factories of Uttar Pradesh, forcing them to work practically as slaves,

Mahasveta Devi supplied with full bio-data of the bandhuas to the collector. She feels that in our India, Acts are for enactment and not for implementation. She says that Palamau is not declared a bonded labour district. Bonded labourers exist everywhere in India. The bonded labourers are never guided. That they need never to slave to repay the debt taken from the maliks, that they can go to the nearest police station and seek help towards liberation.

The bonded labourers are kept in darkness so that they can slave for the feudal land owners who can flourish and prove themselves pillars of strength for the ruling powers. The maliks know the Act, but won’t disclose it. The bonded labourers are illiterates and they donot know what an Act is The police committed a massacre in Gua in Singbhum. The military police entered the hospital and killed 11 people who had been admitted. Hundreds of tribals have been arrested, an orgy of violence continues in village after village, crops have been looted, houses have been burnt, cattle and poultry forcibly removed.

If they go to jungles, the forest guards and the police would harass them. Now the maliks are snatching the land and mowa collected from the forests.

Mahasveta Devi says that she has always suspected that the bonded labour system is very much present in the agricultural and unorganized sectors of West Bengal in the form of contract labour under different names. And, today, it is not enough to liberate the bonded labourers in the agricultural sector alone. You will find them working on building projects, dams, roads, brick kilns. On the threshold of Calcutta, the mighty city, thousands of hapless labourers are slaving. Why have they come? Because of drought. twelve hours of backbreaking work under the scorching sun – for food alone. The regular check and to find out their whereabouts has become nobody’s concern. The guardians of liberty are very busy serving the rich. The contractors make their packets. But there is no body to ask why deprive the poor, of meagre amounts.

India could and would keep the poor as slaves and sermonize to the outside world that they are the protectors of the justice and guardians of their civil liberties. Though Palamau morcha is too small, yet people living below the poverty line joined the bandhuas in the hope of deliverance.

Why there is so much bonded labour system in Palamau?

1. There is no industry, no alternate job opportunities. The lac-yielding palas trees have succumbed to the avarice of the timber contractor and the corrupt forest directorate. There is no work to do. These people have no lands to cultivate. So thousands are becoming bandhuas because only as a slave they can eat even a quarter belly full.

2. The non-bandhuas are in an impression that if they become bandhuas some day they too would be liberated and get help from the government. So the thekedar well utilizes their innocence to his benefit.³³

3. The bonded labour system was formally abolished in November 1975. Simply abolishing the existing bonded labour system won’t solve the problem of the bandhuas. The alternate arrangement of rehabilitation is not done by the government. So the ex-bonded labourers are in acute distress. ³⁴

Under such circumstances, having no other alternate to survive they are compelled to become a bonded labourer.

4. The pangs of hunger makes one to do anything to surrender to anybody, even to turn oneself into a criminal. The children hear of their good fortune in the weekly hat. The masters give at least two square meals a day. For that purpose even the young ones are not against becoming a kamia or a seokia. They are helpless. There is nothing else for the likes of those children to escape hunger. ³⁵

5. The bonded labourers are so ignorant that they donot know the value of papers, registration, title deed, etc. The land is on the name of the labour but is enjoyed by the malik. They work as coolies in their own lands.

6. There is no water for drinking or irrigation; no chance of being employed by government agencies for road-repairing, timber-felling, etc.³⁶

7. Though Palamau is a labour-surplus and poverty-stricken district, outside labour is brought in for labour work. These people, in order to stay alive, enter debt-bondage. They do not have any alternative. ³⁷

2. Little Ones

“Little ones” is one of Mahasveta Devi’s Palamau stories. The theme is the usual Mahasveta’s basic concern—the hunger, starvation of the adivasis for generations and its impact—biologically and economically and sociologically. Mahasveta is at her ironic best in depicting the plight of the tribals and the negligence of the authorities. Devi says,

That the rehabilitation measures had, by and large, failed, because they were inadequate, and moreover provided through officials and sometimes the very people who were owners of bonded labourers.¹

Mahasveta also writes,

Devi is surprised to the irresponsible behaviour of the urbanites She says,

Mahasveta is such an activist, to get justice to infinite sufferings of the tribals she can go to any extent.

On January 14, 2006, GN Devy, Udaynarain Singh of Mysore and I went to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and gave him a letter, praying to have something concrete done for the denotified tribes of India. That “something” was done. A special commission was formed under Balkrishna Renke of Maharashtra. He was to suggest what remedial steps should be taken to improve the lives of the denotified tribes. ⁴

What Mahasveta feels for the tribals, and pities for their plights is that these innocent tribals are made targets, treated as criminals, and what not.

Often the target of beatings, eviction and lynching, they were known as “born criminals”—a label which gained legal sanction during colonial rule when the British passed the abominable Criminal Tribes Act in 1871. Under it, many nomadic communities ended up being branded as criminals.⁵

Lohri is situated at the meeting point of three districts, Ranchi, Sarguja and Palamau. It is a place where iron ore is extracted. It lies on the Tropic of Cancer. The temperature there is very high. Because of the highest temperature the land is as good as burnt out desert. Nothing grows there. The soil is deep brownish-red. This place is like a cursed land. For miles together only scorched soil is seen. There is no trace of a tree. The copper red colour soil pervades all around that area. A newcomer doubts it to be a cremation ground. Wind takes fine soil of this area and coats a thin layer of dust on all the objects. The heat is so much, dehydration is common.

“Little ones” is the story of some grown up children like adults of Aagariya class of Lohri. The Aagariyas are the miners of Lohri iron. They mine iron, forge it into implements. Their god is the asur Logundih. There are many mythical stories about him.

The Aagariya people are now in dire straits. Their hereditary caste trade, working with iron, is no longer theirs. But it is difficult to get them into farming. They say they are impure. Lohasur, the patron demon of iron, no longer gives them iron, nor does Koilasur, the demon of coal, allows them any coal. Aagaiyasur, the demon of fire, doesnot give them fire.

The adivasis are very sentimental people. Once the government sent a team to search for iron ore in Lohri. The officers are warned by the adivasis. They said that their demon gods remain there on the hillock. They have requested them not to dig that up. Two Punjabi officers, a Madrasi geologist blasted the hillock flat. Later the adivasis have attacked them and killed them.

Because of malnutrition the growth of the Aagariyas is stopped. As nothing grows there the people have to starve. Those ordinary sized human beings are turned into pygmies in two or three generations. The people there in Lohri are malnutritioned. They have no regular time of food. They have no honest way of living. To fill their bellies they do anything just to keep themselves survive. Devi says,

There’s no bigger god than one’s belly. For the belly’s sake everything is permissible. ⁶

Health comes from good food. If food is not available or nutritious there won’t be growth. People remain stunted because of malnutrition. Food is a must for various biological activities. But if food is not available for generations the growth is totally nullified. People living in such horrible conditions remain abnormally small.

Chronic hunger and malnutrition can cause significant health problems. People who go hungry all the time are likely to be underweight, weighing significantly less than an average person of their size. Their growth may also be stunted, making them much shorter than average. ⁷

Plan after plan, five year plans are framed. Year after year, crores of rupees are released for various works. But still the plight of the poor remains the same. The government executes relief measures but that will not reach the needy or by the time it reaches the common man it becomes a commodity. The B.D.O says while narrating to R.O.,

See, at that Bangladesh-war time, the gorment sent relief to Calcutta. Clothes, blankets, mosquito nets, utensils, stoves, shoes from all over the world. Didn’t we buy it all in the Ranchi Market? ⁸.

The government sends relief measures to the area wherever the need does arise. Mahasveta says,

The government has failed in eradicating poverty. It’s giving a lot of money to voluntary organizations, and it’s a fact that behind most active, successful organizations there is foreign money co-existing with domestic money. In fact, because this dirty wash would have been brought out again. ⁹

III

A Relief Officer is sent to Lohri to see the relief is distributed properly. The new Relief Officer who has come to Lohri is surprised to see the arid and uninhabitable place. He is repelled to see the near naked, shriveled, swollen-bellied adivasi men and women. The notions which he has formed in his mind about adivasis is shattered here. Prior to his arrival, he is briefed about the supernatural children offering ghostly smiles and how they run away with the relief goods.

The B.D.O. also explains to the Relief Officer the situation at Lohri. He tells him that some boys will guard the store tent and help him in some other works.

From the next day, Khhichri is cooked and distributed. The medical unit gives injections against cholera and typhoid. The place becomes a bustling centre. ¹⁰

The Relief Officer is very happy. He thinks not to provide relief material to the villages. But the tahsildar says if the relief is not sent, whoever is not brought there will die. Others cannot carry the weak there, because they themselves are very weak to walk.

That the denotified tribes of India are people who live below the poverty line, that starvation is a regular fact of life for them, and that they are thus easy to recruit for such members of society as wish to use them. Poverty, hunger, landlessness, no education, no job prospects — these are everyday realities.¹¹

The Relief Officer decides to give top priority to the hungry and starving people. The medical team vaccinates the people and leaves. Even though medicines are given only for cholera and typhoid, he supercedes protocol and sends for large quantities of antibiotic medicines for wounds, baby food, nutrinuggets etc. from Ranchi. The sincere work of the Relief Officer is recognized by all.

Very soon the Relief Officer becomes famous there. The blasted-hillock pond is a taboo for the Agariya boys. The Agariya boys have taken him to that pond for bathing. There they have told him the legend behind that pond.

The relief officer puts his bed before the store tent at night. Being an idealist, he starts thinking about the innocence of the tribals, changing their future, the need for honest and compassionate officers etc. He decides to submit a report to the higher officials in this regard, in Ranchi. He concludes that surviving only on the relief, year after year, for those many people is impossible.

The denotified tribes of India are people who live below the poverty line, that starvation is a regular fact of life for them. ¹²

Whenever relief comes to the village, those who can walk will come to take relief. Those who can’t, those who are too old, will sit in a circle, and sing like that. They will sing and sing till they die. When the singing starts in one village, the dying old women from the other villages send the youngsters off to collect relief and start keening themselves.

The adivasis come from far off places. Sometimes at night they come carrying lights on the far horizon. People travel by the light of flaming torches, because the scorching day temperatures make it easier to travel at night. When the little ones come, they come with fast moving steps. Many pairs of feet advance, padding forward with canine caution. Muffled whistles. Another whistle in reply. Someone undoes the tent cords. Then swift and silent activity. The youth arise and hold up the tent flap. Sacks of rice are removed, then sacks of milo.

When relief officer is fast asleep, he hears some sound, and in a trice, he is wide awake. He sees the boys tying the tent flap. They disappear into the darkness of the forest at the wink of an eye. The officer goes round the tent and finds that two sacks are missing. He decides to catch them, and get to the bottom of this theft before he leaves.

When the relief officer runs behind them, they run and run and stop at a place where the jungle ends and grass starts. They stand in a circle to the amazement of the officer. They look at the officer in such a way as if they can pounce on him at any time. They are all naked. They have long hair. They are adolescents but look like little boys and girls. Theirs such appearance made the officer mad. The officer feels whether he is seeing the real scene or he is in some imaginary world.

The undernourished body and laughable height of the ordinary Indian male appear a heinous crime of civilization.¹³

The bags lifters run and run. At last they stop where the jungle thins out. Fallow land, with dry straw-like grass is spread out everywhere. There they stop. Going close to them, noticing them relief officer is astounded. He finds them all well aged males and females. They are not children as he has thought previously. They are all naked. They have bodies with stunted growth. The females have sagging breasts. That sight makes him astonished and fearful.

The relief officer responds incredulously to the horrific sight of people shrunk to dwarfish proportions by a perpetual famine that has also bereft them of their sexual potency and fertility.¹⁴

The relief officer wonders how can one be like that ? What is happening to the five year plans? Upliftment of the downtrodden? Civilization has not entered there. He feels the undernourished body and laughable height of the ordinary Indian male appear a heinous crime of civilization. He feels like a criminal condemned to death. His heart is full of sympathy. Tears stream from his eyes. Mahasveta says,

For many such communities, crime is the only way to survive… But they continue to live in dehumanised conditions everywhere. ¹⁵

The government sends blankets and clothing as relief. What can those jungle folk do with them? They simply take them and sell it off to the mahajans in exchange for a torch or matches or a mirror. Devi says,

When the relief officer is in such surprise, the old man says that just fourteen of them are left. Their bodies have shriveled and shrunk from lack of food. The men can only piss, they can’t get it up any more. Women can’t bear children. That is why they steal relief. The officer can’t say a word. Standing under the moon, looking at them, hearing their laughter, feeling their penises on his skin, the undernourished body and laughable height of the ordinary Indian male appear a heinous crime or civilization.

Whenever the officers approach them, they stare at them wide-eyed and ask, where is water? Where are the seeds? Plough? Bullocks? How can we farm? Even if all is given them , they sell all that to the mahajans. They justify their saying , that they have borrowed money and now they have sold everything to repay them.¹⁷

How does the relief officer feels Mahasveta depicts clearly;

The officer can’t say a word. Standing under the moon, looking at them, hearing their laughter, feeling their penises on his skin, the undernourished body and laughable height of the ordinary Indian male appear a heinous crime or civilization.¹⁸

The government allots huge funds for the upliftment of the tribals. Where does it go? Mahasveta asks,

The State Government has no doubt granted monies through the district administrations in the ITDP areas for the backward people among these tribals, and that money is no doubt showing up when the balance sheets are audited. The State Government is not prepared to think any further. But the awful truth is that the government officers, contractors, and businessmen are eating that money.¹⁹

He government sends every year the relief material such as Dhariwal blankets or good clothes, or sugar. They are distributed to the adivasis. They sell every thing to the mahajans for very nominal things in return. Through a conversation in the context Mahasveta Devi exposes the corruption;

That the schemes implemented by the government will not reach the bandhuas as the mukhias, and the sarpanches are the owners of the bonded labourers.²⁰

The B.D.O. says to the R.O. that,

What can those jungle folk do with Dhariwal blankets or good clothes or sugar? They’ll also just take it and sell it off, and the mahajans will buy it in exchange for a torch or matches or a mirror. The relief-distributors know this, so they sell it all. I don’t think it’s wrong. The relief-distributors know this, so they sell it all. ²¹

Mahasveta explains that the corruption is right from the top;

Every year he [the tehsildar] steals from the relief and consolidates his own affairs. He is extremely corrupt but very efficient. He appoints ten Aagariya village youths to clean and look after the camp. The choukidar takes two bags of the relief material and arranges the relief goods under the trees.²²

The adivasis are in the hands of the mahajans, who exploit them. Even then the adivasis believe them only. The RO’s version is that their greed can never be fulfilled. If something is given they demand for something more. The demands are unquenchable. Mahasveta says,

For any industrial project like dams that come up, tribal land is taken. When they take land, it is never land for land or money for land, so in this condition they become a nomadic migrant mass of people in search of work. Then they cannot retain anything of their own culture because all they are concerned with is ek waqt ki roti. ²³

The government initiates action when an official is killed. The Aagariyas run away into jungles. The government can do nothing in that inhuman conditions of life. Once the government has suspected the kubha class for killing officers. Their village is burnt out completely.

The dire facts of Lohri and the condition of the people of that area bring tears to the Relief Officer. Though he is honest and sincere, to do anything is beyond his capacity. He can do nothing except sympathize.

REFERENCES

1. Devi, Mahasveta. “Land Alienation among Tribals in West Bengal” dust on the road (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) xx

2. ______, Imaginary Maps (Calcutta: Thema, 1993) 170

3. ______. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) 197

4. Hated, Humiliated, Butchered. Mahasweta Devi 2 October, 2007, Tehelka.com [Internet]

5. ______. Mahasweta Devi. 2 October, 2007, Tehelka.com [Internet]

6. Devi, Mahasveta & Ganguly Usha. Rudali [Seagull Books, Calcutta 1999]69

8. Devi, Mahasveta. Introduction, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) 7

9. ______. Imaginary Maps (Calcutta: Thema, 1993) 170

10. ______, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) 14

11. Hated, Humiliated, Butchered. Mahasweta Devi 2 October, 2007, Tehelka .com [Internet]

12. ______. Mahasweta Devi. 2 October, 2007, Tehelka.com

13. Devi, Mahasveta. Introduction, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) 20

14. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criticism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 17

15. Devi, Mahasweta. Badge of All Their Tribes ,Times of India, 5 January 2000,

16. ______, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) p.10

17. ______, Introduction, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) P.3

18. ______, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) P20

19. ______, Imaginary Maps (Calcutta: Thema, 1993) 188

20. _____, “Land Alienation among Tribals in West Bengal” dust on the road. (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 16

21. ______, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) 7

22. ______, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) 13

23. The Rediff interview, Internet - on the net 24-12-1997

3. SEEDS

The main occupation of the Indians is agriculture. Out of 32 crore acres of land of our country, 11 crore acres are arable. About 70% of peoples’ occupation is agriculture.

India ranks second worldwide in farm output. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 18% of the GDP in 2007, employed 70% of the total workforce^[1] and despite a steady decline of its share in the GDP, is still the largest economic sector and plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic development of India.¹

For agriculture many items are essential; 1. land 2. seeds 3. fertilizers 4.water 5.implements and so on. Seeds are heart to agriculture. In olden days, the farmers used to select and retain the best fruits, dry them and use them for next crop. They were of good quality, taste and health. The crop used to come after 6 months and one crop in one year.

As population is increased in geometric proportion, the need to feed the rising population has become a challenge to the government. A lot of research has been done on seeds for high yield. As a result, HYV (High Yielding Variety ) seeds came to market. Production increased. Three crops a year is the system. Production is also very high. That means crop time is reduced and yield is increased many fold. The hunger of millions is to be pacified. It has become a grand success.

Seeing the abundant profits of the agriculture sector the corporate companies joined this sector also. The research and development of the government sectors have gone into the hands of the corporate world. Every wing of this sector gives them high yielding of profits. Let it be seeds, fertilizers, implements, pesticides or anyother thing is highly profitable. They have already their presence in all sectors except seeds. Later they joined that field also. Billions of dollars are poured into this seeds business. They have been getting profits in the same proportion.

Thank you Dr. Shiva for exposing the truth. We can feed the world with organic agriculture. It is not a problem of not enough food, but of the World Bank, WTO, and IMF restricting access and diverting markets for theirs and industrial agriculture's gain. We need a seed satyagraha! ²

Though the yield of the new seed is very high, it has its own problems;

1. The so far independent farmers became dependent on the multinational companies for seeds.

The 12,000-year-old practice in which farm families save their best seed from one year's harvest for the next season's planting may be coming to an end by the year 2000. In March 1998, Delta ~ Pine Land Co. arid the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced they had received a US patent on a new genetic technology designed to prevent unauthorized seed-saving by farmers.³

2. Seeds business became the business of the corporate multinational companies.

Terminator is the answer to the agribusiness dream of controlling world food production. No longer would they need to hire expensive detectives to spy on whether farmers were re-using Monsanto or other GMO patented seed. Terminator corn or soybeans or cotton seeds could be genetically modified to ‘commit suicide’ after one harvest season. That would automatically prevent farmers from saving and re-using the seed for the next harvest. The technology would be a means of enforcing Monsanto or other GMO patent rights, and forcing payment of farmer use fees not only in developing economies, where patent rights were, understandably, little respected, but also in industrial OECD countries.⁴

3. The taste of the food has gone down.

4. HYV food failed to give strength as conventional foods.

With a Zen-like calm, the bearded Gandhian explains how it all began. “When I started farming in the 1980s, the time of the Green Revolution, the government was distributing subsidised high-yield variety [HYV] seeds and chemical fertilizers. I bought them for my field and sowed them with great excitement. In the first year, I had a good yield. But then it started declining. I realised that the fertilizer was poisoning our soil.⁵

5. These new seeds became belly-filling food but not health-giving food.

6. Many new diseases have been appearing which were unknown to earliest generations.

7. For every crop new seeds are to be bought from the companies.

The Green Revolution made people depend on one crop. The seeds were suitable only for irrigated areas but were freely distributed in dry-land farming areas such as the Garhwal. The hybrid crop gave less fodder, so women had to work harder to collect more grass for the cattle. Now, India is seeing the most extreme consequences of the Green Revolution: cotton farmers hooked on to GM crops and pesticides and totally dependent on their cash crops are killing themselves in supposedly “prosperous” States such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. Jardhari woke up to its dangers decades ago. It has been scientifically proven by the agricultural scientist Vir Singh that the yield of the local rice grown in Jardhari’s village, Jardhargaon, is higher than that of HYV rice. ⁶

8. For every new crop, new fertilizers are needed which are made up of powerful chemicals.

9. The new chemicals sprayed on the new crops slowly entered into human body and became indigestible; eg. DDT

10. Such chemical molecules changed the life style of common people abnormally. As a result new maladies sprang up. Small children wearing glasses, getting diabetes at an early age, obesity and so on.

10. To eliminate the ill effects of the one use another, and for the second use the third and so on. This system made human bodies experimental fields.

11. Seeds which were cheap once became costly. Whatever was naturally available and free to the farmer became a commodity. This made agriculture a costly profession.

USDA molecular biologist Melvin J. Oliver, the primary inventor of the technology, explained why the US developed a technology that prohibits farmers from saving seeds: "Our mission is to protect US agriculture and to make us competitive in the face of foreign competition. Without this, there is no way of protecting the patented seed technology.”⁷

12. In place of conventional fertilizers came costly chemicals.

13. The common farmer is not in a position either to buy the seeds or the fertilizers.

Half the world's farmers. are poor and can't afford to buy seed every season, yet poor farmers grow 15-20 percent of the world's food and directly feed at least 1.4 billion people - 100 million in Latin America, 300 million in Africa, and one billion in Asia. These farmers depend upon saved seed and their own breeding skills in adapting other varieties for use on their often-marginal lands.⁸

14. Spraying the powerful chemicals, the farmers are highly infected.

15. The farmer has to book seeds for every year.

Instead, the farmer or the country whose farmers depend on Monsanto patented GMO seeds must pay a license fee to Monsanto each year to get new seeds. ‘No tickee, no laundy,’ as the old Brooklyn poet would say. ⁹

At first it is buying seeds. For these seeds to sprout use chemical fertilizers. To get good harvest the farmer has to purchase pesticides, fungicides, etc. After getting the yield cold-storages are needed. In this way the once independent farmer has become a prey in the vicious circle of the corporate agriculture trade. The farmer who is considered as the backbone of the country, is crushed, chewed and made boneless.

Once the farmer himself used to prepare or preserve the best seed for the next crop.

Women select the best seeds every year, and, over time, the rice molds itself to the farm's ecosystem. Women also cross the commercial variety with other rice strains to breed their own locally-adapted seeds. The Terminator could put an end to all this and increase crop uniformity and vulnerability. It poses a threat to the culture of seed-sharing and exchange that is led primarily by women farmers.¹⁰

Now it becomes the responsibility of the government to eliminate the

terminator seed and come to the rescue of the farmer. Mahasveta insists.

Governments should declare use of the technology illegal. This is an immoral technique that robs farming communities of their age-old right to save seed, and their role as plant breeders.¹¹

After the advent of the HYV seeds’ yield, the tradition is collapsed. Because the HYV seeds will not possess the characters of HYV. That means the high yielding variety is for only one generation.

The US companies have gone one more step ahead. They created “Terminator” seeds. It was introduced by Dunkel. The yield of these seeds cannot be used as seeds by the next generation. This further diminished the strength of the farmer.

Relations between Monsanto, Delta & Pine Land and the USDA, on closer scrutiny, show the deep and dark side of the much-heralded genetic revolution in agriculture. It proves deep-held suspicions that the Gene Revolution is not about ‘solving the world hunger problem’ as its advocates claim. It’s about handing over control of the seeds for mankind’s basic food supply—rice, corn, soybeans, wheat, even fruit, vegetables and cotton—to privately owned corporations. Once the seeds and their use are patented and controlled by one or several private agribusiness multinationals, it will be they who can decide whether or not a particular customer—let’s say for argument, China or Brazil or India or Japan—whether they will or won’t get the patented seeds from Monsanto, or from one of its licensee GMO partners like Bayer Crop Sciences, Syngenta or DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred International. ¹²

Our farmers know cross breed variety seeds. They make them for themselves. Our rural India was once self sufficient with the use of this variety of seeds.

Seeds can either be taken by a farmer from the previous season’ seeds, and planted to produce the next harvest. Or, seeds can be bought new each harvest season, from the companies which sell their seeds.¹³

For almost a quarter century, since 1983, the US Government has quietly been working to perfect a genetically engineered technique whereby farmers would be forced to turn to their seed supplier each harvest to get new seeds. The seeds would only produce one harvest. After that the seeds from that harvest would commit ‘suicide’ and be unusable. ¹⁴

Along with the seeds came duplicate seeds. These have become fatal to farmers. Many farmers have put an end to their lives because the crops failed with these seeds.

In traditional agricultural system, seeds played a vital role. The farmers used seeds of one crop for the next crop. Slowly the scene changed. In place of traditional fertilizers, chemical fertilizers are introduced. In place of conventional cultivation, mechanized cultivation has come.

Some times though the seeds are good, the lands are not that good to the tribals. Then also yield is very less. The landless people cannot experiment on seeds. At every stage the farmer has to invest a lot on seeds, on fertilizers, on pesticides and so on. So agriculture has become a gamble to the farmer.

But the problem everywhere is not necessarily about land. As a labourer working on land, the peasant is denied what is rightfully his. For him, it is a never-ending battle for water, seed and fertilizer. He lives in the midst of starvation and poverty. No middle-level cultivator has gained from the economic prosperity of the post-Independence period. ….The ordinary middle class has become poorer after losing its few possessions and the lower middle class today is facing extinction. The small farmer has sold whatever he had to the zamindar, and now stands in the long line of landless peasants. ¹⁵

Kuruda is a tribal village. The land North of Kuruda and Hesadi village are uneven, arid and sunbaked. Grass doesnot grow there even after the rains. Only cactus plants can grow here and there.

There are many types of agricultural labourers. Devi writes,

Agricultural labourers can be of several kinds: the completely landless, the marginal peasant, or those reduced to the status of bargadars under the impact of a single bad harvest. These agricultural labourers have fought in the Tebhaga and the Naxalite movements, but no peasant organization led by a political party has ever acknowledge them. ¹⁶

The villagers are generally very innocent and god fearing. They are afraid of sin and hell. They remain truthful and committed to their word. They are so simple, they never forget whatever little is done to them and also bad done to them. There are two people who exploit the labourers. The first one is the money lender and the second one is the malik.

In M.P., thousands of poor tribals and non-tribals are turned into slaves by moneylenders, and silently work in the farms owned by them. Contractors use them as slave-labourers all over India. ¹⁷

They are afraid of malik’s musclemen. The musclemen always threaten them with their guns. Having no other alternative they work in the fields of the malik. They, being very weak, are unable to fight against anybody more so the powerful landlords. Once it was the British who exploited them and now the maliks. Mahasveta writes,

The Kisan Sabha went on nurturing the unity of the rich and middle peasantry, while the marginal peasants lost their meagre plots to the landowner-moneylenders and ended up as agricultural labourers.¹⁸

Whenever somebody dies the tribals make songs on the dead and sing and pacify themselves. They thus honour them.

It is lack of guidance and leadership that makes them to be so backward. In such circumstances an enlightened, sympathetic, and humane officer is needed there. An officer who can enlighten the masses. If not officers some social workers who can dedicate their lives for the downtrodden. We can name some people like Baba Amte, Mahasveta Devi and Anna Hazare

The field labourers in the Tohri area are harijans and adivasis. Most of them are land-less, hardworking labourers.

The Kisan Sabha was founded in 1936. Right since then I’ve tried to understand why the Kisan Sabha wouldnot support the agricultural labourers. The Party split in 1964. Even after the split, they remained Communists, both the parties. The peasants’ front of the Party never recognized the agricultural labourers as cultivators.¹⁹

The landowners, jotedars and mahajans belong to upper caste. They hold hundreds of thousands of acres in their hand. The particular problem of the area is the deep distrust the labourers feel for the masters.

The right to the land was no hereditary gift, it had to be claimed by brute force. ²⁰

It explained clearly how the ruthless Rajputs infiltrated this remote area of tribals, and from zamindars gradually built themselves up to the status of jotedar/moneylenders and established themselves as masters of the area. ²¹

It is because, the maliks change their promises very often and without any ethics. This explains the lack of progress in agriculture or increase in individual incomes. The maliks are such they let the lands go waste but donot give on lease to some others. They feel that any change in their traditional ways will lead the labourers to become rich infront of their own eyes. They are repugnant about the change. If it happens the labourers will not listen to them or accept their supremacy. Income—expenditure—health—education—social consciousness, everything continues to remain at a sub-normal level.

The government of India has pauperized them. They have to beg for everything they need. They donot understand mainstream machination, so although there are safeguarding laws against land-grabbing, tribal land is being sold illegally every day, and usurped by mainstream society all over India, especially in converted into tea gardens, fruit orchards. ²²

They talk of justice. The villagers have talking power but the malik has gun power. They shout till they are exhausted but the malik lets his men use guns. Many collapse. Actually that may not be the solution but to pacify their ego, the malik does the same. Who will come to the rescue of the tribals? They lay their lives just for few paise increase in their wages. Seeing that one will wonder “ Is labourer’s life so cheap? so valueless ? so unworthy ?”

The officer[OC] made a note of the case for future reference. He would not have minded it if Pratap had shot ten agricultural labourers dead every day. It was only natural for a Goldar to shoot and for the agricultural labourers to die.²³

III

In Kuruda village Dulan Ganju lives with his wife and two sons, Dhatua and Latua. Their caste trade was skinning dead animals. Dulan got some barren land by the sarvodaya leaders who had taken it from Lachman singh. When Sarvodaya leaders came to the landlords, the landlords did begin to give away little bits of infertile, stony and barren land to provoke their fellow landlords into doing the same. Every one had 500-700-1000-2000 bighas of fertile land. The land will be on some imaginary names.

Land is often bought in the name of a non-existent tribal or a tribal who acts as a front for a non-tribal buyer. The concerned departments oblige by registering the sale-deed, once a few palms are greased. No inconvenient queries are made, of course. ²⁴

The landlords who want to get name and fame give away little bits of infertile-stoney-barren land sometimes. Everyone has thousands of bighas of fertile land. But they donot donate the fertile and arable land to the tribals. If they give away some infertile land from their resource of vast land nothing will happen. They get name and fame. All that giving away is a type of ostentation. They strive for false prestige. The recipients of the donated lands do not know about registering the land and other official formalities. Mahasveta says,

Secondly the landlords who donated the land, get good impression in the records of the government. that so and so donated that much of land in bhudanodyamam. Thirdly in the eyes of common people they become philanthropists and compassionate people on the earth. Fourthly the waste land is gotten rid off.

People used to think that Dulan was a man of different measure. He was always busy with some sort of strategy for survival. He never had time to think about his sons or grandsons. When Dulan got that land he did not want to take it. He had to take the land because of Lachman Singh’s force.

Most of those who got those lands free, either sold them or mortgaged them to the same mahajans, from where they got. During monsoon, reddish water streams down the embankment and collects in the field. The land is already barren and stoney. It further deteriorates. No one can plough that.

Just let the land be. In Ara-Chhapra, this is the kind of land they gave at the behest of the Sarvodayis. Those who got it sold it back to the mahajan or mortgaged it to him. ²⁶

Living always under the thumb of higher castes Dulan’s heart is broken. But the drive for survival prompts him to exploit situations by using his natural guile rather than force. He used to fool all by his wit and cunning and all the stratagems of survival were at his finger tips. After getting land, he wants something else. He needs bullocks to plough, seed to sow, fertilizers for plants, and so on. In addition to these things they need to survive till the crop comes.

Dulan begs Lachman Singh to help him get seeds, implements etc. Lachman tells his vakil to write a letter to the BDO. Accordingly the vakil writes a letter asking for agricultural implements. Dulan plays many tricks to get what he wants from the government. He gets money. He collects fertilizer and sells it in Tohri. He brings seeds sack and uses it to eat.

In order to get money, Dulan borrows plough and bullock from pahaan, displays them to the officers and takes money. He used to say that the bullocks have died. When his wife asks why he brings so much seed he says that the land of his stomach of hunger couldnot be measured and can be sown with little seed. He is not ready to sow the seeds in his barren land.

The government also knows about their activities. But they cannot help. It is not policy matters but political matters. The low caste children never get entry into the government’s primary school. The maliks employ them to harvest their crops for four annas a day or one meal at gun point. The villagers whenever they ask for 25 paisa raise, the SDO brings the police and picks up the labourers. This is arranged by the maliks. When firing takes place many labourers die. Mahasveta Devi writes,

Shots are fired. There is no account of the number shot dead. According to Dulan and the others, eleven. According to Lachman Singh and the police, seven. ²⁷

The process of getting things happen as he wishes, becomes a habit to Dulan. He exploits the government for agricultural items. The government becomes Kaamadhenu for him. Once the things that are supplied are over they all go to forest or work in the fields of malik.

Though Dulan is loyal to the malik, he used to get something for his benefit whenever there comes a chance. During festival time when malik’s carts come with loads, he used to walk behind them, shooting away imaginary birds and continuously lift things. Though he has not and never given a thing to anyone of the villagers, they never had any complaint against him.

As an accomplice to his malik, he is carrying a lot of burden in his mind. The corpses are weighing heavy in his mind. He can not share such facts with any body and make his mind light. He feels, he is too tired of all those things.

He embodies a system which dehumanizes, brutalizes, invading the most private space of an individual, the emotions, so that even grief is distorted in the desperate struggle for survival. ²⁸

Not knowing any other way to unburden his mental heaviness, he used to go to his land and start talking to the graves. He tells the dead, that they are remembered in songs by the villagers. He is sad because the dead have become songs but not paddy, dhaan, not even china grass. He begs them to get off his chest, for he can bear them no more.

In another occasion, Dulan’s son Dhatua too is killed by the malik. Again he is warned by Lachman Singh. By that event there are seven corpses that he has buried. Dulan wants to go mad but can not. Sometimes he used to do little things to pacify himself.

1. He has once arsenic-poisoned a few buffaloes belonging to the powerful Rajput mahajan, Lachman Singh but is not caught. The malik suspects somebody else.

2. He is the only witness to what Lachman Singh and his Rajput caste-brothers have done. They have burnt Dushad quarters in Tamadi. People are burnt alive and huts collapsed.

Sometimes Dulan has to do certain things at the gun point.

1. Dulan buries Karan and his brother Bulaki in his land.

2. When there was a strike by the labourers, the labourers are shot dead. Dulan buries four corpses piling one on the other in his field. Lachman’s men help him to dig, deep pits to bury the corpses.

When Dhatua is singing to what has happened to Karan and others, Dulan keeps quiet. He knows everything. He did not open his mouth, for Lachman warned him that he too would get the same fate.

Mahasveta Devi through her character says,

They have read the warning in Lachman’s sharp, silent, silent gaze. He who opens his mouth will die. This has happened before. Will happen again. Once in a while it is necessary to rend the sky with leaping flames and the screams of the dying, just to remind the harijans and untouchables that government laws, appointment of officers and constitutional decrees are nothing. ³⁰

For the poor it is the question of livelihood, the question of life and death; but to the maliks it is the question of maintaining their supremacy. Even in donating something they show their supremacy. The maliks even when they donate there will be some motive;

This gifting of land has many uses. Barren land can be got rid of. The recipients are bought over. One’s position with the sarkar becomes stronger. Above all like a rossogolla after a meal, there is the added satisfaction of knowing one is compassionate. ³¹

Generally they give waste lands to the poor for cultivation. The poor put their heart and soul in that, remove stones, level the land, and put whatever fertilizers they have and bring life in that land. When the yield is good, and the land is made, then the malik demands it back and allots a new waste land to them or sometimes just neglect.

The land belongs to the jotedars who refuse to draw water from the canal for irrigation. If the sharecropper raises a larger crop, it goes against the interests of the jotedar. ³²

The malik’s mind always changes. If a land is given on lease to someone for a particular year, then there is no guarantee that the same will be given on lease to the same farmer the next year. The maliks expect something more.

Pasupati Murnu, a tribal peasant of Medinipur district belonged to the CPI, which was not a partner in the ruling Left Front in 1982. He had an acre of land for a family of 9……..But as he was outside the ruling parties, his land was forcibly taken over by the local panchayat and distributed among landless tribals. When he objected and tried to harvest paddy from his own land, he was mercilessly beaten up and killed and his family forced to leave the village.³³

The long standing Adhiar system is so designed that the big landowners advance seeds, bullocks and ploughs, fertilizers and paltry sums of money to the peasants. In return, they claim the lion’s share of the harvest. Also, those with larger holdings deprive small peasants of their land on some pretext or other. This challenges man’s almost primitive instinct for possession of land and provokes reaction. Thus the peasants have been consistently agitating against exploitation and oppression. ³⁴

The non-farmers should work in the fields of the maliks, or work in their houses during festivals to whatever meagre amount they give. The malik makes such a person’s life miserable in the village. By his activities, he makes such person either totally surrender to him or leave the village. If the government interferes in such cases, the malik keeps quiet for a few days saying ‘yes’ to the officials.

Malik is the boss, or anything in the village. He is the supremo in his area. They demand respect. Everything that happens in their area, should be known to them. The government officials should consult only him for any- thing. In any dispute he will be the judge. Without his consent an outsider cannot do anything in his area. His logic and will is final. The maliks know well how to manage things. Mahasveta Devi puts it like this;

He pooh-poohs the government, dictates and pays field labourers forty paise as wages, gifts a golden cobra to crown the Shiva idol in Hanuman Mishra’s temple, buys the BDO a scooter and the daroga a transistor and occupies the bigha-and a-half land belonging to Karan and Bulaki as repayment for an old loan. ³⁵

The maliks are generally very rigid in their decisions. To get their strategy implemented they can go to any extent.

Even at the time of death, they don’t leave their pride and ego. The feelings of a malik are well explained by Mahasveta,

Now, knowing that he is totally helpless, Lachman Singh is filled with the fear of death. But even in the throes of this fear, in southeast Bihar, the Rajput will never beg the lowborn for mercy. Even if he did, the lowborn will not always be able to gift him his life. ³⁶

Against Lachman Singh’s warning, Dulan started cultivating the land. He has sowed seeds. There is a bumper crop. Everyone is surprised. He has told all, that he will not cut the harvest. People thought he has gone mad.

The crimes that are committed by Lachman have become unbearable. The view of the corpses has tormented him. He decides to put an end to the malik. That long waited day has come. Lachman Singh comes to see the harvest of Dulan. Dulan pulls him down from his horse back and kills as exactly taught by Lachman without proof.

Before killing Lachman Singh, Dulan unburdens every memory before him. He tells him that he is ready to die if police finds him. He talks philosophy telling that everyone has to die. He opens his heart telling that Dhatua dies before death comes to him.

After killing him, Dulan lets the horse go, tying the gun and all with a rope, dumps the body in a ditch, and rolls a stone after a stone into the ditch .

Out of joy, he welcomes the villagers to cut the harvest and have it for themselves. He tells them to use it as their seed.

In his heart he tells Dhatua, that he has become seed.

REFERENCES

1. The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., [INTERNET] 6 July 2009

2. Vandana Shiva on global food crisis, You Tube, [Chrome, internet]

3. Hope Shand and Pat Mooney THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, [Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998]

4. Monsanto Buys ‘Terminator’ Seeds Company, by F. William Engdahl Global Research, August 27, 2006 [Internet]

5. Jardhari, remembers FRONTLINE, Volume 25 - Issue 02 :: Jan. 19- Feb. 01, 2008[ Internet]

6. ______, FRONTLINE, Volume 25 - Issue 02 :: Jan. 19- Feb. 01, 2008

[ Internet]

7. Hope Shand and Pat Mooney, THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998

8. ______, THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998 [Internet]

11. THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, by Hope Shand and Pat Mooney, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998

12. Monsanto Buys ‘Terminator’ Seeds Company, by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, August 27, 2006 [Internet]

13. Monsanto Buys ‘Terminator’ Seeds Company, by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, August 27, 2006

14. Monsanto Buys ‘Terminator’ Seeds Company, by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, August 27, 2006

15. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Del hi,Katha, 1996) 191

16. Devi Mahasveta Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Ban dyhopadhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, [THEMA, Calcutta 1990] xviii

17. ______, dust on the road, (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 174

18. ______, Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Bandyhopadhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, [THEMA, Calcutta 1990] 45

19. ______, Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Ban dyhopadhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, THEMA, Calcutta 1990]28

20. ______, Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Ban dyhopadhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, THEMA, Calcutta 1990]71

21. ______, & Usha, Ganguly. Rudali [Seagull Books, Calcutta ,1999]73

22. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Imaginary Maps (Calcutta: Tema, 1993) iii

23. Devi, Mahasveta Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Ban dyhopadhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, THEMA, Calcutta 1990] 70

24 ______, dust on the road, (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 75

25. ______, dust on the road, (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 76

26. ______, bitter soil [Seagull Books, Calcutta, 1998] 26

27. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi, Ka tha, 1996) 172

28. ______, & Usha, Ganguly Rudali [Seagull Books, Calcutta 1999]4

29. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Imaginary Maps(Calcutta: Thema, 1993) x

30. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Del hi,Katha, 1996) 167.

31. ______, “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi,Katha, 1996) 163

32. Devi, Mahasveta. Bashai Tudu Translated from Bengali by Samik Ban dyhopadhyay and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, THEMA, Calcutta 1990] 47

33. ______, dust on the road, (Seagull, Calcutta, 1997) 74

34. Sharma, Meenakshi. “Mahasveta Devi,” The Worsmiths (New Del hi,Katha, 1996)189

35. ______, “Mahasveta Devi,” The Wordsmiths (New Delhi,Katha, 1996) 173.

36. Devi, Mahasveta. Introduction, bitter soil, (Seagull Books, Calcutta 1998) ix

4. THE WITCH

India is a country of sentiments. Even in this rocket age we have many blind beliefs, unwanted rituals, illogical blind beliefs etc. Even the educated are deeply involved in that. The customs of ancestors are simply carried on from generation to generation. How far it is reasonable? Is there any commonsense or logic in following such blind dogmas ?

Eg:- Vinayaka statue drinking milk !

Swargam, narakam, witch…etc. are all the creations of the intellectuals who wanted to exploit the gullible people. Exploitations appear in different ways, by different people, at different places. But the aim is one. Encashing the innocence of the weak.

Eg:- Pujari conducts pinda pradhanam to some one after his death. He says that, that is the food to preta-atma of the dead person. Where does this preta-atma live ?

Gita says :- Dehinosmin yeda dehe, kaumaram,yevvanam jera

Tadha dehaantara praptihi, dheera statra na muhyathi

That means, the atma enters another body immediately after the death of somebody. That means there won’t be any atma freely moving in space. Then the pinda pradhanam is to whom ?

The pujaries created all these beliefs, mantras, rituals etc. for getting their own livelihood in an easy way, but nothing else.

Gita says:- Yagna dana tapah karma, na tyajyam karyameva tat

Yagnodana tapahschiva, pavanani maneeshinam

That we do all these pujas only to become more concentrated on the way to God but nothing else.

Some people created blackmass. That is the worship of saitan. This we can see in the Hindus as mantragallu; in Muslims a jendala saibulu; and in Christians as blackmass. Then there are aghors who are cannibals, living on the bank of river Ganga.

At the time of opening some industries, cinema halls, etc. human sacrifice is being done.

Eg:- 1. Siva Reddy, a small boy, was slaughtered in Guntur while opening a cinema hall.

2. One man slew his entire family for getting powers from the diety in front of Durga idol.

3. 2000 women go naked from Chandragutti to Narmada in Karnataka state. This they used to do , in order to please lord varuna for more rains.,

4. Saraswathi, a teenage girl, got fire while cooking food and died. It happened near Kankipadu, Vijayawada. The people made her a goddess.

5. Sammakka and Sarakka, who fought against the British, died in the battle field like Jhansi Rani. The tribals made them deities. Now crores of rupees business is being done on their name.

If this is the state of affairs of so called educated people of 2007, then what about the blind beliefs of the tribals who reside far away from the main stream ?

The so called educated people know why certain things happen. “If such an incident occurs in an area bereft of electricity, health-care, science and education, it is quite natural to accept it as a curse of the evil powers…. The tribals donot know that various mysteries can be explained by science and reason. In such a situation it is natural for him to seek the aid of the janguru. ( dust on the road, p.173 )

Mentally the tribals are far back in time. In their gudems almost time might have stopped. Then how many blind beliefs they should have had.

India is a country where more and more babas, sentiments, bad omens, good omens, holy time,. Bad time and so on are followed. These things have been well encashed by another set of people like pujaries, babas, sadhuas etc.

“ The present day urban people , including the frequently Europe-travelled rich, increasingly falling prey to antiquated beliefs in fortune-telling and supernatural. In the last decade-and-a-half, people have sought out novel gods and demons, religious gurus, astrologers and clairvoyants. The daily newspapers regularly publish what the stars foretell—this leads to a dependence on astrology and destiny instead of confidence in one’s own abilities. Indian godmen, soothsayers and tantra, plus all sorts of hocus-pocus, are flourishing in the US and Europe.” (dust on the road, p.166 )

“ What I see clearly is that the belief in the supernatural has turned into a big business in the circles of the wealthy and the educated. When the privileged sections of the country become obsessed with superstition and the supernatural, and obscurantist ideas spread unbridled among the deprived sections of the country, it seems that something unholy is behind the apparent. Could it be that there are interested quarters who want this country to remain immersed in the depths of darkness ? ” (dust on the road, p.166 )

For every thing that happens, has an explanation given by experts. They give clarification in such a way as if they can consult the god and as his representatives can say something.

“..it seems that something unholy is behind the apparent. Could it be that there are interested quarters who want this country to remain immersed in the depths of darkness ? ” ( dust on the road, p.167)

Generally witches are made from women. The women are economically exploited; of weak constitution of body; more sentimental; sexually looted etc. If a lady goes against those who control the society she is named as a witch. If that was a rich man or politically powerful man the whole village people go round him. Even the police will not turn ;up. Even if the victim files a case, it is thrown into dust bin.

“….it is disease and not witch-craft that is responsible for death. After each and every killing, the concerned police stations were informed in Singbhum. But the police simply refused to come.” ( dust on the road, p.168)

“ Behind these incidents are the religious beliefs of the Santhals, as well as personal enmity and disputes. I hold the same view as you that lack of education and scientific awareness, dearth of education among women, absence of adequate health facilities – all these are major causes. ” ( dust on the road, p.170)

“ There are specific norms and ritual hymns for the witches. Usually childless women, widows, older women or those with exceptionally ugly faces were considered witches in the Chhotanagpur division. ” ( dust on the road, p.170)

“ What is the use of tall claims in support of electricity where only fireflies light up dark dungeons ? People will continue to believe in witches where modern medical facilities are not available. Moreover, we should keep in mind that the belief is nurtured by strong vested interests.” ( dust on the road, p.171)

“ Those branded witches are also not the occult-loving women of yore -- they are victims of feuds, political vendetta, clan-hatred, greed and conspiracies. ” ( dust on the road, p.173)

“…. A widow named Manada Patra had been branded a witch by the neighbouring Sinha family, and she had been beaten up. Neither the woman nor those who beat her up were tribals. All this was done only to usurp a small plot of land owned by her. The local panchayat and the police station took no steps despite complaints.”( dust on the road, p.174)

“…The same thing happened in the case of Kaminibala Singh, an old Munda widow of Gopiballhavpur, Medinipur, West Bengal. The aim was clear – to get hold of the land owned by her.” ( dust on the road, p.174)

“ These parties did not mount a campaign against the witch-cult, did not demand punishment for the killers. They did not ask for adequate police steps. Behind the incidents of witch-killing in Purulia and Singhbhum are the presence of greed, political hatred, motivations of land-grabbing and extortion of money.” ( dust on the road, p.175)

In rare cases, depending on the need the police may turn up and do needful. It all depends on the individual S.I. of Police.

“…it is clear that in the district of Maldah alone, during the period 1951-79, altogether 96 witch killings took place. Almost in every case, the were informed and they took the necessary steps. During 1976-81, timely police interventions prevented 56 such killings.” ( dust on the road, p.168)

Some people who know that ‘witch’ is bogus won’t accept it, or those, though they don’t know but said that ‘witch’ is bogus donot accept that saying if they are benefited out of that concept.

The financial position of the common people or tribals is another factor that drags them towards pujas and some sorts of imaginary concepts. Secondly those who experience failure after failure are too attracted by the dogmas and the rituals. Their ignorance is investment to the rich. Thirdly those who had taken money from the landlords or money lenders and could not repay, too resort to something unimaginable should happen all of a sudden. Thus they become victims of the religion, the feuds and the money lenders.

“ In M.P., thousands of poor tribals and non-tribals are turned into slaves by moneylenders, and silently work in the farms owned by them. Contractors use them as slave-labourers all over India.” ( dust on the road, p.174)

“ The fear of losing his land haunts him relentlessly. He cannot grasp the intricacies of the legal system and he is hounded by heartless non-tribals.” ( dust on the road, p.176)

“ According to law, it is forbidden to buy the land of a tribal but this law has been defeated by the khai khalasis custom. Using this custom the non-tribals grab tribal land by paying money in exchange for handwritten chits. The 1951 census shows that Santhals have lost 25,000 acres of land. The process is continuing unabated. ….illegal land transactions are never recorded.” ( dust on the road, p.176)

My country is being destroyed

My land is floating away

Like turtles floating in water

The country is in the clutches of crimson fire

Like red leaves blooming on the tree

My country is going to its destruction

Land is flying away

Like dust kicked up on the road.

( dust on the road, p.178)

“ The rest of the Santhal society must also come to understand that witch-craft has mutated into something new, unlike the past—it has become the oppression of the weak by the strong and hence should be stopped. Like dowry killings, witch-hunting is also an inhuman crime.

The strong always deceived the weak,

Made them slaves;

The killers became the kings

Ruling for years

Became famous in history. ( Sri. Sri.)

“ I am imploring the tribals to dispassionately think about thei9r society. I want them to question themselves—will their society progress if they keep alive the witch-cult ? They are being destroyed, they are floating away, they are burning like red coals in an unequal battle. In the darkness of a dust-storm they are walking like ghostly slaves, walking behind the contractors, agents and touts, going to their end…..”( dust on the road, p.179)

“ It is no coincidence that places where the witches are killed generally inaccessible and cannot be reached during the rains. …..the tribals are facing increasing pressure and exploitation from the non-tribal world. Their racial identity is at stake.” ( dust on the road, p.176)

“ In these muddy waters, the crafty sharks do everything within their means to take advantage of the ignorance of the tribals—the process of witch identification, community trial of the identified witch, fines imposed on the person and even the killing itself. In a majority of cases, the objective is to mark someone as a witch and then grab his or her land, cattle money and even life. The political parties are afraid to take a clear stand and demand in unison—stop this damned custom ! They are afraid of alienating the Santhal vote. The police also keep quiet, saying that this is an internal affair of the community.”(dust on the road, p.176)

The political parties donot enter those villages. They cannot explain them the secrets of witch-hunting. They are afraid because they may lose votes.

The police are afraid because they may lose their regular incomes from the masters of the tribals.

The government frames laws but don’t popularize and advertise them. Framing laws, they feel that their work is over.

The common man has no time to think about the tribals as he is always busy with his routine work.

“ Does the West Bengal Government really want an end to this practice ? One doubts their intentions and honesty of purpose. Since positive measures have been taken by the police in West Dinapur, the least that the government would have done is to widely publicize the measures. But that has not been done. Why? Would the entire Santhal society turn away from the ruling parties if the government took determined steps to put a stop to this ghastly practice ? …..are fighting against this practice as they have realized that witches are killed for the personal or political gains of a few, including the jangurus.” (dust on the road, p.176)

“ Places like Maldah and Islampur, where the witch-cult has been partly checked by the police……..If the government fails to adopt bold policies, then who will do the job? The government should come to the aid of those who are fighting the cult.” (dust on the road, p.177)

Countless crimes are being committed by believing the words of the hypocrite jangurus. In fact, the cult is nothing but a dark belief, a cursed superstition. It has no scientific basis whatsoever, and neither can it benefit anyone directly or indirectly. And its roots are so deep that its immediate eradication is not possible. It is a mindboggling question how such a barbaric rite exists in a welfare state like India, even after so many years of attaining independence. For eradication of the custom,. The government should enact laws. The rite can be stopped if the janguru activity is declared illegal.

Age-old beliefs cannot vanish in a second. A lot of work has to be done for this. And when the beliefs go, the resultant vacuum should be filled in by education and health care for all.

The country and society have undergone big changes but our minds are still imprisoned in age-old darkness. Meaningful steps from the centre and state administration could, perhaps, make it difficult for the cult to exist in its present form, at least.

The characters, created by Mahasveta Devi are the replica of somebody who are present in rural India. They were, have been, and will be the exploiters of the innocent, the poor and the marginalized. The government, the educated, the politicians and none other have time to elevate them.

Thakur :- Thakurs were the real rulers of rural India. They were Zamindars. They felt that the villagers had to work for them or born to work for them. Even they had right over women. In some places, let anyone marry, the bride should lie with the thakur the first night. The people were illiterate, innocent, not knowing the ways of the world, being financially depending on the thakur, had to bear all their atrocities.

There was no safety to the women of the downtrodden by the maliks. The malik could enjoy or molest whomever he wanted. They could give names to the victims—daini, witch -- just to get rid off them or let them go whither they go. So behind witch concept somebody’s selfishness prevails. The selfishness may be sex, land, to get rid off opposition, or anything else.

Hanuman Mishra:- Mishra was a Brahmin. He was of Tahar village. He was a priest of Shiva Mandir. In rural India they are everything. In every walk of life, from birth to death and even for nether world they guide the people with utmost influence. The poor villagers believed that the Brahmin can talk to the god. Their innocence is a boon to the upper caste people. Mishra type of Brahmins who helped the maliks in their activities, either for good or for bad have to share the sin that the maliks commit.

He sensed terror everywhere in the village. He fasted and prostrated himself before the gods. Then he said that the gods had sent him an awesome dream. A terrifying, naked woman uttered the words, “I am famine”. Who was that terrifying woman ? What was the matter ? Mishra knew everything. He was framing a story and an awful scene.

He said that that daini should be found out and driven away. If she was wounded, if she bled, if she was burnt to death, a terrible calamity would be visited upon them. He also said that the daini must be moving about Karuda, Murhai, Hesadi and other such villages as the base.

“ Faith in witch-cult used to exist in tribal society. Suddenly it seems to have acquired a shot in the arm. I have my own explanation about their strong faith in witch-cults. The tribals are losing whatever they had due to overwhelming socio-economic changes and all-devouring political pressures over which they have little control.” ( dust on the road, p.167)

“ At the very sound of the term ‘witch’, the tribals forget all political differences and act in a frenzy, even victimizing one of their own.” ( dust on the road, p.168)

These statements of the priest created a deep impact on the villagers. They became mentally in such a way that one became a spy on the other. One started suspecting the other to be a daini. People were even suspecting their own mothers or other female relations and started observing them closely. Hanuman Mishra was spreading that false news and creating havoc among the people.

To explain sin, Hanuman Mishra had his own way. He said that low caste people are great sinners. It was because the tribals Oraon, Mundas, and others worship their barbaric gods, the next day they go for Jesus in the missions, the day after that they go for Hindu gods. He found fault that they showed discretion in the matter of worship . That was why they did not get any protection or patronage from any particular god during famine-drought-police attacks.

If he felt something wrong, he should correct them. Allegations won’t solve the problem. He was one from such people who did not want the problems should be solved. If problems are there people think of problems. If there are no problems then they will think about these people. These people’s drawbacks can be analysed and that becomes a danger to them. The exploiters always keep the common people busy with something. For anything they say, they make a profound base and spread out the news. The general words they use to the downtrodden are ‘sinners’, ‘beggars’, ‘sons of characterless mothers’, ‘useless buggers’, and so on.

He also emphasized that they were great sinners and that was why they would die in large numbers during famines or floods. He said that they were not ashamed of begging. Logic will not work for the exploiters. They, the downtrodden beg for something. Who make them such miserables to beg ? The exploiters won’t think. Accusation is the only weapon they have to demoralize the marginalized. According Mishra like people, it was because of their sin they did not get work even if they were born idle. His statements created unnamed terror among the people.

Once some white people of Krishna Consciousness came to that village. They wanted to help the villagers. The villagers who were deeply upset by daini pelted stones at them. The villagers had taken all the relief materials from them---money, rice, milk-powder, and medicines--- and sent them away. Thus disgusted the people of Krishna Consciousness returned to Patna.

The villagers were in panic. Secondly they were always in need of wanting. They had no time to understand the helpers. Their minds were tuned to such a low level of thinking by the exploiters, that they cannot distinguish the helpers from the exploiters. Understanding depends on the mind set. If a granite stone is given to a sculptor, he can carve a great artifact and if the same stone is given to a washerman he can use it for washing clothes. Stone is a stone. How it is utilized depends on the mind.

The white gentlemen came to know about the daini. They requested Mishraji not to kill the daini but to give it to them so that they could take her to their country. The exploiters say something as if they have seen or experienced of what they say. They talk as if they only have created that. They boast as if they have full control oven that. Such statements reveal their prejudice, ego and selfboasting. . Then Mishra gave them some clues, how to identify the daini. Daini is someone who does not form a shadow, or on whose head a crow or a kite flies.

They spread out such type of false information, that can protect them from their evil deeds. They are such type of people, they can make any good incident or bad incident to their favour. This tradition has been coming for generations.

Bisra Dushad :- He was the best gunin in that area. He knew the medical qualities of the herbs and plants. He was the best doctor to the villagers. It was believed that he knew the movement of water underground. He died one day. His death created further panic among the villagers. The pahaan too further created horror in hearts of the people. He promised them that he was going to prostrate himself before the gods and would go on a fast. That would save the village. But he suggested to hunt the daini.

The Govt. Officials :- The government officials have many positive and negative points. Unless there is a complaint, they cannot take any action. Unless there is witness, they cannot file a case and produce it in the court. If this is the case of real incidents of life, then what can they do, to created cases like daini ? No action can be initiated in favour of innocence. If an action is initiated, problem comes from the higher officials; if not initiated from the people. So they remain in dilemma to what to do ? Sometimes they can do only one thing, that is to go on leave.

The matter of daini slowly reached Adivasi welfare ministry. The officials felt what action could be initiated in daini case. Nothing could be done. No case could be filed. The thana daroga said that if somebody was killed, then he could report to the govt. But if it was of daini he had to go on leave. He did not want to take any risk of investigating, or searching for daini.

That in the absence of a concrete political will on the part of rulers, the benefits of whatever schemes have been made are not reaching where they should. Slogans apart, nothing concrete and purposeful is being attempted to protect and preserve their culture from the onslaughts of the outsiders. ( Tribal Activism, p.67)

The people :- The village people are generally innocent and peace loving. The intrigues of the rich cannot be understood by them. They feel that whatever they know is true to every word. When they heard about the daini they went crazy about it. They were too much afraid. They too started spreading stories that were heard or created by the fear. There were stories within the stories. Mahasveta Devi seeks to draw people’s attention in these stories to exploitation of superstition by the vested interests: “ if you wish to kill somebody, declare her a witch”…….But this practice in real life, as corroborated by Mahasveta’s articles published in journals, is fast assuming alarming proportions. ( Tribal Activism, p.128)

Once on sivaratri day some children drank the milk , used to bathe the idol. Few children died. The doctor found the cause and explained why it had happened to the villagers. The villagers said nothing to him. The dead children were buried. Then they had a discussion with their little reasoning . The main problem of rural India people is loss of logic and non-responsibility towards issues. They search for somebody or something on whom or on which they can throw the blame and wash their hands. This tendency of them doesnot elevate them from where they are. This innocence of theirs makes them to be easily looted or exploited by others. They concluded that Mahuri Dhobin, an old woman who brought the milk did all that. She was the main culprit. They set fire to the thatch of Mahuri’s hut and dragged her out. Half burnt, hounded out in fear and agony she stumbled on the stones, fell flat on her face and died.

Even political parties of India do nothing to enrich the rural people mentally. Their speeches, and their day to day actions are concerned to their own benefit but not to the rural people. They never conduct classes to eradicate blind beliefs, orthodoxy, exploitation, etc. They know very well that if rural India also becomes aware of the world, they lose their vote bank. So the poor people should be there where they are and these people should be leaders forever. If cadre too wants to become leaders the politics will be someother way.

Daini issue was a way of eliminating somebody whom they did not like. Once Roto Munda’s widow was named daini but after cutting off her nose and let the blood flow they declared her human again.

They had their own way of deciding things. Why only females were made dainies not known or sometimes an open secret. In such activities each had his own benefit. A silly reason is enough to ignite fire in such antiquated villages. It may be an intercaste love affair, or some one going against the malik, or some illegal contact, anything is enough.

When Mani and Prasad said that they saw the daini the pahaan said that it sucks blood with her eyes, devours the life of little children. The daini breaths death. Her breath drives the clouds away, makes trees barren , withers the fields crop, and so on and so on. Their little minds, little logic not only destroys their lives but also of others. Through their fears stories come out. Statements flow out. There is neither coherence in their sayings nor truth.

Kuruda is a drought effected village. The people have nothing to eat. They are expecting the govt. to help them by supplying kichiri. There are some relief measures. The children are drinking the soyabean relief milk, vomiting, falling over and dying. Cattle are also dying. They feel that all this is due to daini. On the name of daini many created stories are spread. Let anything happen, it is related to a daini’s work. Taking this as an advantage, temples may be built, mantras may be written, rituals may be created, and so on. Everyone starts suspecting everyotherone else responsible.

“ During the last fifteen years we have witnessed among the Ho tribals of Singhbum and Santhal tribals of Purulia growing incidence of witch-killing. Now you see, this witch killing doesn’t spring from any Santhal tribals of Purulia….These days it is being done for money, cattle and land. For that, a witch is identified and mostly from amongst the tribals.” ( Tribal Activism, p.191 )

“ The human nervous system revolts against the unremitting tension of fear. If the terror of famine is added to this, the sinners are unable to bear the double burden.” (p.62)

Most of the people live in inhuman, unhygenic condition. They have experienced such shocks in their lives, they take things lightly.

Those who provide relief, like the relief officer, mission workers, the sadhus of the Seva Sangh, all noticed the suppressed violence and hardness in the eyes and faces of the down trodden. Eyes as restless as the tide searching for something. Very surprising. Because in their experience the adivasis of these areas are by nature totally unfeeling. They always search for someone who can help them. During a famine they abandon their children at the mission gates and disappear. If their village is burnt down, they don’t return to it in a hurry. If explanations are sought, they say the children will die if they stay with them. At least in the mission they will stay alive. They don’t return if their houses are burnt down because they build houses of mud and leaves. An iron pot and the baloa at the their waist are the only things in their houses that are bought with cash. What should they go back for ?

Once “Krishna Consciousness” people went to Tohri asking for water. The people pelted stones at them. They returned back to Patna with their relief material. To change the minds of those people something is to be done. The Krishna followers approached Hanuman Mishra. Hanuman Mishra suggested for a sacrificial fire, with one quintal of ghee over 7 days.

In Indian tradition, for the problems of real world, they search for solution in unreal world.

Eg., If rates of commodities are rising, we should find causes logically but not in the nether world;

1. over population

2. production is less

3. artificial scarcity is created

4. because of strike lorries and trains stopped

5. because of floods, total transportation stopped

and so on. Instead of that, if we do a sacrifice to some god or navagraha puja, how the problem can be solved ?

Eg:- Indian cricket fans conducted a great yagna, so that India could win. Winning can be possible if

1) our players played well

2) the opponent is weaker than us

3) some matching takes place

and so on. How can yagna make Indian team win the world cup ? Of course we lost.

The white people were ready to provide the required ghee. But he was in a dilemma whether to accept or not because the ghee was that of the cows of Australia.

If confusion after confusion in novel way is introduced, then the people go mad. The daini notion continued. Mishra told people to suspect themselves and spy on themselves. It confused them. He told them if the daini was found, not to kill it. For, the whiteman wanted to take it to his country. All the people started seeing the daini in different forms, at different places. As the same thing is repeated they see the same thing. This is auto suggestion.

Bisra was a gunin. When he drank his cow would seem to him like a lady. In that madness he hanged himself. It was a great loss to the village.

The villagers generally die of starvation, malnutrition, lack of medical facilities, etc. When there were many deaths in the village, the villagers identified a Christian tribal woman as the witch. She was a person of some means, had a husband, grown-up sons, grandchildren. The villagers invited her for a diang ( rice liquor) drinking session and killed her.

“ Medical facilities are needed. This witch-hunting is barbarous and wrong. Doctors and medicine will bring succour to the people. We achieve nothing by killing innocent women.” (dust on the road, p.37 )

This madness of daini went up to the officials. The officer concerned gave instructions to look into the matter. But everyone was afraid. But on the name of daini some old people were killed. Those old people were predetermined.

Mahuri got the milk which Mishra poured on Siva. She gave that milk to children. Some died. So the people killed Mahuri on the name of daini.

Murhai is a village. Ramrik Dhobi’s son Prasad loved Baram Ganju’s widowed sister Mani. That was intercaste. The villagers suspected that daini occupied their bodies and making them like that. The village elder warned them. So they were silent for few days. After few days they met in the forest. They had an affair. While returning they saw in Kuruda river on a stone sat a nearly naked woman, terrifying young woman. Both, Prasad and mani ran to the village and informed the elders. The head sounded the nagara drum. Hearing the sound, everyone felt that it must be daini that was found. The pahaan asked the people to follow him. Fire was lighted. Stones were tucked at their waists. They went to Kuruda river. They saw that woman. They were slightly afraid of. The pahaan said that they would drive her out. These people started throwing stones at her. One stone hit her. She threw a stone which hit the pahaan. He was bleeding. The daini jumped into water, climbed the bank and started running. They also went after her. It was total darkness. Nothing was visible. So they all returned to village.

Sanichari an old woman went to field for a plant. When she was searching for the plant she saw the daini crying Anh-anh-anh. She was awestruck. The daini threw a stone at Sanichari. Sanichari fleed. While running she struck a stone, and fell down unconscious. As she was not returned the pahaan and Mathur set out. They came across Sanichari. On her back some one clawed. There were foot prints on the sand. They both returned carrying Sanichari. On their way they heard a human voice Anh-anh-anh. In the village Sanichari was laid in the pahaan’s house.

At the sound of nagara, the whole village assembled. They had mashaals in their hands. They all followed the prints on the sand. They were all shouting. The daini rose to its feet. It began to hurl stones. When its stones were over, it began running towards the forest. These people returned back. They all stayed at the pahaan’s house.

Next day Mathur followed by some youth went to the jungle. There he saw daini on a tree stump. It was about to eat a dog’s leg. Seeing these people she turned and started screaming. Mathur who carried a gun threw it on the ground and ran away with the others. He identified it to be a human being. They ran back to the village.

One by one all the villagers gathered with whatever they got. They kept stones at their waist clothes. Over hundred people entered the forest, yelling. They saw her crossing the river and going into a cave. They suggested to keep fire at the mouth of the cave. The heat and smoke would compel her to come out . Accordingly they did. At first there were screams. Later a baby’s cry. Suddenly the pahaan of Tura saying na-aah ran forward. Taking a large branch cleared the flame and smoke and made a path. Calling Somri, he went into the cave. Mathur too entered the cave. There Somri was lying with the baby still intact to the umbilical cord.

To do the later process men were sent to call for women. The women came and did their work. A machaan was made. Somri was brought out. People dispersed.

Actually what happened was that, the pahaan of Tura sent Somri to Hanuman Mishra’s house for work. She was not heard for five months. Mishra said that she went away. Her mind was not developed. The thakur’s son had spoiled her. The she was sent away. The pahaan said that he never knew that his daughter was the daini.

The pahaan said that they would not work for Mishra and wouldnot allow anyone to work for him.

A weakman cannot take any better decision than this against the wealthy.

5. SALT

Salt is very much important in the life of animals. It is the cheapest commodity but highly indispensable item in our food. Despite many steep price hikes, salt is still the cheapest one in India.

Salt and water are the inorganic and mineral constituents of the body. They are indispensable for life and have an important role to play in bodily functions. The main salts are chloride, carbonates, bicarbonates, sulphates and phosphates. These occur as compounds along with sodium, potassium, calcium magnesium, chloride and iron, CO₂, sulphur and phosphorus. In general, one can say that salt performs the following functions within all living bodies:

1. Protects and maintains the internal physiological balance.

2. Keeps the water content of the body balanced and maintains the volume of blood.

3. Maintains the acid-base balance of the body.

4. Provides vital components to the skeletal system and teeth. Salt is also essential for preserving the proper irritability of the nerve cells and muscles. It is essential for blood coagulation.

5. Salt is the necessary constituent of some enzyme systems, respiratory pigments and harmones.

6. Salt regulates and controls the cell membranes and capillary permeability in a living body.

( Bitter soil, p.131)

Salt controls the fluids in the body and in the blood. If there’s no salt the blood coagulation will increase and the blood will become thick. The heart will have trouble pumping this thickened blood, putting a pressure on the respiratory processes. Muscles will develop cramps. Moving about will become a strain. The bones and teeth will definitely rot. There will be a general decay of the body. Forget all this silly stuff .

(bitter soil, p.133)

During the British, ships went to England carrying loads of cargo. After unloading the cargo there They had to return. While returning, they used to bring salt from Liverpool. The British government made a law not to make salt in India. Every one had to buy the salt of the British only. So that salt issue became a great issue of political struggle during Gandhiji’s time. Gandhiji did not make salt simply like that . He gave a name to it as “Civil Disobedience Movement” , walked for about 300 miles, conducted many public meetings and then made salt at Dandi. It was a great news in those days. It was a challenge to the British and their laws. Taking that salt issue, Gandhiji made heaven and earth together. Even the British government too surprised how such a small issue was made world renowned.

Jhujhar :- Jhujhar is an adivasi village in the lap of the Palamau Reserve Forest. It is strip of land crowding the bank of the Koel river. The village consists of seventy-six people belonging to seventeen families. Until the third election after independence, the government did not even know of their existence. The village has no well. Because of teacher’s efforts h huge well was dug. The well was full of water. There is no road to this village. The only road to Jhujhar village is a footpath. The youth-team came down that path, and noted down the particulars of those families who were doing betbegari to repay debts. Thus it has come to the records and known to the world.

Youth :- Like every party the ruling party of that area too had a youth organization. They were seeing the needs of the people and solve problems that which were under their limits or jurisdiction.

Purthi Munda was an adivasi. He was in a jail once. He understood the ways of the world. After his return, understanding the situation of the village, he complained it to youths of the ruling party. The youths came to Uttamchand, the merchant of Jhujhar, and warned him that then onwards no adivasi in that area will give wageless labour. If any one is forced, they would make sure he would get legal redress. (p.127)

The youngsters cautioned and advised the adivasis not to drink. That would become an addiction. That weakness would be exploited by the merchants. In the long run that weakness only destroys them.

Uttamchand was offended by the warning of the youth. So he wanted to take revenge by stopping sales of salt. Salt was not available to the adivasis in any shop. Then Purthi, followed by someother went to the youth in Daltonganj. They explained everything. The youngsters said that it would not come in their jurisdiction. They also said that they could not compel the shopkeeper to sell the salt.

Once the youngsters came to the village and asked Uttamchand why he was not selling salt. He said that he was not selling salt because there was no profit on that. The youngsters too did not realize how much important salt is to the adivasis.

As they were having someother disputes and problems elsewhere, they simply neglected salt problem and forgot all about Jhujhar.

Uttamchand :- Jhujhar is an adivasi village. It is in the lap of the Palamau Reserve Forest. It is a strip of land, on the bank of the river Koel that belonged to Uttamchand. His forefathers entered that area after 1831 rebellion. After buying their land they drove away the adivasis from that land. He knew that the adivasis could do anything to him or their welfare board. The village is not situated on the rail or the bus route. They never had interaction with the out siders so mentally they were under-developed.

The adivasis had to do betbegari at Uttamchand. He knew that it is illegal but their ignorance is his boon.

Whenever elections came, Uttamchand used to cast votes himself on behalf of the adivasis. Even the government came to know about this village after the third election after independence. He used to give each voter a rupee and cast their votes.

The primary school teacher, Balkishan Singh, taught them the importance of the vote. He explained them what is a government. Uttamchand first took offence over that matter of the vote. The adivasis followed the teacher’s advice and cast their own votes.

The youth from the ruling party came to the village. They understood the problems of the adivasis. The village had no water well. The adivasis had to carry water from the river. In summer one almost died fetching water from far off places. It was the effort of the school teacher they got a well dug. Uttamchand did not like that. And he never bothered to get a well dug for them.

He never bothered to get a road laid to their village from the main road. One had to walk on a narrow path.

The youngsters who came from the city warned Uttamchand not to get betbegari. They told him to give half of the share of the crop to the adivasis as they had already farming his field for more than twelve years. They also said that they would come on harvest day and divide the crop half-half. Uttamchand felt it a defeat. He accepted the defeat, but vowed to avenge himself. He said—I’ll kill them by salt.

First time there was somebody who warned him. He could not bear that. He gave instructions to the shopkeepers not sell salt. He could be confident to do that because the grocery shops at Palani or Muru markets belonged to him.

When the young-team asked why he was not selling salt, he told that there was no profit in selling salt. No body could compel him to sell salt, getting loss.

When asked if the adivasis were borrowing money, he said that as it is illegal and was warned no to do such a thing, he was not lending money. The youth could not tell him anything. So they went away.

At last, Uttamchand had decided to sell salt wholesale in the market. That was not widely known. What ever blunder had to take place, had taken place.

The Adivasis :- The adivasis of the Jhujhar were very innocent. They used to graze cattle and goats in the forest and pick sticks and twigs off the forest floor for firewood. They can also take leaves to thatch their huts. Apart from this, they used to steal bamboo, tubers and tamarind leaves. Some times they used to kill some forest animal. As the forest department had no accurate account of the forest they could not detect.

The villagers of Jhujhar are very primitive. The villagers are mostly adivasis. Those adivasis then were as wary as they are today of accounts-documents-deeds-laws. Hence the adivasis of Jhujhar don’t even know when they once owned their own land. When they could bring the harvest of their own labour home.

They are very innocent. To the villagers of Jhujhar, those days of wageless labour, with no rights to the crop, seem happier by comparison. They mentally weigh the losses and gains. They did not know the ways of the world. The village is bound in the shackles of betbegari to Uttamchand. For the past few generations. To repay the unrecorded debts of their forefathers, year after year at harvesting time, they trudge twelve miles to Uttamchan’s village, Tahar, and in return for a meal and a handful of crop, offers begar or wageless labour. The crop-share that they get is added to the debit side of the accounts ledger. They even did not know that betbegari is illegal.

They had been voting since fourth elections. Uttamchand used to pay them a rupee to each and on their behalf he used to cast their votes. A teacher at the closest primary school, Bala Krishna Singh taught them everything. They had no well. They had to go all the way to the river to fetch water. In summer season it would be very horrible. Because of the teacher’s efforts, and elections they could get a well. Otherwise in summer they almost died fetching water.

Among 76 adivasi people , no body had seen a city except Purthi Munda. Purthi worked as a labourer in Ranchi, Daltonganj and Dhanbad. So he knew the ways of city life. As his financial position did not change, he returned to Jhujhar.

The youth or ruling party came to that village. Purthi explained them everything. So the youth went to Uttamchand and warned him that from that year onwards no adivasi in their area would be given wageless labour. If anyone was forced, they would make sure he got legal redress.

Uttamchand could not take direct action on the adivasis. So he decided not to sell salt in his shops then onwards. He knew well that salt is a must to adivasis in their ghato. At first the villagers did not the non-availability of salt. But later when salt was not available in the village everyone accused Purthi. The village elders had someother belief. They felt that all that was because the gods were angry on them. The elders suggested to do puja at Haramdeo’s shrine.

Purthi met the youngmen. He explained them the non-availability of salt, but they said that salt was not in their jurisdiction. They said that if the grocer refused to sell salt , they could do nothing . Purthi just could not explain that their lives were impossible without salt. That their ghato was flavoured with salt alone.

If they returned without salt the villagers would ask them. So they pooled their bus fare and bought ten kilos of salt. And walked eighteen miles to the village. They distributed the salt to tall the households in the village and said, ‘Use it sparingly.’

They had come to such a stage, they started asking for salt for whatever work they did. Others understood the situation. Being afraid of Uttamchand no body employed them in the work, nor gave them salt.

The villagers started accusing Purthi for all that had happened. The village elder gave Purthi his two pet chickens to sell in the market and return get salt from the forest guard. The forest guard was too delighted and gave them sixteen kilos. That salt was black. That salt they used for elephants and deer as their lick.

Hearing this news, Purthi got some new idea. He wanted to pursue the animals and see where they go for salt lick? One day accidentally he found that. He saw, sitting at the top of tree, the herd of elephants eating salt-earth. That , stoney salt was scattered on the stones, mixed with a handful of earth.

He waited at the top of the tree. Then after the herd had gone, an ekoa came there, pissed on the salt earth and went away. He got down from the tree, went to the salt-lick, collected the salt and returned to the village.

Slowly it became a habit to Purthi and some of his friends. He warned his friends not to get down from the trees before making sure that all the elephants had gone. They obeyed his instructions.

As they were eating salt again, they got good muscle power. They were swift again. Their heart started pumping blood at a normal pressure with the liquid content of blood increased, and the electrolyte balance of the body reinstated.

Once ekoa entered the village. Everyone was afraid of. The village elder called Purthi and his friends and warned them not to go to forest for bringing salt-lick. The villagers are well known of the movements of ekoa. So they tried to avoid every path that it tread. They even warned the salt-lick thievers not do that work. But they did not inform the Forest Department. They felt that it was a small thing to reported.

For some days they kept quiet. The ekoa did not turn up. One day Purthi asked the forest beat officer whether ekoa was still there. The officer said that he had not seen that for some days and said that it might have gone.

Mean while Uttamchand told that he would sell salt. That information was not with Purthi.

One day Purthi and two other youths went to the forest. The ekoa was still there. The Forest Department was wrong. It identified the youngmen. It attacked them in silence. They shrieked and shrieked and died. The ekoa smashed, trampled those human bodies beyond recognition.

Seeing the dead bodies the villagers thought that the youngsters drank a lot. But from their death they could not comprehend any thing.

Thus, salt problem, took the lives of the youngsters.

Ekoa :- Tourists come to Betla to see elephants. When it becomes dark, the elephants go into the jungle. The tourists climb into jeeps and come to the jungle to see the animals. The elephants too understood the ‘show business.’ The tourists are used to watching herds of elephants feasting on bamboo stalks. The elephants wend their way towards the bamboo.

After all the elephants had left, an old tusker arrived. Most probably it was the elephant driven away by the young elephants of the herd. It is known as ekoa. This ekoa is highly avoidable. There is no knowing what the ekoa will do. Exiled from leadership and from the herd, his behaviour turns irresponsible.

The ekoa sprays the salt lick with urine and goes off.

Elephants are generally very mild and quiet animals. But if they are disturbed, they go most violent. Every year, a herd of elephants from Saranda Forest would come to Betla and then go back. Some years ago, some irresponsible adivasi lad shot an arrow and killed an elephant calf. The elephants, furious, encircled the dead calf, walking around him as if taking an oath incomprehensible to man. The first they ransacked the two villages and left. The next year they came and killed two coolies working in the jungle. The third year, they overturned and smashed a bus and car parked below the Betla Forest Bunglow. When their desire for vengeance on man pacified after three years, they calmed down.

Generally elephants move in a herd. The older elephants would undertake retribution. The whole of Betla is surrounded by barbed wire. The elephants are very intelligent animals, they understand the barrier of barbed wire, and respect it. (p.137)

It was because of ekoa, the salt lick was shifted. Salt licks are located in two or three spots. Much later, when the equation of ekoa- Jhujhar adivasis- salt lick came in for investigation. The Forest Department had a very logical explanation.

The ekoa is a rascal, irresponsible, and irritated one. He licks the salt-earth and pisses on it. The department people placed salt licks at two or three places. If one was spoiled by the ekoa, the herd could use another one.

The ekoa was upset with its calculation. As it was not with the herd the change of salt lick location was not known to it. It had no proper time to turn up was another reason. But somehow he sensed that the salt lick was missing. Out of irritation, sometimes, he used to come on to the road and stand in the middle like a rock. All the travelers had to turn back and go. He started picking up human smells to match with something which was in his mind.

The elephant population was also puzzled and disturbed. They too understood that salt lick was missing. There were licks but no salt.

The ekoa was seen less in the forest. But at dusk it was standing amid the white sands of the river and carefully watching the adivasis crossing the river.

Day by day, the ekoa became restless. It was not getting salt to lick and piss on. Out of suspicion it wanted to hunt for the guilty. It came to Jhujhar village, and stood still by the well. After some time it left the village.

“The elephant is an ant—an elephant is butterfly—an elephant is the breeze ! Such a huge body, but when it wants, it can creep up unnoticed and squash your head with its foot and you won’t even know.” (p.141)

“…the ekoa watched everything and tried to comprehend the situation. No hands touch the salt lick any more, no longer does the impure scent of man cling to the air. Is this a new strategy of attack? It was as if he was realizing that man is basically an irrational being.”(p.142)

It was waiting for these people to come . As usual Purthi and his accomplice went to pick salt lick. The ekoa recognized these people and attacked them in silence. It trampled them beyond recognition.

Next the forest department killed the ekoa.

III

Uttamchand was a bania, mahajan, and money lender. For many generations his family ruled Jhujhar belt. The local Oraon and Kol people would say “no” to him was unimaginable.

The village is bound in the shackles of betbegari to Uttamchand for the past few generations. To repay the unrecorded debts of their forefathers year after year at harvesting time, they trudge 12 miles to Uttamchand’s village Tahar. In return they get a meal and a handful of crop, offer begar or wageless labour. The crop share that they get is added to the debit side of the accounts ledger. They did not even know that bethegari was illegal.

They found out courtesy the inspector of the Adivasi Office. But they did not stop giving bethegari. Because they knew that it was impossible for them to take Uttamchand, who extracted bethegari to court. Was it feasible to go all the way to Daltonganj just for this? What about a lawyer ? Sometime to advise and counsel them? The Adivasi Welfare Office was beyond their reach too. The Office was in town. They were in the village, situated not on the rail or bus routes. That village consisted of seventy-six people belonging to seventeen families.

Until the third election after independence, the government did not even know of their existence. They had been voting since the fourth election. Uttamchand said “Why go all the way to cast your vote? Take a rupee each my fathers and mothers. I will vote on your behalf”.

The tribals are so innocent and ignorant that they don’t know the value of vote. They don’t know the differences between state and central governments. So they are easily cheated by people like Uttamchand.

Everything was changed in 1977. A primary school teacher Bala Krishan Singh explained the adivasis, the importance of elections and vote. His efforts brought them a well which they never knew. Jhujhar has only a footpath. The youth-team came down that path and noted down the particulars of those families who were doing bethegari to repay their debts. The youth warned Uttamchand not to get wageless labour from the adivasis. If he did they would go to court. They also said that as they had been cultivating for 12 years the adivasis would have a share in the crop. They asked adivasis to give up drinking. All those new changes made Uttamchand to accept the defeat. He decided to avenge his defeat by salt.

Salt is a very small but very important commodity. Uttamchand stopped salt in all his shops. The adivasis rushed to Daltonganj and informed it to the youth-team office. They said that selling of salt was not in their jurisdiction. Salt plays a vital role in the lives of the adivasis in their ghato. At last they bought ten kilos of salt, distributed it among houses and asked them to use it sparingly. But it was soon over.

The village head said that it was bad time for them. He decided to worship Haramdeo. He asked people to sell his two chickens and get salt. What Purthim, an adivasi, brought was the salt of elephants’ and deers’ salt lick. It was black.

Purthi wanted to find out where elephants go to eat salt earth. One day while running after rabbits, he came across the salt lick. He was on the top most branches of a tree. When the herd left, he saw ekoa coming. It came and pissed on the salt licks and went away.

Slowly he came down, gathered salt-licks and went away carefully. This continued for a few days. The ekoa understood that the salt-lick was missing. The ekoa put a watch and saw people coming from Jhujhar. It came even to the village one morning. Seeing that all went in and bolted the doors. They all came out when it went away to forest. The village head warned them not to go to forest. For few days everything was quiet. The forest department decided after careful pug marks that ekoa went away. But it was there. One day Purthi and his men went to forest early in the morning to get salt-lick. The ekoa saw them and killed them. Later the forest department had it killed.

Because of somebody’s mistake, some others paid with their lives. If salt was sold as usual three human beings’ and an elephants’ lives could have been saved.

6. Conclusion

Literature is a very powerful medium. What others cannot see, a writer can see. His pen can make the things known to the world. In every walk of life, how the world is progressed is made known to the world by the writer. A writer is really a friend of humanity.

Many writers have come and many have gone. But to write about the adivasis, tribals, and bandhuas dedicating one’s own life has never been done by any writer. It is Mahasveta Devi alone.

Devi wrote plays, dramas, and a number of articles to newspapers. All her writings are mostly concentrated on the adivasis.

Using similar techniques in over a hundred original works that followed, she created a distinctive personal style by interlacing literary, bureaucratic and “street” Bengali with tribal idioms and by calling upon an eclectic array of classical and modern images.¹

The maliks and the adivasis are two inseparable entities as North and South poles of a magnet. One tries to eliminate the other or influence the other, but it never happens.

The marginalized donot know even today that India is an independent country. In this race for hand to mouth life, whether India is independent or a colony does not make any difference to them. They have to work and work just to survive in this world. The maliks’ economic policy is also such, the adivasis should not rise in their lives.

Mahasveta observed that even among the tribals the women are ill-treated.

There are numerous problems, which need to be dealt with. The tribal policy of the government does not address the problems of tribal women. The women are often exploited – they are denied their dignity, daily labour, etc. They have absolutely no access to land, water source or forest. Women can progress in our country only when they enjoy the right to freedom of expression. But, only the rich and educated women have come to enjoy this right till date. ²

Indian state has been increasingly in the grip of economic globalization. The exploitation of the natural resources of the forest and the marginalization of the neglected communities and groups are a few symptoms of the reign of the capital and the might-is-right syndrome. In such cases she never keeps quiet. Ramon Magsaysay Award Committee felt that,

Alongside her creative writing, Devi bombarded the government with complaint letters and published a profusion of articles documenting abuses by police, landlords, politicians, and officials against tribal communities. Passionately, she made their cause her cause. ³

The mode of affairs even after the independence has made Mahasveta restless. This post-independence malady could be considered as an offshoot of westernization and at the same time this could be attributed to the basic conflicts within Indian culture.

As postcolonial writer Mahasveta demands a re-location of power and also a symbolic overhaul as part of the decolonization. In fact her essays, journalistic writings and her activism among the adivasis in India could be described as one body of articulation, one mode of resistance to imperial stratagem, one gesture of self-assertion.

The 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Committee feels that,

In electing Mahasweta Devi to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognizes her compassionate crusade through art and activism to claim for tribal peoples a just and honorable place in India's national life.⁴

Mahasveta provides a voice to the voiceless, the powerless and the hitherto neglected communities. When she writes, Mahasveta’s voice and the voice of the tribal people become so inseparable. She says,

It is not new for my literature to spring from a fight for the rights of these oppressed and downtrodden people. The tribal revolt against the British at the turn of the century formed the backbone of Aranyer Adhikar, which the Sahitya Akademi had singled out for their awards. My social activism is the driving force of all my literary activities, be it literature -- which brought me into the good books of Jnanpith -- my newspaper columns or the journal I edit, with writing by members of different tribes. The lives of the bonded labour provided me with a character like Dopadi. Perhaps their stories also impart a narrative immediacy to my language.⁵

Whatever information Mahasveta gives is highly authentic. She says,

There are more than 200 tribes and communities, with the population numbering between 5 and 6 crore. The nomadic ones cannot vote because of police persecution and constant wandering about. The British had notified them in 1871 as Criminals and passed the Criminal Tribes Act, though not all were tribes -- some were simply castes. The Government of India denotified them in 1952, but in 1959 passed the Habitual Offenders Act. It is a repetition of the Act of 1871, with minor change of words. So now, they are oppressed by both, the police and society. ⁶

Paying a rich tribute to Mahasveta’s commitment to the cause of the tribals and her achievement in the direction of the amelioration of these communities. In response to her 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award she said,

I have seen the struggles and protests of the people. For an end to this exploitation. For access to basics which are needed for living with dignity. And I felt that I could not remain a mere writer of fiction without doing anything about it. So I write about them in my works of fiction. I write about them in journalistic reports. I provide a forum for them to write about their own problems. I take up their cause at every level. And, above all, I help them in organizing themselves in groups so that they could take up development activities in their own areas. And I do all this in my own small way. ⁷

G.N.Devy observes:

Like Jnaneshwar in Marathi, Mahasveta has created a whole new city of so many roads but at the centre of that city. It is not the municipal corporation or the Parliament of India but it is the tribal, the tribal for whom the distance between the knowledge system and his ability to articulate has increased.⁸

Most of Mahasveta’s protagonists are of middle class or of rich class. The writers feel that what is there to write about the poor except poverty. So the stories of the marginalized are unsung and their actions are un-honoured. They are the most exploited people. She unearthed many heroes of tribal people, and made them the protagonists of her writings like Birsa Munda, Titu Mir etc. No one in India, had ever heard of them. At times she provides a new interpretation to the existing popular mythologies. The Magsaysay Award committee said,

In a stream of subsequent stories, Devi cleverly fused indigenous oral histories with contemporary events to explore the bitter and often bloody relationship between tribal communities and India’s domineering classes and systems. In her stories, real women and men who rose defiantly to confront oppressors are transformed into mythical heroes. ⁹

Mahasveta uses words from ‘living language’ wherever necessary. She borrows words from archeological, anthropological, medical and geographical terminologies. She says,

The living language of the common people, tribal or not, is a must for my kind of literature. This richness of language has not been exploited enough.¹⁰

Her single minded dedication, her multifarious personality, her wit and tact in putting things in beautiful frames of sentences, have no parallel. Her life and works show to the world what one can do to his fellow men and has become an example to those who want to do something to this society. As a writer she brings forth to the world things which are highly pragmatic way. Sen Nivedita says,

Material details of food production, labour, the struggle to survive, are stressed by the author. The harsh realities of poverty, exploitation and death are exposed in brutal detail with all their attendant degradation.¹¹

In the selection of subject matter and style, story and structure, she has established herself as a pioneer and a path-breaker of the established ideology and elevated herself as a path-maker and path-shower. The twin achievements of selecting common people’s version of events for stories and colouring them with folk material, ballads and songs make her, a unique writer in the world of literature.

Activists like Mahasveta Devi have been working incessantly for the uplift of the tribals but the government has done precious little for the tribals. It is time the government realized that the tribals too have rights of their own! ¹²

It is said in proXsa, Internet source that she dedicated herself to the cause of tribal upliftment.

Profound humanism imbued with a deep-rooted love for the suffering humanity lies at the core of Mahasweta's philosophy of life. In all her writings, she tries to depict the life of ordinary men and women, particularly of the Adivasi (tribal) people like the Santhals, Lodhas, Shabars and Mundas, the simple joys and sorrows of their life, their exploitation and sufferings and conditions of abject poverty in which they live their lives. She roams all over the country and spends days and months, mixing freely with these people.¹³

However, Mahasweta Devi is much more than what these awards show her to be and she will live in our minds for generations to come.¹⁴

G.N. Devy observes that

We ought to thank ourselves, thank our stars that we live in times which are Mahasveta Devi’s times.¹⁵

REFERENCES

1. CITATION for Mahasveta Devi. Internet Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation

Cremonies Manila, Philippines]1

2. Badge of All Their Tribes, Mahasweta Devi Times of India, 5 January 2000,- 14

3. CITATION for Mahasveta Devi. Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies Manila, Philippines[Internet]1

4. CITATION for Mahasveta Devi. Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies Manila, Philippines[internet]1

5. Badge of All Their Tribes—Mahasweta Devi Times of India, 5 January 2000, - 14

6. Badge of All Their Tribes -- Mahasweta Devi, Times of India, 5 January 2000, -14

7. Response of Mahasveta Devi. 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremo nies Manila, Philippines [Internet]1

8. Devy G.N. “Subalterns and The Tribals” Kakatiya Journal of English Studies Vol.18 [1998]103

9. [CITATION for Mahasveta Devi. Internet Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ce remonies Manila, Philippines]1

10. Devi, Mahasveta. “Untapped Resources”, Seminar, literature and Society 359 [July, 1998]19

11. Sen Nivedita & Yadav Nikhil. Mahasweta Devi, An Anthology of Recent Criticism, [Pencraft International, New Delhi] 6

12. Badge of All Their Tribes -- Mahasweta Devi, Times of India, 5 January 2000, - 14

13.        proXsa: Inspiration:Mahasveta Devi [Internet] 1
14.        proXsa: Inspiration:Mahasveta Devi [Internet] 1
15.        Devy G.N. “Subalterns and the tribals”, Kakatiya Journal of English Studies, Vol.18 - 103

jignasa

Thursday 18 August 2011

OPPRESSION OF TRIBALS

Now it becomes the responsibility of the government to eliminate the

terminator seed and come to the rescue of the farmer. Mahasveta insists.

Governments should declare use of the technology illegal. This is an immoral technique that robs farming communities of their age-old right to save seed, and their role as plant breeders.¹¹

7. Hope Shand and Pat Mooney, THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998

8. ______, THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998 [Internet]

11. THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, by Hope Shand and Pat Mooney, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998

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647. PRESENTATION SKILLS MBA I - II

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Thursday 18 August 2011

OPPRESSION OF TRIBALS

Now it becomes the responsibility of the government to eliminate the

terminator seed and come to the rescue of the farmer. Mahasveta insists.

Governments should declare use of the technology illegal. This is an immoral technique that robs farming communities of their age-old right to save seed, and their role as plant breeders.11

7. Hope Shand and Pat Mooney, THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998

8. ______, THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998 [Internet]

11. THIRD WORLD TRAVELER, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming, by Hope Shand and Pat Mooney, Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998

No comments:

Post a Comment

647. PRESENTATION SKILLS MBA I - II

Governments should declare use of the technology illegal. This is an immoral technique that robs farming communities of their age-old right to save seed, and their role as plant breeders.¹¹