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LITERATURE

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Mahasweta

| KNOW YOUR AUTHOR

I

N the mid 1980s, when people of my generation

were relatively young feminists, we fought

many battles focusing largely on violence

against women. It was in the course of our activism

that we came across the work of Mahasweta Devi,

one of Bengal’s most important writers, who died

a year ago at the age of 90. At the time, women’s

groups across India were demanding changes in the

law on rape and dowry (these laws were changed

in 1983 as a result of the activism), and the battle

they were fighting was a lonely one. This is why

it was so exciting to find a writer who wrote about

the sorts of issues we were thinking about.

The first of Mahasweta Devi’s books I discovered

was her iconic novel, Hazar Chaurasi ki Ma

(Mother of 1084), translated into Hindi. We could

not believe that a writer would be writing about

Naxalbari and focusing on a woman. Many of our

women friends had abandoned their education to

join the Naxalite movement, but their story was

hardly known, as the narrative was mostly male.

Mahasweta’s book changed that.

Over the years, we were to get to know much

more about her and her work; she became one of

the strongest voices for the downtrodden in India.

EARLY DAYS

Born in Dhaka in 1926 into a literary family – both

her parents were writers, and her mother, like

Mahasweta in later life, was also a social activist –

Author and historian Urvashi

Butalia details the life and words

of an activist and feminist force

Devi

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84 June 2017