Mahasweta Devi
Encyclopedia
Mahasweta Devi (born 1926) is an India
n social activist and writer.
, to literary parents in a Hindu
Brahmin
family. Her father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the pseudonym Jubanashwa. He also happened to be the elder brother of the noted filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. Mahasweta's mother Dharitri Devi was also a writer and a social worker whose brothers were very distinguished in various fields, such as the noted sculptor Sankha Chaudhury and the founder-editor of the Economic and Political Weekly of India, Sachin Chaudhury. Her first schooling was in Dhaka, but after the partition of India she moved to West Bengal in India. She joined the Rabindranath Tagore
-founded Vishvabharati University in Santiniketan
and completed a B.A. (Hons) in English, and then finished an M.A. in English at Calcutta University as well. She later married renowned playwright Bijon Bhattacharya
who was one of the founding fathers of the IPTA
movement. In 1948, she gave birth to Nabarun Bhattacharya
, currently one of Bengal's and India's leading novelist of the cerebral kind. She got divorced from Bijon Bhattacharya in 1959.
(an affiliated college of the University of Calcutta
system). During those days, Bijoygarh College
was an institution for working class women students. Also during that period, she also worked as a journalist and as a creative writer. Recently, she is more famous for her work related to the study of the Lodhas and Shabars,the tribal communities of West Bengal
, women
and dalits. She is also an activist who is dedicated to the struggles of tribal people in Bihar
, Madhya Pradesh
and Chhattisgarh
. In her elaborate Bengali fiction
, she often depicts the brutal oppression of tribal peoples and the untouchables by potent, authoritarian upper-caste landlords, lenders, and venal government officials. She has written of the source of her inspiration:
At the Frankfurt Book Fair
2006, when India was the first country to be the Fair's second time guest nation, she made an impassioned inaugural speech wherein she moved the audience to tears with her lines taken from the famous film song by Raj Kapoor
(the English equivalent is in brackets):
of Rabindranath Tagore
, where she spent her formative years. Her lead resulted in a number of intellectuals, artists, writers and theatre workers join in protesting the controversial policy and particularly its implementation in Singur
and Nandigram
.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n social activist and writer.
Biography
Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in DhakaDhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
, to literary parents in a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
family. Her father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the pseudonym Jubanashwa. He also happened to be the elder brother of the noted filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. Mahasweta's mother Dharitri Devi was also a writer and a social worker whose brothers were very distinguished in various fields, such as the noted sculptor Sankha Chaudhury and the founder-editor of the Economic and Political Weekly of India, Sachin Chaudhury. Her first schooling was in Dhaka, but after the partition of India she moved to West Bengal in India. She joined the Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
-founded Vishvabharati University in Santiniketan
Santiniketan
Santiniketan is a small town near Bolpur in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, India, approximately 180 kilometres north of Kolkata . It was made famous by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whose vision became what is now a university town that attracts thousands of visitors each year...
and completed a B.A. (Hons) in English, and then finished an M.A. in English at Calcutta University as well. She later married renowned playwright Bijon Bhattacharya
Bijon Bhattacharya
Bijon Bhattacharya was a prominent Indian theatre and film personality from Bengal.Bijon was born in 1917 at Faridpur in a Hindu Brahmin family, and was early a witness to the destitution and penury of the peasantry of that land...
who was one of the founding fathers of the IPTA
Ipta
IPTA can refer to:* Indian People's Theatre Association* International Pulsar Timing Array...
movement. In 1948, she gave birth to Nabarun Bhattacharya
Nabarun Bhattacharya
Nabarun Bhattacharya is an Indian Bengali writer deeply committed to a revolutionary and radical aesthetics. He was born at Baharampur , West Bengal...
, currently one of Bengal's and India's leading novelist of the cerebral kind. She got divorced from Bijon Bhattacharya in 1959.
Career
In 1964, she began teaching at Bijoygarh CollegeVijaygarh Jyotish Ray College
Vijaygarh Jyotish Roy College is a liberal arts college in Kolkata, India. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and is affiliated with the prestigious University of Calcutta....
(an affiliated college of the University of Calcutta
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
system). During those days, Bijoygarh College
Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College
Vijaygarh Jyotish Roy College is a liberal arts college in Kolkata, India. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and is affiliated with the prestigious University of Calcutta....
was an institution for working class women students. Also during that period, she also worked as a journalist and as a creative writer. Recently, she is more famous for her work related to the study of the Lodhas and Shabars,the tribal communities of West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, women
Woman
A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...
and dalits. She is also an activist who is dedicated to the struggles of tribal people in Bihar
Bihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and Indore is the largest city....
and Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh is a state in Central India, formed when the 16 Chhattisgarhi-speaking South-Eastern districts of Madhya Pradesh gained separate statehood on 1 November 2000....
. In her elaborate Bengali fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
, she often depicts the brutal oppression of tribal peoples and the untouchables by potent, authoritarian upper-caste landlords, lenders, and venal government officials. She has written of the source of her inspiration:
I have always believed that the real history is made by ordinary people. I constantly come across the reappearance, in various forms, of folklore, ballads, myths and legends, carried by ordinary people across generations....The reason and inspiration for my writing are those people who are exploited and used, and yet do not accept defeat. For me, the endless source of ingredients for writing is in these amazingly, noble, suffering human beings. Why should I look for my raw material elsewhere, once I have started knowing them? Sometimes it seems to me that my writing is really their doing.
At the Frankfurt Book Fair
Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. As to the number of visitors, the Turin Book Fair attracts about as many visitors, viz. some 300,000....
2006, when India was the first country to be the Fair's second time guest nation, she made an impassioned inaugural speech wherein she moved the audience to tears with her lines taken from the famous film song by Raj Kapoor
Raj Kapoor
Known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor Rāj Kapūr, 14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as The Show-Man, was an Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was the winner of nine Filmfare Awards, while his films Awaara and Boot Polish were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the...
(the English equivalent is in brackets):
This is truly the age where the Joota (shoe) is Japani (Japanese), Patloon (pants) is Englistani (British), the Topi (hat) is Roosi (Russian), But the Dil... Dil (heart) is always Hindustani (Indian)... My country, Torn, Tattered, Proud, Beautiful, Hot, Humid, Cold, Sandy, Shining India. My country.
Recent Activism
Mahasweta Devi has recently been spearheading the movement against the industrial policy of the government of West Bengal, the state of her domicile. Specifically, she has stridently criticized confiscation of large tracts of fertile agricultural land from farmers by the government and ceding the land to industrial houses at throwaway prices. She has connected the policy to the commercialization of SantiniketanSantiniketan
Santiniketan is a small town near Bolpur in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, India, approximately 180 kilometres north of Kolkata . It was made famous by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whose vision became what is now a university town that attracts thousands of visitors each year...
of Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, where she spent her formative years. Her lead resulted in a number of intellectuals, artists, writers and theatre workers join in protesting the controversial policy and particularly its implementation in Singur
Singur
Singur is a census town in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Singur railway station is 34 km from Howrah Station on the Howrah-Tarakeswar line. It is 2 km ahead of Kamarkundu junction, the crossing point of Howrah-Bardhaman chord and Howrah-Tarakeshwar lines. It is on...
and Nandigram
Nandigram
Nandigram is a rural area with two commuunity development blocks in Haldia subdivision of Purba Medinipur district of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located about 70 km south-west of Kolkata, on the south bank of the Haldi River, opposite the industrial city of Haldia...
.
Works
- The Queen of Jhansi (biography, translated in English by Sagaree and Mandira Sengupta from the 1956 first edition in bangla Jhansir Rani)
- Hajar Churashir Ma (No. 1084's Mother, 1975)
- Aranyer Adhikar (The Occupation of the Forest, 1977)
- Agnigarbha (Womb of Fire, 1978)
- Bitter Soil tr, Ipsita Chandra. Seagull, 1998. Four stories.
- Choti Munda evam Tar Tir (Choti Munda and His Arrow, 1980) Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
- Imaginary Maps (translated by Gayatri Spivak London & New York. Routledge,1995)
- Dhowli (Short Story)
- Dust on the Road (Translated into English by Maitreya Ghatak. Seagull, Calcutta.)
- Our Non-Veg Cow (Seagull Books, Calcutta, 1998. Translated from Bengali by Paramita Banerjee.)
- Bashai Tudu (Translated into English by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak and Shamik Bandyopadhyay. Thima, Calcutta, 1993)
- Titu Mir
- Rudali
- Breast Stories (Translated into English by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak. Seagull, Calcutta, 1997)
- Of Women, Outcasts, Peasants, and Rebels (Translated into English By Kalpana Bardhan,University of California, 1990.) Six stories.
- Ek-kori's Dream (Translated into English by Lila Majumdar. N.B.T., 1976)
- The Book of the Hunter (Seagull India, 2002)
- Outcast (Seagull, India, 2002)
- In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (Translated into English by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak. Methuyen and Company, 1987. New York, London)
- Till Death Do Us Part
- Old Women
- Kulaputra (Translated into Kannada by Sreemathi H.S. CVG Publications, Bangalore)
- The Why-Why Girl (Tulika, Chennai.)
- Dakatey Kahini
Films based on Mahasweta Devi's works
- Sunghursh (1968), based on her story, which presented a fictionalized account of vendetta within a ThuggeeThuggeeThuggee is the term for a particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers in South Asia and particularly in India.They are sometimes called Phansigar i.e...
cult in the city of VaranasiVaranasi-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...
. - RudaaliRudaaliRudaali is a 1993 Hindi film directed by the feminist Indian director Kalpana Lajmi, based on the short story written by famous Bengali litterateur Mahasweta Devi.-Cultural background:...
(1993) - Hazaar Chaurasi Ki MaaHazaar Chaurasi Ki MaaHazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa is an Indian feature film that deals with the life of a woman who loses her son, a Naxalite, to the violence that is a result of his adopted ideology....
(1998) - Maati Maay (2006), based on short story, Daayen
- Gangor (2010) Directed by Italo Spinelli, based on her short story, Choli Ke Peeche, from the Book, Breast Stories
Major awards
- 1979: Sahitya Akademi AwardSahitya Akademi AwardSahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
(BengaliSahitya Akademi Award to Bengali WritersSahitya Akademi Award is given by the Sahitya Akademi, India’s national academy of letters to one writer every year in each of the languages recognized by it as well as for translations. This is the second highest literary award of India, after Jnanpith Award...
): – Aranyer Adhikar (novel) - 1986Padma Shri Awards (1980-1989)-1980-1989:...
: Padma ShriPadma ShriPadma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan... - 1996: Jnanpith AwardJnanpith AwardThe Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
- the highest literary award from the Bharatiya Jnanpith - 1997: Ramon Magsaysay AwardRamon Magsaysay AwardThe Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often considered Asia's Nobel...
- Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts - 1999: Honoris causa - Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)
- 2006: Padma VibhushanPadma VibhushanThe Padma Vibhushan is the second highest civilian award in the Republic of India. It consists of a medal and a citation and is awarded by the President of India. It was established on 2 January 1954. It ranks behind the Bharat Ratna and comes before the Padma Bhushan...
- the second highest civilian award from the Government of IndiaGovernment of IndiaThe Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India... - 2010:Yashwantrao Chavan National Award
- 2011: Bangabibhushan - the highest civilian award from the Government of West BengalGovernment of West BengalThe Government of West Bengal also known as the State Government of West Bengal, or locally as State Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of West Bengal and its 19 districts...
External links
- from the website of Emory University
- Year of Birth - 1871
- Mahasweta Devi: Witness, Advocate, Writer - A film on Mahasweta Devi by Shashwati Talukdar
- Mahasweta Devi at imdb
- Interview with Outlook magazine
- The Rediff Interview/Mahasweta Devi