International Journal of English Research

International Journal of English Research

ISSN: 2455-2186; Impact Factor: RJIF 5.32
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Volume 3; Issue 4; July 2017; Page No. 05-07

Reinterpreting Myth in Mahasweta Devi’s “Draupadi”

Dr. Nidhi Sharma
Associate Professor, Department of English, SKIT, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

Abstract
Tales transgress from generations to generations under the realm of varied cultures and hence their comprehension through
translation possibly takes numerous forms. Translating literature into English frequently acts as an instrument of empowerment of
the marginalized sections of society especially the dalits, the tribes, and the women writers who deal with the struggle of creating
solidarities across the multi-lingual and multi-cultural Indian society. Mahashweta Devi, in particular, happens to be the epitome of
multi lingual translational practices in English. The present paper aims to analyze the spectrum of Mahasweta Devi’s literary nuances
into history that emanate from her ‘subaltern’ musings. In the role of a social activist Mahasweta Devi unleashes to her readers the
lives of ordinary men, women, particularly Adivasi (tribal) people like the Santhals, Lodhas, Shabars, and Mundas, and other topics
of social and political relevance. Her writings primarily associate with the issues related to the rights of the tribals.

Keywords: dalits, tribes, subaltern, politics, society

Introduction takes them as interpenetrative figures. The co- editors of

Tales transgress from generations to generations under the Women Writing in India, Susie Tharu and K. Lalithanote also
realm of varied cultures and hence their comprehension through voice the same feelings when they say: “Throughout
translation possibly takes numerous forms. Translating Mahasweta Devi’s varied fiction women’s subjugation is
literature into English frequently acts as an instrument of portrayed as linked to the oppression of caste and class. But in
empowerment of the marginalized sections of society especially the best of her writing she quite brilliantly, and with resonance,
the dalits, the tribes, and the women writers who deal with the explores the articulation of class, cast, and gender in the specific
struggle of creating solidarities across the multi-lingual and situations she depicts.”
multi-cultural Indian society. Mahashweta Devi, in particular, The present paper proposes to unleash Mahasweta’s
happens to be the epitome of multi lingual translational “Draupadi” whereby a Santhal tribal woman fights for the
practices in English. The present paper aims to analyze the fundamental rights of her community. It would possibly critique
spectrum of Mahasweta Devi’s literary nuances into history that the life of this tribal named Dopdi and the mythic Draupadi of
emanate from her ‘subaltern’ musings. In the role of a social the Mahabharata as both seem to be the caricatures of the ‘life’
activist Mahasweta Devi unleashes to her readers the lives of canvas who have struggled irrespective of their peripheries for
ordinary men, women, particularly Adivasi (tribal) people like their legitimate rights, which were dethroned throughout their
the Santhals, Lodhas, Shabars, and Mundas, and other topics of lives.
social and political relevance. Her writings primarily associate Myth as an essential source and vehicle of hegemonic control
with the issues related to the rights of the tribals. serves to contain and condition the responses of the
The term ‘subaltern’ as mentioned above deals with Antonio marginalized ‘other’as beautifully portrayed in Mahasweta’s
Gramsci’s writings and emphasizes a subordinate position with history of the subaltern which comes forth in the form of a
relation to class, caste, race, and culture. Gayatri Chakravorty dialogue against the oppressively hegemonic Itihas
Spivak’s essay entitled, “Can the subaltern speak?” (1985) Puranichistory of India. The dominant symbol/myths
popularized this terminology. ‘Subaltern’ and ‘Feminist’ embodied in her texts are devastated just like the cultural-
histories, among others, encompass major dominant historical texts like Vedas, Puranas, and Ramayana and
historiographical nuances that deconstruct the mainstream to Mahabharata. Again In “Untapped Resources”, she
decentralize it and reshape the national space with the voices of pronounces: “It is essential to revive existing myths and adapt
the marginals. Colin Mac Cabe in his forward to In Other them to the present time and, following the oral tradition, create
Worlds opines on the articulation of gender in Mahashweta’s new ones as well. While I find the existing mythologies, epics
writings as: “The force of Mahasweta Devi’s text resides in its and Puranas interesting; I use them with a new interpretation.”
grounding in the gendered subaltern’s body, in that female body (UR17)
which is never questioned and only exploited. The bodies of She takes the readers into the Brahaminical history by aptly re-
Jashoda and Dopdi figure forth the unutterable ugliness and deploying the mythical narratives. The pre-historic narratives
cruelty which cooks in Third World kitchen to produce the First comprehended in the text are re-constructed and reshaped from
world feast that we daily enjoy.” the perspective of the oppressed voices. Myth, as deciphered in
The emotional curves and ironic intensities of Mahasweta’s her texts, signifies a sense of cultural contest over an interaction
phrases multiple manifold when she depicts the tensions and between the center and the periphery. Only by installing the
struggles in the lives of the gendered marginals. She not only narratives of myth, Mahasweta devi portrays the incessant
treats gender, class and race as analogous narratives; but also instincts of exploitation from the age of the Mahabharata to the

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contemporary times. Her de-mythification of the patriarchal Dopdi gets stripped in the dark and dreadful wild world of a
myths deceive her wish to innovate a gender neutral national jungle where no divine power comes to her rescue. She gets
culture space. Instead of opting for the passive mythical trapped into a situation where she is forced to act for herself.
investment of women in the figures of Sati, Savitri she Physical violence, verbal abuse and other forms of aggressions
successfully resurrects and reinvents renowned mythical have always been incorporated as instruments to control a
figures like Draupadi and Shakti. Mahasweta Devi visualizes a women’s body. It is always ‘the woman’s body’ that is both the
potential for nationalist reorientation in these mythical figures. object of desire and the subject of control. Dopdi, as she is
She describes the tribals, dalits and women merely not as apprehended, tortured, gangraped, brutalized all through the
passive subjects but as agile agents of the nation’s ethnocultural night, neither expects nor receives salvation from any quarter.
and histriopolitical ethos. Instead of destroying the intricacies She doesn’t wash, nor allows the rapists to clothe her the next
of myths she indulges with these deconstructive theories to morning. By disallowing her torture, rape and nakedness to
eventually recast them as the metaphors of empowerment and intimidate her and instead by using these as weapons to insult
affirmation and browbeat the enemy, Dopdi inverts the whole system of
Her stories, like “Draupadi”, “Breast Giver”, couple with the significations that the epic is based upon. This particular
Indian epic culture as crystallized in the edicts of Ramayana and episode of Mahabharata assigns sexual assault and nakedness,
the Mahabharata.Through these tales, Mahasweta Devi i.e.,shame, loss and fear to consolidate the manipulations of
attempts attempt to “brahmanize” two-thousand year old power. Mahasweta’s Dopdi ironically reverses the semiotics of
narrative tradition on the contemporary canvas. Mahashweta’s these signs to incarnate a sense of bewilderment,
iconic tales sserve as counter hegemonic platter since they enact incomprehension and scare amongst the male-dominated
the history of repression/violence written within the mythical societal hierarchies.
narratives. By relating to her re-construction of subaltern Dopdi’s defiance is absolute and is unsupported or intervened
history by creating an alternate mythical discourse, Radha by any divine male power. The mythological Draupadi pray
Chakravorty effectively puts forward: “One of the most notable fully asks for this divine ‘male power’ to come to her rescue.
features of Mahasweta Devi’s writings is the visionary, utopia Draupadi of Mahabharata comes across as a hapless, helpless
or myth-making impulse that acts as acounterbalanceto her feminine figure, desperately seeking help from paternal powers
dystopian, “forensic”, critical perspective on the contemporary in her predicament. On the other hand we have Mahashweta’s
world.”(RMSF 69) daring Dopdi who emerges out as a strong female who is full of
Referring to Mahasweta’s dealings with myths, Maitreya life and self-respect and never seeks help from anybody. She is
Ghatak also says that: “whether it is a struggle for political herself too self- dominating to let the patriarchal norms of
power or more immediate problems like demands for land, a morality to subjugate her and hence redefines the inherited
higher shares of the crop, minimum wages, roads, schools, patriarchal construct of sexual ‘honour’ of a woman. She defies
drinking water or for sheer human dignity, the remain the the authoritative state of the nation that perpetuates violence
hallmark of her fiction especially the little known, little landed and terror through its capillaries. Gangraped by police, Dopdi
struggles which are part of everyday life and don’t necessarily staunchly denies to be touched upon or to be clothed by those
find a place in history books or the mainstream media”. men in uniform.
(Ghatak, 2000, p.10-11) In her re-depiction of Draupadi, Mahashweta not only localizes
The lives of downtroddens, tribals, their rebellions, their her name(“Draupadi” is de-sanskritised and vernacularized to
requirements and their protests never find any substantial “Dopdi”) but also indigenizes her location also. Her Dopdi is a
description in the mainstream history books. Hence by queen of jungles, an offspring of mother nature and thus her
showcasing her literary deftness, Mahashweta gives them a love for freedom and disregard attempts to control and curtail
voice because she thinks it to be an ethical responsibility on the forms an integral part of her basic instincts. Senanayak, a
part of an author to make their voices heard. representative of modern patriarchal world-order in the story,
Dopdi, the female protagonist in her sensational text while supporting Dopdi and her cause in theory, attempts a total
“Draupadi” is a refurbished and demythicised incarnation of the decimation of the resisting “object” in practice. After disrobing
epical Draupadi who belongs to the Santhal tribe. In her Dopdi with his strategies of maneuvering, Senanayak orders her
reincarnation, she is framed within contemporary and historical “making”. Dopdi’s abuse doesn’t stop short at the dignified,
contexts where her inheritance is shifted to Champabhumi of refined limits of an attempted “vastraharan” (an act of forced
Bengal and her current status is described to be that of an disrobing) of the epic variety, it entails an absolute “making” of
activist of the naxalite movement of the seventies, in the her exercised over ‘a billion moon’, ‘a million light years’
northern part of West Bengal and also a fugitive on the run from (Draupadi 34).
the police. Dopdi is a gendered subaltern. As a woman ‘Draupadi’ beautifully out performs the epic in terms of the
belonging to the lowest strata of the economic class, she in turn ravages which are incorporated as well as borne upons by the
is subjected to double subalternization. Her oppressed level is victim. Unlike her mythological mate, Dopdi doesn’t seek any
further deteriorated by the atrocious dealings of her caste. divine intervention in the court of a ‘Maharaja’; rather it is the
Mahasweta Devi inverts the legacy of cultural nationalism by wild space of a forest. Dopdi gets no divine male rescuer. The
reinterpreting the story of the most powerful female characters janitors offer her a piece of cloth to hide after subjecting her to
of Mahabharata, Draupadi, in her story “Draupadi”. She multiple-rape throughout the night. Dopdi, in the fit of rage
displaces Draupadi from her place in royal kingdom and places pours down the water, tears the cloth to pieces and blatantly
her into the forest area of the Jharkhani belt as a tribal woman. refuses to cover herself up with the male –defined notions of
Mahasweta reinterprets the tragic incident of Draupadi’s ‘shame’ and ‘female modesty’. Covering herself up would have
disrobing, one of the famous episodes of this cultural religious been a reaffirmation or a fortification of the patriarchal mode of
text. Unlike her mythological namesake, Mahasweta Devi’s morality sanctified by the ‘manly’ ideologies that subjugate
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‘female honor’ and ‘breach of woman’s modesty and her References

subject hood’. Spivak reinstates the power of Dopdi when she 1. Chakravorti, Radha. Reading Mahasweta. Shifting Frames,
“acts in ‘not acting’”. (In Other Worlds 95). However, the Ed.Mahasweta DeviCritical Perspectives. New Delhi:
effectiveness of Dopdi’s resistance is not the refusal to act, but Pencraft International, 2011.
the refusal to act predictably. She redefines the conventional 2. Devi, Mahasweta. Draupadi Breast Stories. Trans. by
“sexual honour” of a woman when she comes out naked and Spivak, Gayatri, Kolkata:Seagull Press, 1997.
confronts Senanayak. Unlike the mythological Draupadi, she 3. Devi, Mahasweta. Untrapped Resources, Seminar359 1989.
resists guilt, fear, shame or servility that are typically associated 4. Ghatak, Maitreya. Introduction Dust on the Road: The
with the discourse of her “making”(in shame and servility), Activist Writings of Mahasweta.ed Maitreya Ghatak.
Dopdi challenges the ravager to “kounter” her and instead of Colcutta: Seagull Press, 2000.
lamenting over the “respectability”, she steps ahead and boldly 5. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can Subaltern speak?
s questions the masculinity of the so called patriarchal Norton Anthology of Criticism, 2011.
construct.

“Draupadi’s black body comes even closer. Draupadi

shakes with an indomitable laughter that Senanayak
simply cannot understand.
Her ravaged lips bleed as she begins laughing. Draupadi
wipes the blood on her palm and says in a voice that is as
terrifying, sky splitting, what’s the use of clothes? You
can strip me but how can you clothe me again? Are you
a man? She looks around and chooses the front to spit a
bloody gab at and says, there isn’t a man here that I
should be ashamed.
I will not let you put my cloth on me. What more can you
do? Come on, Kounter me- Come on, Kounter me-?
Draupadi pushes Senanayak with her two mangled
breasts and for the first time Senanayak is afraid to stand
before an unarmed target,terribly afraid”.
(Draupadi 36-37)

This blatant action of Dopdi’s completely dislocates and

belittles the disciplined ‘resistance’ displayed by Draupadi’s
lamentations as she attempts to awaken the masculine powers
of the great patriarchs in the grand Mahabharata. In this startling
metamorphosis of the powerless tribal woman who confidently
challenges the patriarch power of a ruthless postcolonial nation-
state embodied in character of Senanayak is a true message to
our society. Draupadi confronts Senanayak, collapses his false
masculinist pride and challenges him to ‘Kounter’ her.
Draupadi appears like a victim but her actions make her an
agent. The binary of victim and agent fall apart as Draupadi
deftly violates from victimhood. As she stands insistently naked
before her mongers, Dopdi manages to wield her raped body as
a weapon to terrify them. By refusing the disciplining power of
shame scripted into the act of rape, Draupadi becomes, in the
words of Mahasweta Devi’s translator Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak, a “terrifying super object”.(Spivak 1988,184). The
terrific characterisation of Dopdi proves two undeniable facts
before the readers: the subaltern and oppressed woman can be
represented in imaginative writing and she can be represented
as an “agent”. Thus, Mahasweta Devi’s ‘Draupadi’ effectively
dismantles Spivak’s contention in her essay “Can the Subaltern
speak?” that “subaltern as female cannot be heard or read”
(1994:104). In the representation of Dopdi we have a subaltern
woman who speaks, speaks aloud - literally and metaphorically
since her ‘voice…is as terrifying, sky splitting, and sharp that
makes her audible to the whole world.