Who was Mahasweta Devi? Why her death is a loss for Indian readers

Today, India lost one of its strongest social writers, Mahasweta Devi. After suffering for the past two months at Kolkata's Belle Vue Clinic hospital, she succumbed to multiple organ failure at the age of 90.

As this news flashed on the internet and television screens, a sadder revelation hummed as an undertone among those sharing the newsflash on their social media accounts: few, especially among the younger lot, knew who exactly Mahasweta Devi was.

Who was Mahasweta Devi?

She was a Bengali fiction writer, a social activist, a crusader for the tribal communities, and a feminist.

Mahasweta Devi was born in undivided India's Dhaka (now in Bangladesh) in 1926 into a family of writers. Her father, Manish Ghatak, was a 'litterateur' of the Kallol era, and her mother, Dharitri Devi, was a writer-cum-social activist. She was also a niece to renowned filmmaker Rittik Ghatak.

Before becoming a full-time writer, Mahasweta Devi worked as a journalist and an English professor. Her first book, Jhansi'r Rani (The Queen of Jhansi), came in 1956 while she was still teaching at Kolkata's Bijoygarh College.

In her 90-year-long life, Devi won the Sahitya Akademi award (1979), the Padma Shree (1986), the Jnanpith (1997), the Magsaysay award (1997) and the Deshikottam award in 1999.

She has almost a 100 novels and over 20 collections of short stories to her name, primarily written in Bengali but often translated to other languages.

The bold voice of feminism

Devi has been described as one of the boldest female writers in India. She was the author behind award-winning Hindi films Rudaali and Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, both of which delved into the lives of ordinary Indian women as wives and mothers.

In a stoic voice, Devi told the Breast Stories, an assortment of short stories about women identified as objects limited to the usefulness of their bodies. Then, there was the story of Draupadi which straddled the issues of atrocities based on caste and gender through the life a tribal woman.

India has seen several authors who wrote about the downtrodden, the poor, and the untouchables. Devi was one of them, but she stood apart from the crowd with her brusque and more honest style of story-telling. Her characters would never seek pity, but demand attention.

As she wrote about women's rights, Devi chose to end her own marriage to a renowned playwright to seek space for herself.

Few of her other noted stories would be Aranyer Adhikar (The Occupation of the Forest), Agnigarbha (Womb of Fire), Dhowli, Bashai Tudu, Dust on the Road, Our Non-Veg Cow, Till Death Do Us Part, Old Women, etc.

The Mother of the Sabars

In one of her interviews, when asked about her source of inspiration, Devi said, "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."

Devi was closely involved with tribal communities, both as a social worker and a writer. While the inspiration for her stories stemmed from their struggles and discrimination, she worked with organisations like the West Bengal Oraon Welfare Society and the All Indian Vandhua Liberation Morcha for tribal welfare.

She was also the founding member of Aboriginal United Association and a tribal magazine named Bortika, which she started in 1980.

Devi is remembered for her work with the Sabars (aka Saora), a scheduled tribe in the Purulia district of West Bengal, which earned the title of "The Mother of the Sabars".

There are more stories to her credit than we can discuss in one article. Through her curt story-telling and fierce activism, Mahasweta Devi has left a mark behind. Let us not forget her as just another writer who someday wrote about something we no longer care for.