Eminent writer and social activist Mahasweta Devi, whose writings focussed on the marginalised communities and on the empowerment of tribals in the country, died at the age of 90. By Saugar Sengupta
Dil hoom hoom kare! Hazar Churashir Maa has left us yet we have to carry on and focus on what she stood for. She was a living example for us both as a writer and as a human being," said a glum Bengali writer who was among those who had rushed to the posh nursing home in South Kolkata after the news of Mahasweta Devi's death spread like wild fire. Aparna Sen said hours after her death how there was no difference between her literature and her lifestyle. “Unhypocratic she would practice exactly what she preached and would always speak what she thought,” said Sen. No wonder why Devi, the doyenne of activist writers in India, once wrote that “all through my life I have done whatever I felt like doing.”
The unadulterated emotion for the down-trodden that repeatedly appeared in her works got her to descend from the ivory tower which she belonged and took her to the tribal boondocks of MP, Bihar and Chhattisgarh where she lived with marginalised people, in their huts, shared their food and tried to comprehend their problems and stood by them in their fight for better life. Born in 1926 in Dhaka, Devi had a literary background as her father Manish Ghatak was a writer and a part of the post-Rabindranath Tagore Kallol movement. Her uncle Ritwik Ghatak was an iconic film-maker. Her mother was also a part time writer and a social activist which perhaps acted as an impetus to combine activism with writing skills. Briefly educated in Dhaka she was sent to Shantiniketan from where she passed her English(H) before joining Calcutta University. later she taught in a college at Bijoygarh in Kolkata for many years and also dabbled in journalism.
Married to communist ideologue and one of the pioneers of the IPTA movement Bijon Bhattacharya, the couple had a son Nabarun Bhattacharya who later wrote thought-provoking novels. Her relentless writing and activism for the tribal people of Bihar, MP, Chhattisgarh and even Bengal won her a large number of awards, Ramon Magsaysay Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith, Padma Vibhushan, Banga Vibhushan to name a few.
In her almost 60-year literary career, she wrote more than a hundred books including about 20 collections of short stories and 100 novels apart from penning innumerable articles to newspapers and magazines.
Among her works were Aranyer Adhikar (right over forest) that dwelt on the Birsa Munda movement against the British that fetched her the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1979, Chotti Munda ebong Tar Tir (the arrow of Chotti Munda), Titu Mir, Hazar Churashir Maa (based on Maxim Gorky’s Mother and inspired by nasality movement).
Though her debut story was Jhansi Rani, a lucid work on the Queen of Jhansi penned in 1956, the most remarkable among her short stories were Dhowli, Rudali et al that brought instant lump in the throat. No wonder why Aparna Sen says, “I do not know how many short story writers of her class still remains in Bengal. If short-story telling is an art then very few people had mastered it the way she did.” She also wrote popular humorous stories in the Bengali magazine called Sandesh started by Sukumar Ray and then published by Satyajit Ray. Another Bengali writer requesting anonymity says, “After Banafool (Balaichand Mukherjee) Mahasweta Devi is perhaps the best teller of short stories.” Nabanita Deb Sen a renouned Bengali writer says, “She is one of the finest writers of the modern Bengali literature and her death brings the end of an era.” Reminisces noted Bengali writer Sirshendu Mukherjee, “Her death is a huge loss to Indian literature but personally speaking I am feeling very lonely as I seem to have lost a guardian.” like Mukherjee Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee feels like losing a guardian. Cutting short her Delhi trip and rushing back to Kolkata to oversee Devi's funeral, a grief stricken Banerjee said, “I feel like losing a guardian as my association with Mahasweta Devi goes back many years.”
“I met her for the first time when I was a Union Minister for Youth Affairs. She used to come to me for various works and we developed a good friendship then. Finally she backed our cause in the Singur and Nandigram movement when we were fighting for the farmers whose lands were being forcibly taken away,” Banerjee said wondering whether Bengal would soon get a similar sympathiser of the poor and a master writer.