Mahashweta Devi: A Voice of Marginalised

Mahashweta Devi was not just an observer, but an authority archetypal of the subaltern, the subjugated and the overlooked population of the nation. It is due to her aggressive scripts that lots of tribal people in India could express their wretchedness. This leading Bengali author and an famous social activist transcribed sketchily on weakened existence of the marginalised and homeless people. She portrayed ruthless cruelty on the untouchables by authoritarian upper-caste landlords to recounting stories on how tribals and their ethnicities are closely wound up with the forest they live in. Mahasweta Devi is one such contemporary woman writer who brings forth all these forms of subjugation in her works. Mahasweta Devi activist zeal in her writings represents her involvement with the difficulties of the underprivileged. She lends voice to the voiceless by revealing different forms of oppression as the integral part of Indian society and also fights for their rights. Mahasweta Devi's style to subjugation is distinctive, as, majority of women writers cite. With the prevalent gender oppression of middle class or upper class women, Devi deals with the subject of gender oppression entangled within its class and caste clashes. Her activist writings, in the form of essays, short stories, plays and novels, discover the trident forms/patterns of oppression– class, caste and gender oppression. Mahasweta Devi's works clearly reflect the author‘s concern for the underprivileged who are deprived of their basic rights by the dominant upper classes. Devi's works do not present a glorified picture of the downtrodden but they certainly present their lives amidst adversity and exhibit their spirit and strength to resist any form of social oppressions.