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The tribal women have been given insufficient recognition in the literary as well as the social canon in the pre and post-independence period. The traditional image of Indian womanhood, whether the socially secure and independent image of Aryan woman or the sheltered and protected image of the purdah clad medieval woman, does not include the grim realities that constitute the life of tribal women. The subordination of tribal women operates at various levels, the first among which lies in the very terms of discourses which are decidedly mainstream. The traditional notions associated with women’s role, their social position and responsibilities, their privileges – economic, political and sexual are determined and judged from the dominant cultural perspectives which are opposed to the ideals of tribal traditions. The depiction of tribal women’s predicament serves as corollary to the status of women in India. A study of tribal woman therefore becomes imperative since women are the pillars of mankind, comprising almost half the population of human race, and the different facets of their socio-economic life play a landmark role in their destiny.
This paper seeks to examine the representation of the subaltern tribal women within the socio-political domain of the nation, where the impact of materialism and greed intrudes into the mental and physical geography of the margins that is the poor and exploited tribal women. The renowned writer Mahasweta Devi’s fight and struggle for humanity, her sincere efforts to improve the conditions of tribal women are clearly reflected in her literary works. She has an unflinching faith in the strength of womanhood and she voices her concern against their exploitation subverting in the process dominant myths of the mainstream society. The exploitation and deprivation of the tribal women has been studied here in the backdrop of neocolonial set up. This goes without saying that women in general in present times are subjected to repression, marginalization and exploitation in society. The tribal women are no exception.
This paper would focus on the representation of tribal women in the context of Mahasweta Devi story “Draupadi” from Breast Stories where she describes how these women are exploited, tortured, humiliated, manipulated and raped by rich social institutions and the protectors of law. However, as Mahasweta Devi makes a remarkable shift in the general perspective about subaltern women by presenting them as decisive and assertive. Women whose value system do not allow them to accept or adhere to the ideology of violence, death and destruction. Rather than adhering to the feelings of helplessness and misery due to their victimization they bounce back with greater vigour against the perpetrators of violence.
The stereotypical assumptions of womanhood perpetuated through patriarchal ideology have been challenged by these ‘subaltern’ women to assert their emancipation however insignificant it may be. Despite consistent degradation at personal, social and political levels through their resilience and conviction tribal women register a metamorphosis in their lives.
The short story “Draupadi” is a remarkable story that subverts the cultural politics of mainstream history by appropriating and redeploying the mythical narrative. The semblance of historical narrative is created and refurbished from the perspective of the subalterns. The myths as a site of cultural contest are employed to bring the margins to the centre. The meaning that the Mahabharata episode assigns to sexual assault and nakedness, shame and fear, consolidating the power politics, is inverted by the demythicized and revised reincarnation of the protagonist Draupadi. The tribal Dopdi ironically reverses the semiotics of these signs to produce a sense of bewilderment, incomprehension and fear among the male violators (Goswami,116).
An attempt is made here to showcase the desperation of the subaltern tribal women and the way Mahashweta Devi has imparted voice to these subaltern women. Dopdi Mehjen (Dopdi ) is a Santhal tribal guerrilla working with her Husband Dulna. They are the chief conspirators in the murder and death of landlord and moneylender Surja Majhi and Biddhi Babu who had levied taxes on water, called Canal tax. Their fight for survival was very strongly crushed by Special forces. Ironically her perpetrators use her own brethren to capture and torture Dopdi. The Senanayak wants complete submission from Dopdi and for this she is shamed to the core and turned into an object of gaze and derision. He applies on Dopdi the tactic of rape in a bid to subjugate her body, mind and soul. She is repeatedly raped as she loses and gains consciousness during the ordeal.
What is significant here is the unprecedented response of the victimized Dopdi to her victimizers. This sexual assault and brutalization cannot defeat her, she refuses to wash and clothe her and instead uses her tortured and molested naked body as a weapon to challenge them “What’s the use of clothes? You can strip me, but how can you clothe me again? Are you a man? 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?” (37). Here Dopdi emerges as an embodiment of feminine resistance who refuses to cover her nakedness, heroically defies standing naked before her torturers because “a Santhal woman believes that a true male will never insult a woman. In her defiance of her captors and torturers, Dopdi achieves a larger dimension than the Pandava Queen (Draupadi), her namesake, and exposes a violent truth about Indian manhood” (Arya 111).
Dopdi’s rebelliousness displays two forms of resistance – resistance in the form of tribal insurgencies by tribal woman who walked shoulder to shoulder with men and second is the humiliation and subjugation of tribal woman through rape but here the shackles of false notions of honor are broken and Dopdi succeeds in shaming her tormentors by raising her voice. In her we find the concrete alternative to resist and destroy not only the injustice of gender politics but also the incursion upon tribal land and forests, of feudalism, colonialism, and global capital. According to Beniwal Mahasweta Devi’s “Draupadi” empowers the subaltern linguistically as she ruptures the linguistic structures/canons of the mainstream literature:
Mahasweta Devi manipulates “the standard linguistic expectations to transform the subaltern’s acts, articulations and responses into tools of strength and self-respect minus servility and self-denigration. This strategy is most conspicuous in Draupadi’s (re)action after she is captured and raped” (Vandana, 188). Dopdi’s body has been violated but her soul and indomitable spirit remains intact, “She does not let her nakedness shame her, torture her, intimidate her, or the rape diminish her” (Sen and Yadav 224). In the final scene Draupadi uses her mutilated body to counter her oppressors, “Draupadi pushes Senanayak with two mangled breasts, and for the first time Senanayak is afraid to stand before an unarmed target, terribly afraid” (37). This custodial rape is particularly dehumanizing as it presents a blatant abuse of authority of the Indian government, the same institution which is bound to promote and protect the rights of women. Sadly though such instances of custodial rape are not new in India. Hundreds of helpless women are raped in custody especially the dalit and tribal women are being raped everyday by upper caste landlords and the powerful. The Mathura rape case was an incident of custodial rape in India on 26 March 1972, wherein Mathura, a young tribal girl, was allegedly raped by two policemen in the compound of Desai Gang Police Station in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra resulting in huge public outcry and protests. This case has been a turning point in women’s rights movement in India, as it led to greater awareness of women’s legal rights issue, oppression, and patriarchal mindsets. In recent times in July 2004, a group of Meitei women staged protest in Imphal to protest against the torture, rape and murder of thirty two year old Thangjam Manorma in the custody of the Indian army’s Assam rifles battalion.
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