Rudali By Mahashweta Devi

Rudali By Mahashweta Devi:
Feminism and Marxism in the context of Subaltern literature

The incontrovertible connection between society and literature has always been an assiduous field of hot discussion in the modem world. It is generally postulated that the literature of a society should reflect its problems. Literary writing in a wider perspective, is a social activity. Social aspect is a crucial dimension of all human activities including writing. Admittedly, in India, most of the contemporary writings are marked by an eschewal of the social content for artistic fineness. The question is significant why the contemporary Indian writers are so unconcerned about the stark issues of the society, such as the continuing exploitation and marginalization of the tribals and Dalits by the dominant classes. t aims to examine, among other things, the problematic of subaltern representation in the works of selected Indian writers, with special reference to the works of Mahasweta Devi, which provide a perfect dialogic plane upon which the politics of representation can be examined. Dalit literature is a branch of subaltern literature that stands for the writings on Dalit by Dalits from an insider perspective. It is also literature about Dalits by outsiders. In the modem context, the latter is questioned and its authenticity is contested. 

 Feminism and Marxism in the context of Subaltern literature

 As a postcolonial nativist movement, Dalit Literature voices the concerns of various subaltern castes and communities in India, oppressed and marginalized for centuries within the Hindu caste hierarchy. It has become a defiant generic presence in most of the regional languages. The different and distracting Dalit voice has always been muted within the contextual confinements of Humanism. In the post colonial scenario , the term Subaltern gets wider perspective as it refers to the third world countries and marginalized groups in the society. The issue of survival is nowhere dealt with such deep insight from the perspective of Subaltern to follow in an unreceptive world, where they experience continuous ostracization and subjugation at the hands of the dominant classes. Spivak has become an authoritative voice of the post-colonial period since the   publication of her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” She has extended her discourse to a large variety of topics such as Marxism, Feminism and Deconstruction. Her critical discourse raises the issues of marginal subjects such as the place of the subaltern women in the society and their empowerment. Spivak borrows the term "subaltern" from Gramsci, to refer to the unrepresented group of people in the society (Gramsci 55). In the Indian cultural context, the term "subaltern" acquires more significance as the people have struggled hard for Indian independence. She prefers the term "subaltern" as it encompasses the exact picture of the lower class people. , Gramsci found himself in a position of “subalternity” which gives his notes an often indicative and fragmentary perspective, though containing relevant intuitions. Needless to say, Subaltern Studies has encountered sharp debates in India and abroad since the inception of its career. Indian Marxist historians were among the first who bitterly criticized the project during the 1980s. They mainly highlighted the points of difference between Subaltern Studies and Marxism. To put it another way, the in-between lines came out on the treatment of Marx and Gramsci for an understanding of Indian history.

 In “A Literary Representation of the Subaltern”, Spivak analyses Jashoda‟s story from a subaltern perspective. Jashoda lives for her husband, children and Halder family. In Marxist feminist perspective, the logic of production-distribution values can be applied in the case of Jashoda. To her, the logic of sexual production is her production: Women are being treated as the „other‟ since they are subordinated to their men. The condition of the Third World Women is even more pathetic. They are doubly segregated; first of all from their men and also from the white upper class. The third world women are discriminated on the basis of gender, color and caste. The concept of the "other" comprises not only of the women of the third world but all the unwanted people like mentally retarded, mentally derailed and people with homosexual activities. The „other‟ always occupies a position outside the main-stream of life and they are treated as marginal who do not contribute anything to the welfare of the society. 

 In the post Independence India, especially in the past two or three decades women writers have a shunned all inhibitions and bravely projected and discussed the real status of contemporary Indian women. Mahashweta Devi shares her thoughts and ideas on the tribal people through works and speaks of how they are living in the forest and how they are closely connected with the nature, because nature is the mother of them. In the maker of shifting paradigms which is a Continuous process the women’s Subaltern is getting exposed through the influence of education, economic freedom, and western culture. The groundwork objective of the present study had been analysis Mahashweta Devi's radical as pioneering role in repairing the last of the Subalterns, rehabilitating their lives for a better future and approaching the germ of marginalization in India. As a champion of the cause of the tribal communities of India, Mahashweta is determined to correct the fabrication of history by revisiting elite history, resurrecting the power of orality, and hence creating a Subaltern history by listening to the subalterns. As a formidable voice of the marginalized communities , she has apprehended the system of caste that has been an instrument of the elite to suppress the Subaltern. Devi's shows her care on tribals and they became her primary subject; she observes the tribal people as representative of social oppression in India. Devi has used journalism as a media for verbalizing her social care and for social organizing. She is the one of the pioneers of the de-notified and Notified Tribal Rights Action Group (DNT-RAG), which works to enhanced situation for India's tribal people through services, education, legal agency, and community activism. Mahashweta Devi's works indicate her sincere obligation to the tribal, the deprived and the dispossessed. Of course, inhabitant writers like Munshi Prem Chand, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and Mulk Raj Anand

Description of cast oppression and material violence are present throughout the narrative. The barbaric treatment of the superior and feudal lords along with class oppression and material economic misery become endless, especially the gendered subaltern. Individuals without power are dominated by those with power examples the ruling class and are to take orders every time without questioning their masters. Even the death of the feudal lords the occasion for establishing caste honor and supremacy. The upper caste lament not for death, losing caste distinctions and privileges. The Rajput clans and their caste center worldview. The themselves were mere footmen in the army of king and later acquired social and political power through materialization. Even the burial of the dead becomes a ceremonial occasion for the exhibition of the caste affiliation of the death person in such a content. 

The caste patriarch’s ultimate perversion could be identified in the forced custom of making the low caste women weep over the body of the dead upper caste male. This humiliating and mutilating assault over the material and emotional domains of the gendered subaltern could be read as the historically fetishistic , and core of Brahmanic patriarchy . 

Rudali testifies Mahashweta Devi’s thematic engagement with the less privileged constituencies of Indian society. The text traces the metamorphosis of Sanichari, the untouchable protagonist , exhibiting how her initial vulnerability and defenselessness gradually gave way to  unremitting attitude and a successful manipulation of the system of her end. Sanichari encounters a series of predicament after the death of her close relatives, including her husband.

The opening para of the story placed Sanichari in her socio-economic milieu and makes it obvious that Sanichari is one of her social and religious community members with whom she shared the condition of poverty and miseries of untouchable. The description of the village is like 

“The Tahad village , gangas and dushals were in the majority. Sanichari was a ganju by caste . Like the other villagers , her life too was lives in desperate poverty. Her mother in law use to day it was because Sanichari was born and inauspicious Saturday, that her destiny was full of suffering”.Sanichari is names because she was born on the unlucky day of the week. Her presence in the family considered to be ominous portending some danger or misfortune. She is cursed and is doomed to suffer. Here the plot of the novel is set in Tahad village of Rajasthan, where central character Sanichari suffers for generation together because of desperate poverty and stigma of low caste. Sanichari is born immediately after there father’s death . She is abandoned by her mother , who elopes with her wealthy lover. On growing up , she married to a man names Ganji who lived with his ill mother. Sanichari gives birth to a boy. She goes by her ethics and commitment towards her husband and mother in law. She losses her mother in low, her busy, her son year after year the death in the family have  turned Sanichari numb and insensitive towards miseries.

Rudali , becomes a sharply mocking take of abuse and struggle , and above all , of endurance. It seems that in country like India on one hand, women are considered as incarnation of Goddess and one the other hand they come victim of violence perpetrated by the dominant groups. The heart-rending scenes of oppression and material violence have been depicted in the novel with a motif to underline the inhuman attitude of religious and social structures in power. The way torturous and horrifying death of a low cadre woman is explained is quit touching .  “Her mother in law died in great pain  of dropsy, crying out , over and over, food give me food ,It was pouring that night”. One finds two reasons for Sanichari''s marginalization , one is that she is a female and other is that she is untouchable. Her life story is a distressing take of exploitation and  struggle for survival. Her mother in law was harsh to her when she was alive. When she died Sanichari's husband and her brother were put into jail by Maharaj Singh. The Tahad village is governed by tyrannical feudal lords, upholding the cause of tribal in India, Mahashweta Devi has always been devoted to winning them the political , financial and social security. The Rajput Malik’s literary forced the tag of whores on to the low caste women and constructed a descent of prostitute Wailers . The Brahmanic Hindu system survives on the labor potential of the Bahujan and on the bio power of the gendered subaltern. Such in degradation Condition in which the low caste is destined to live. It is the women who are ruined by the Malik Mahajan who turn into whores.Nonsense they are separate caster. But Sanichari rises to the occasion and  seizes the opportunity by making it an act of revenge and expression of historical dissent Sanichari thought that perhaps her years had been reserved for the time when she would have to feed herself by selling them .

 When Budhua dies and Sanichari is isolated by her daughter in law, with an infant grandson to bring up. Character of Bhikni , which also illustrates the situation of subaltern women in Brahmin society. Though Sanichari and Bhikni are not relatives to each other ,yet their elderly looks , isolation, anxiety , torments of fate and cruel feudal system connect them together . A new down comes in the life of Sanichari who needs the moral support very badly. To 9 her new Women, Mahashweta had used a significant means of narration i.e. the character of Dulan who belongs to the grassroots level. Sanichari told her about and everything .Dulan an old rague, but he has a sharp mind. Dulan  persuades Sanichari and Bhikni to take up professional mourning as their livelihood. He teaches them to turn grief into a stable commodity. Initially, Sanichari expresses her uneasiness about this profession. He says “ Budhua Ma , I am not asking you to shed the tears , There are you livelihood you will see” so here Devi has presented the lives of subaltern women that how , they are forced to sell their tears for their livelihood.

 Sanichari becomes thoughtful and got convinced by the practical arguments of Dulan. She thinks that perhaps her tears have been set aside for the time when she would have to feed herself by selling them. Devi says 

 “Among  us , when someone dies , we all mourn. Amongst the rich , family members are too busy trying to find , the key to the safe. They forget all about the tears. They have got hold to two whores. On the day krivya ceremony , you will get clothes and food , you will get money and rice”. (Mahasweta Devi)

As being a revolution for Sanichari and Bhikni , Dulan tries to put in great courage and audacity in Bhikni and Sanichari through telling various historical tales. He discusses with them the heroism of tribal leaders Harda and Donk Munda who lead down their tribal lives for the tribal cause. He succeeds in diverting their mind and makes them powerful women as they learn the tactic of survival by fighting with the despairing situation. In the first instance, the two women do their job well as Rudali. He exhorts them to organize a group of professional mourners nu hiring Eulalia from the market of prostitutes so that they able to exploit the corrupt Malik Mahajan who are pretentious and can do anything for the sale of fake morality. In Rudali, this subversion of exploitation attains a new height when it creates solidarity among the women of this community without any discrimination against the prostitutes. In fact, after Bhikni’s death, Sanichari’s social awareness increases and she starts empathizing with her daughter-in-law who left her house and turned into a prostitute because of sheer hunger. As a strategic and conscious endeavor to create women’s solidarity and power over the Malik Mahajan’s she collects the prostitutes who would wail over the death of a person who ‘turned them into whores’.Thus through the act of ‘crying’, the marginalized women of the society subvert the sheer hypocrisy  particular occasion which can be read as a symbol of a patriarchal tortuous system. They create ‘a sense of unified selfhood, a rational, coherent, effective identity’. 

It is seen that , Postcolonial feminism, also dubbed third-world feminism, contends that third-world women are subjected to both colonial domination of empire and male dominance patriarchy. It is an investigation of and at the intersections of colonialism and neocolonialism with gender, nation, class, race, and sexualities in the different contexts of women’s lives, their subjectivities, work, sexuality, and rights. In this approach, the emphasis is on the collusion of patriarchy and colonialism. However, it is a question of gender, in relation to race and class in the context of global population, articulated in postcolonial feminism. The major postcolonial feminism works move around themes such as monitory and combative addresses to First World feminists, the repudiation of the roles and places routinely assigned to women and feminists of the Third World, the formation of alliances, and the introduction of nuance and complexity into the politics of feminism.

Devi has highlighted the courage and strength of Sanichari and Bhikni in turning the professional mourning into a regular business . The interest of the story is that how Sanichari and Bhikni cash the chance to exploit their masters by turning a social ritual into a profession. In the feudal society, the death of a family member is the important for establishing caste superiority and honor. So, the feudal lords spend some money on death ceremonies just to increase their social status.

 Now Sanichari is conscious about the fact that the every day’s struggle for survival , the realism of injustice and double standards that disgrace and dehumanize women when she says :

  “ Their grief must have hardened like the storn into them. It is possible to feed so many mouths on the meager scraping they bring home after laboring on the Malik's field. Tow dead, just as well. At least their own stomachs would be full”

                                                ( Sanichari from Rudali)

Sanichari is totally traumatized with her son Budhua's death. Her daughter in law abandons her leaving her baby crying om the floor. This touching scene of death and alienation could move anyone but it didn’t move the heart of Sanichari . Sanichari knows well hoe to grab a situation to meet her own objective. Even after the death of Bhikni , Sanichari doesn’t stop her profession and keeps herself stable on her work. It makes her stubborn . All her inhibitions are removes and she becomes self assured. She invites two girls pratibha and Gulbadadan and encourage them to join the team, and narrate all the future plans in open manner. In this sense Sanichari is like Tess of Hardy fighting a lost battle as like loaded against her.

All these minuscule information regarding tribal life in her writings provide a genuine touch to her writings. Her touch with the tribal folks has also given her sufficient knowledge and resources for her stories. Her experience is accomplished and not lived as is the case of the tribal. Mahashweta admits that there is a lot to be done for the tribal folks. Mahashweta Devi's writings are to be considered as literature of protest portraying her annoyance against the current system. The assignment highlights the significant of combined resistance. In this case, the attention is placed on barbarian movements along with the Wahhabi and the Naxalite movements.

It is a concluding of the socio-feminist affairs that the author advocates so clearly through her writings and movements. Their concernment in the current picture is painted. The chapter creates her as a honest and powerful socially dedicated writer absolutely recognizing with  the victims of harshness and marginalization and dealing with the misfortune of common man. Mahashweta Devi, thus, voices to those misfortune multitudes, weakly caught in the whirlwind of feudalism. She speaks for these victims of horrible national rudeness, whose cries of depression and revolt go unheard. Her activist writings are a opinion on the way man has corrupted himself and society. The everyday language spoken by common people, which has not been given enough attention, is a powerful tool for Mahasweta Devi. The silent tears of the  relentless, ruthless struggle are presented in the startling rawness of language. At the same time she also makes use of literary language. Her writing is a collage of literary expressions used by intelligentsia, street language, and the language of the tribals. This is an effective medium for presenting the social set-up with binary oppositions.

Viewed from this perspective, it can be seen that, subalternity is a social residuum, necessarily misrepresented in that the subaltern does not access the social structures of representation. Subaltern is either non-existent or forcibly accommodated in the peripheries by the dominant classes/castes. It is a condition of relative inferiority within a social order, structured according to the rules of hegemony which perpetually reinforces the condition of marginality. All those groups that, for whatever reason, remain outside representation are, then, subaltern. Women, for instance, are subalterns according to this conceptualization in so far as they comply with the ideology of femininity which implants them in a position of relative social  subordination. Subalternity is the central locale around which the literary representations in the selected texts are perused in the present thesis. Mahasweta Devi states: Rudali is about . . . 'how to survive' . . . 'bread and mouth. It is very important in my story. The whole system is exposed through this, says Mahasweta Devi'. The text explicates the various strategies of survival employed by the subaltern individually and as a community." Mahasweta Devi's works such as Imaginary Maps, Chotti Munda and his Arrow, Book of the Hunter revolve around the lives of the tribals who are a small nation within nation with their own culture, sets of beliefs, values, language, songs  and legends.  

Conclusion

            Mahasweta Devi reconstructs the various histories of subaltern insurgency,  which were distinct from mainstream nationalist independence movement. The spirit of resistance along with the support of the community makes these female subalterns empowered. Rudali is a perfect example of this. The story depicts the survival and evolution of Sanichari from a simpleton to an empowered woman. The main thrust in her writings is on the double marginalization of female subalterns on account of caste-class-gender nexus. She brings to the fore the connection between feudalism and patriarchy which aggravates the oppression of female subalterns. This nexus has become an integral part of India's social formation. Acting in consonance, it is the basic infra-structural basis of Indian society, division of labour and inter-personal relations. The off-shoot of this is the emergence of new power elite in the country and numerous problems related to economic domination and subjugation, privileges and deprivation, conspicuous waste and bare survival.