Draupadi by Mahasweta Devi

TABLE OF CONTENT

Contents Page number

1. Introduction-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 – 5
1.1. Overview
1.2. Literature Review
1.3. Scope and Objective
1.4. Research Questions
1.5. Research Methodology

2. Understanding about the life of Mahasweta Devi and her feminine approach towards the
same --------------------------------------------- 6 - 7

3.Understanding about Draupadi’s Nakedness as an Instrument of Defiance Deconstructing

Feminine Naivety ------------------------------------------ 8 - 11

Conclusion---------------------------------------------------------------------------------12
Bibliography------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13
3

CHAPTER 1

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Overview.

“In both, the case of Durga and Draupadi, what happens to their body is a result of patriarchal
voices which denies them agency.”
Draupadi is a story about Dopdi Mehjen, a woman who belongs to the Santhal tribe of West
Bengal. She is a Robin Hood-like figure who with her husband, Dhulna, murders wealthy landlords
and usurp their wells, which is the primary source of water for the village. The government
attempts to subjugate these tribal rebel groups through many means: kidnapping, murder, rape.
Dopdi is captured by Officer Senanayak who instructs the army officers to rape her to extract
information about the rebel uprising.

Devi illustrates how any conflict or war results in the women’s body being the primary targets of
attack by men. In the contexts of both the Naxalite movement and the Bangladesh Liberation war,
both men and women are tortured, but it is much worse for women as they additionally undergo
sexual abuse. Thus with Spivak’s concepts on the subaltern in mind, through Dopdi, Devi
represents the gendered subaltern subject who exists at the periphery of society and dares to go
against the existing patriarchal structures. Spivak has shown concern regarding the representation of
the subaltern in the mainstream discourse on the basis that the subaltern cannot be represented; only
re-presented. However, Devi’s use of polyphony not just re-presents the subaltern, it also explores
the politics around the category of the ‘subaltern.’

1.2. LITERATURE REVIEW.

1. Breast Stories by Mahaswetha Devi

This book helped me understand the contours of short stories portraying the breast as a severe
indictment of an exploitative social system and a weapon of resistance, rather than a symbol of
beauty, sexuality, or maternity. Devi reveals the intrinsically cruel mechanisms in Indian culture at
a time when violence against women has increased dramatically in India. Dulali, a widow since
infancy who is now an old lady worried solely with day-to-day survival, and Andi, who loses her
eyesight owing to a mixture of poverty, societal indifference, and government inaction, are the
subjects of Old Women. The books are key milestones in India's female literary scene, written in
Devi's hard-hitting yet sympathetic writing.
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2. Mother of 1084 (SB -The Selected Works of Mahasweta Devi)

The height of the Naxalite agitation - a militant communist uprising that was brutally
repressed by the Indian government and led to the widespread murder of young rebels
across Bengal. This novel focuses on the trauma of a mother who awakens one morning to
the shattering news that her son is lying dead in the morgue and her struggle to understand
his decision to be a Naxalite. The breast as more than a symbol of beauty, eroticism, or
motherhood, but as a harsh indictment of an exploitative social system and a weapon of
resistance. At a time when violence towards women in India has escalated exponentially,
Devi exposes the inherently vicious systems in Indian society.

1.3. SCOPE AND OBJECTIVE

Scope: This is to analyze the process of “feminine naivety” and the objective is to understand its
impact in society.

Objective:
The objective of this entire project are as follows:
i) To study about the Mahaswetha Devi’s life

ii) To study about the feminine urge of devi ji

iii) To study and understand about the defiance deconstructing feminine naivety

1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How was Mahaswetha Devi’s life and her feminine approach towards the same? 2. Explain
“Draupadi’s Nakedness as an Instrument Defiance Deconstructing Feminine Naivety”.

1.5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Books and Articles helped a lot in this project. Help from various websites from the internet
were also taken. The internet played a vital role in making this project.

Approach of Research
5

In this project doctrinal research is used. Doctrinal Research basically is a research in which
secondary sources are used and materials are collected from libraries, archives, etc. Books,
journals, articles were used while making this project.

Type of Research

Explanatory type of research is used in this project, because the project topic was relatively broad
 and also because various concepts needed to be explained.

Sources of Data Collection

Secondary source of data collection was used which involved the collection of data from
books, articles, and websites. To what extend the night witches were achieved their goals
6

Chapter 2
Understanding about the life of Mahasweta Devi and her feminine approach
towards the same
Mahasweta Devi (14 January 1926 – 28 July 2016) was a Bengali writer and activist from India.
Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali, and Aranyer Adhikar are among her major literary works. She was a
socialist who fought for the rights and empowerment of tribal people (Lodha and Shabar) in the
Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. Various literary accolades,
including the Sahitya Akademi Award (in Bengali), Jnanpith Award, and Ramon Magsaysay Award,
as well as India's civilian awards Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan, were bestowed upon her.

She was basically bought in Dacca, British India, to a brahmin family (now Dhaka, Bangladesh).
Manish Ghatak, her father, was a Kallol movement poet and novelist who wrote under the pen
name Jubanashwa (Bengali: যুবনাশ্ব). Ritwik Ghatak, a filmmaker, was Ghatak's brother. Devi's
mother, Dharitri Devi, was a writer and a social worker, and her brothers include sculptor Sankha
Chaudhury and Sachin Chaudhury, the founder-editor of the Economic and Political Weekly of
India.

Devi attended Eden Montessori School in Dhaka for her early education (1930). She then relocated
to West Bengal (now in India). She then went to Midnapore Mission Girls High School to attain her
further education (1935). She was thereafter admitted to Santiniketan (1936 to 1938). She then
attended Beltala Girls' School from 1939 to 1941, where she completed her matriculation. In 1944,
she earned an I.A. from Asutosh College. She earned a B.A. (Hons) in English from Visva-Bharati
University, which was founded by Rabindranath Tagore, and then an M.A. in English from Calcutta
University (now Kolkata). She was known to have helped the noted writer Manoranjan Bypari to
come into prominence as his initial writings were published in her journal and as prompted by her.
Devi was admitted to Belle Vue Clinic in Kolkata upon suffering a massive heart attack on July 23,
2016. Devi passed away on July 28, 2016, at the age of 90, from multiple organ failure. Diabetes,
sepsis, and a urinary infection plagued her. Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal's Chief Minister,
tweeted her death "India has lost a great writer. Bengal has lost a glorious mother. I have lost a
personal guide. Mahasweta Di rest in peace." Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted,
"Mahashweta Devi wonderfully illustrated the might of the pen. A voice of compassion, equality &
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justice, she leaves us deeply saddened. RIP."

The study of contemporary Postcolonial feminist Mahasweta Devi’s Short Stories “Drupadi, Breast-giver,
Behind the Bodice” utters the viewpoint of class and gender clearly. It underlines the fact that the society in
which Mahasweta works seems to be starkly divided into two classes- the rich and privileged, and the not are
unprivileged. The woman emerges to be a class of low standard that has been dominated and doesn’t seem to
have attained her freedom even in independent countries. Her sufferings are often under-looked and
eventually she merges into the latter class which never asserts her rights and dignity.

Feminism has traditionally been thought of as a movement, just like any other social or political
movement. It is sometimes lumped up with other less emotional views in literature. Feminism has
been passed down to us or has grown as a philosophy over time, but many women, particularly
those on the margins of society, have changed more slowly. We're still battling the same old battles
of repression and suppression; mental and physical humiliation; and the pain of being born a
woman. The tribulations and disgrace of a humiliated female remain unchanged. The emotional and
physical abuse that women experience in society appears to have no bounds. Mahasweta Devi, a
humanist rather than a feminist, believes that a woman should be assessed as a human rather than
by her gender, ethnicity, caste, or social station. Draupadi utilises her entire mind and body to battle
against her marginalised status, while she symbolises the actual face of feminist assertion. The
stories of Mahasweta Devi show all kinds of exploitations and oppressions that exist in
post-independence Feudal society. She holds accountable all exploitative entities responsible for the
country's neo-colonial predicament. She is dedicated to the cause of society's underprivileged
groups. In her writings, she expresses a variety of these people's issues. She discusses the plight of
landless laborers, brick kiln workers, slum dwellers, untouchables, and tribal people. She is more
worried about the issues that denotified tribes such as the Lodhas, Kherias, and Shabars are facing.
Her rage and protests are always focused towards tyrannical landlords, financial institutions,
crooked politicians, and government officials. 'Draupadi,' a tale by Mahasweta Devi, first featured
in Agnigarbha, a collection of political stories. It basically shows two types of resistance: the first is
tribal insurgencies, and the second is demonstrated by Dopdi Mejhen, a Naxalbari activist who is
chased down and raped in an attempt to tame rebel groups.
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 Chapter 3

Understanding about Draupadi’s Nakedness as an Instrument of Defiance

Deconstructing Feminine Naivety

"Draupadi," one of three short tales from Mahasveta Devi's book "Breast Stories," was originally
published in the collection of political stories Agnigarbha in 1978. (Womb of Fire). Gayatri
Chakraborty Spivak, a literary critic and noted feminist Marxist deconstructionist, translated this
and many of her other works from Bengali. "Life is not mathematics, and the human person is not
designed for the sake of politics," Devi writes in her preface to the book. I want to see a change in
the current social structure, and I'm not interested in partisan politics." Spivak Her paintings express
these same feelings and frequently address big political topics, such as the predicament of West
Bengal's de-notified tribes. Her tale becomes a major work in this regard when evaluated through
the lens of the feminist school of literary criticism, despite the fact that she was not a deliberate
product of feminism. Draupadi, a strong short tale by Mahasveta Devi, is set in West Bengal during
the Naxalbari agitation of 1967. The immediate narrative of the novel is a peasant rebellion against
landlords that enraged the government, resulting in Operation Bakuli, which targeted the so-called
naxalite peasants who were culpable in the eyes of the authorities. Surja Sahu, the village landlord
whose home bragged of inexhaustible high class well and tube-well water supplies during the
Bengal drought, is being hunted down by Dulna and Dopdi (Sanskrit for Draupadi), a Santal (tribal)
absconding pair. The locals collaborated with the naxalites to assassinate Sahu. "My
great-grandfather stole a little paddy from him," Dulna stated, "and I still offer him free labor to
satisfy that obligation.""When he stared at me, his lips wet," Draupadi added. I'm going to tear his
eyeballs out." The couple managed to flee, and the authorities, confident that the criminals were
hiding in the impenetrable Forest Jharkani, devised a new and more tense 'Operation Jharkani'
under the command of Senanayak, to capture them. Dulna is already dead when the narrative
begins, having been given away by two of their colleagues and shot while trying to drink from the
springs. The search for Draupadi in the jungle continues, until she is eventually arrested. What
follows is a spellbinding, horrifying, and immensely uplifting series of events depicted in the
history of Indian Women's literature. Draupadi, played by Mahasveta Devi, acts in ways that no
other female protagonist has dared to before.

When Draupadi refuses to provide any information, Senanayak orders his henchmen to "make her
do the required". Draupadi's body is bound to four posts, she is disrobed, and she is brutally raped
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and gruesomely abused by army troops. When she is summoned to the Senanayak's office the next
morning, she refuses to bathe or even clothing her wounded and battered body. She enters his office
naked, her head held high and her hands on her hips, and she laughs uncontrollably. "Draupadi
stands nude in front of him. Hair on the thighs and pubic area matted with dried blood. "Two
wounds, two breasts." Draupadi) (Devi) "What is this?" the Senanayak inquired. "The object of
your search, Dopdi Mejhen," she responds with a giggle as she draws her dark body further closer.
You requested that they make me up. "Are you sure you don't want to see how they made me?"
(Devi) For the first time, he and the police are scared of an unarmed target since she is undressed.
Devi has purposefully pitted the fabled archetype of Draupadi from the Indian epic Mahabharata
against the subaltern, tribal, black, lower-class Santhal lady Dopdi, who, rather than pleading to be
dressed like her archetypal counterpart, Draupadi, prefers to be nude on her own terms. The most
severe sources of oppression in society, according to Devi, are class and caste distinctions. In her
efforts to illustrate the misery of the denotified tribes, she also opens up the panorama of gendered
subordination that women experience, although gently. In the mythological tale, she purposefully
deconstructs the idea of the fabled Draupadi, who is spared from humiliation by divine intervention
and can never be disrobed. Devi then reconstructs Draupadi's character via the tribal Draupadi, who
is readily disrobed, does not seek aid, and is not reliant on any so-called power, and who is a
notable symbol of righteous revolt and unstoppable female might. Draupadi's choice of nakedness
in this short story functions as a tool of rebellion and a strong repudiation of predefined roles of
women in society, elevating her beyond the image of the weak, vulnerable woman and so
deconstructing the idea of feminine innocence, according to the study.

In the face of their difficulties, Mahasveta Devi's female heroines are noted to be reactive. They do
more than merely exist. Draupadi isn't one to take things lying down either. Devi has given
Draupadi, first and foremost, a voice that, by the end of the short narrative, proves to be
outstanding. "Can the Subaltern Communicate?" by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak believes that the
subaltern woman lacks the ability to speak. "If the subaltern has no history and cannot speak in the
framework of colonial production, the subaltern as female is even more thoroughly in darkness,"
says Spivak. (In 2203, Mahasveta Devi's representation of Draupadi deconstructed Spivak's
subaltern thesis.) Draupadi's voice takes on the voice of the oppressed, but only in a limited area
and to a limited audience. In the third half of the novel, her various and powerful queries, combined
with her ululations, emerge as the strong voice, the voice of the subaltern lady. Her nakedness, too,
becomes a voice and proves to be an intentional denunciation of conventional expectations from
women, giving her a significant role in the story's storyline. Devi depicts Draupadi's rape from
Draupadi's point of view rather than through the masculine voyeuristic gaze. Draupadi recognises
that her response to these experiences remodels her feminine identity in the text, transgressing
society and gender conventions, as she enters what Spivak refers to as the "region of lunar flux and
sexual difference". As a result, Devi's subordinate Draupadi speaks, her voice as loud as her
ululations.

Devi, who is known for reimagining myths and epics, gives her Draupadi a voice that is
significantly different from the mythical Draupadi's begging voice, whose modesty is on the line in
front of the assembly when she is taken to be disrobed before the Pandavas and the Kauravas. If
you have loved and honored the moms who carried you and given you suck, If the honor of wife,
sister, or daughter has been important to you, If you believe in God and Dharma, the fabled
Draupadi screams out as she is about to be humiliated. Please don't abandon me in this terror that is
more painful than death!
10

She calls out to the Lord of the World for supernatural intervention, "O Lord of the World... God,
whom I admire and trust, please not desert me in this perilous situation. You are my only safe
haven. "Defend me." This type of supplicatory statement is condemned by Devi's Draupadi. She is
adamant about not sharing any information about her companions or their whereabouts. Despite
being repeatedly raped, she enters the office with her head held high, nude, and proclaims, "There
isn't a guy here of whom I should be ashamed." I will not allow you to cover me with my clothes. Is
there anything else you can do? Come on, contradict my assertions – come on, counter my
assertions –?" Devi's Draupadi therefore refuses to be dressed after being raped, whereas the fabled
Draupadi asked to be spared from being publicly humiliated and disrobed.

Draupadi's commitment to her mission has been strengthened by Devi's instilling her with strong
historical roots. She gives Draupadi a believable backstory. Draupadi believes Dopdi's blood was
the pure unadulterated blood of Champabhumi when she hears of Shomai and Budhna's (her and
Dulna's allies) betrayal... Dopdi was proud of her forebears; their blood may have been corrupted...
Budhna and Shomai are half-breeds. The war's fruits... Otherwise, before Santal betrayed Santal,
the crow would consume the crow's flesh.

This backstory, in contrast to Draupadi's regal history in the Mahabharata, offers Draupadi more
agency in the tale. Draupadi's presence, leadership, and loyalty to the cause of her tribe for which
she battles are justified by her past.

Mahasveta Devi's characters in many of her works represent the feminine body as rejecting,
challenging, and fighting power. Draupadi defies the officials and the greater world of political
revolts by subverting the social signifiers of feminine conduct and using her body, its stark nudity,
to express her defiance. Her nude body takes on the role of an active participant in her political
protest. "What is the purpose of clothes?" she asks the Senanayak. You can strip me naked, but how
will you re-clothe me? "Are you a man?" I inquire. She not only questions the concept of power and
mocks masculinity, but she also mocks the hegemonic patriarchal culture that validates and accepts
the well-dressed female image. Her Mahabharata archetypal counterpart "...is infinitely clothed and
cannot be publicly removed." She is not only publicly undressed, but she is also tortured to a series
of horrific rapes. In the narrative, Draupadi's female ego, her other sex identity, and her nude body
all become prominent places of passionate resistance. We can remark on the social signifiers of
suitable womanly behavior that otherwise control the patriarchal mindset of society that condemns
women as the "other" in this space. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir helps us better grasp
this scenario. According to Beauvoir, society believes it is "better to maintain women in a state of
dependency; their rules of law have been built up against her; and so, she has been clearly defined
as Other". This 'othering' of women is part of the patriarchal strategy of denying women a voice and
instead subjecting them to ignorance and exploitation. When Draupadi cries to the Senanayak, "The
object of your quest, Dopdi Mejhen," she mockingly displays herself as a member of the system.
You requested that they make me up. "Are you sure you don't want to see how they made me?" She
blatantly exposes her double objectified state of being. Her objectification as a woman, as a
consequence of which the official instructs his men to make her, as well as her objectification as a
search victim, a fleeing female criminal. Female objectification is perceived by Catherine
MacKinnon in words as basic as "Man fucks lady; subject verb object." The fact that Draupadi was
subjected to many rapes validates MacKinnon's feminist critique and emphasises the patriarchal
society's objectification of women.
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The officers' rapping of Draupadi was an act of masculine dominance over the feminine. Against
our Will: Males, Women, and Rape, by Susan Brownmiller, claims that rape is "nothing more or
less than a purposeful strategy of intimidation by which all men hold all women in a condition of
terror." She also points out that "rape is a crime of violence and power, not of passion." According
to Gayatri Spivak, Draupadi's stripping represents the "culmination of her political punishment by
the representatives of law" in the myth. She insists on being publicly naked...the novel implies that
this is the point at which masculine authority ends." Draupadi begins to defy her oppression at the
hands of authority at this point. She uses this opportunity to demolish the stigma linked with rape.

"Draupadi pushes Senanayak with her two damaged breasts, and Senanayak is terrified to stand in
front of an unarmed target for the first time." Her two mangled breasts, a starkly bold protest of
being ashamed of her atrocious gang rape, are a powerful symbol of her mutilated body pictures. As
a result of her rape, her textual autonomy grows exponentially. Draupadi's humiliation as a poor,
tribal woman after her rape, which is considered by society to be the ultimate kind of womanly
abuse, contradicts her docility and deconstructs the whole concept of feminine innocence. As a
result, Mahasveta Devi emphasises how violence against women is the most severe form of gender
inequity and oppression. Devi's 'Breast Stories' use the symbol of female breasts in all three stories,
giving the feminine struggle a gender specific identity, as a consequence of which the female
breasts become a place of resistance for the female self, given with great agency by Devi in her
stories.

As Devi insists, the book may easily be anchored in the context of class politics. On the one side,
we have the Senanayak, the officers, the government, and the landowners, who are all legislators
and power holders. On the other hand, there are the peasants, tribals, laborers, and daily wage
earners who are suffering. Draupadi is ‘made' or mercilessly raped on the command of the
Senanayak by an unlimited number of officers under him. During the Bengal famine, it is Surja
Sahu, a wealthy landowner whose residence boasts of abundant water supply, who is targeted by the
destitute tribals in partnership with the naxalites. Surja Sahu's wife gives Dopdi the name Draupadi
after the Mahabharat's Draupadi, which is rare for a tribal lady. The text is placed under Spivak's
class-power analysis in her examination of the text because of these impositions of power by one
class on another, the powerful on the helpless. In her article "Gender and Politics in the Fiction of
Mahasweta Devi," critic Radha Chakravarty states that while Devi tries to speak about Draupadi as
Draupadi, she fails miserably. Devi's history as a writer, an English professor, and a political activist
place her among the intellectual elite, a class that speaks the language of the first world, in many
respects. Despite Senanayak's attempts to comprehend Draupadi's ululation and song, which may
allude to a primitive and pre-lingual method of oral communication, Devi's tale is far from naive.
Devi's use of scholarly precedents such as Shakespeare's Prospero, Constitutional poems, and
scattered English terms in Draupadi's conversations undermine Devi's assertion that her book is
based in class and caste battles. As a result, a linguistic class divide emerges between the narrator
and her protagonist. Draupadi's heinous words, like her naked body, may be seen as a revolt against
two types of tyranny, a parallel between political and gendered oppression, both of which contradict
the established order. "Draupadi experiences a type of apotheosis in the concluding words of the
story. She transforms into a larger-than-life emblem of female empowerment, terrifying anyone
who sees her." Devi brilliantly subverts and deconstructs patriarchy's dominance of feminine
ignorance via this distinct and powerful portrayal of Draupadi. She opposes the concept of shame
associated with rape. Draupadi's chosen nakedness as a symbol of rebellion and revolution against
patriarchal domination of women is used by her as a symbol of
12

the victimized body. Mahasveta Devi's assertive writing topples the world of Indian women's
literature by establishing a starkly rebellious universe of feminist narrative fiction and elevating
Draupadi beyond the concept of the average woman.

Conclusion
In conclusion, women can be powerful actors for peace, security, and prosperity. When they
participate in peace processes and other formal decision-making processes, they can play an
important role in initiating and inspiring progress on human rights, justice, national reconciliation
and economic revitalization. True feminism — feminism that seeks to liberate all women—leads
inexorably to solidarity politics, solidarity economics, and r/evolution—a global citizens
movement,
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Bibliography

References
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York, London: Routledge, 2001.

Aschroft Bill, Griffiths Gareth, Tiffin Helen. The Post – Colonial Studies Reader” 2 nd
Edition, New York, London: Routledge, 2006. Bhaktivedanta A.C.

“Bhagavad – Gita, As It Is” 2 nd Edition, Mumbai, India: The Bhaktivedanta Book

Trust, 2006.

Chauhan, Abha. “Tribal Women and Social Change in India, New Delhi: Aditya
Publishers, 1990.

Devi, Mahasweta. “Dopdi” in Best Stories of Mahasweta Devi, New Delhi: National Book
Trust, 1993.

Morris, Pam. Feminism and Literaature, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995.

Spivak.C.Gayatri. “Draupadi” In Other Worlds:Essays in Cultural Politics, New

York, London: Routledge, 1988.

Website

1. "Draupadi" by Mahasveta Devi Translated with a Foreword by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

2. http://files.adulteducation.at/uploads/vater_uni/Gayatri_Spivak__Draupadi_by_Mahasveta_
Devi.pdf