Mahashweta Devi’s Draupadi: A feministic approach

Abstract

Feminism is the key theme of the stories of Mahashweta Devi. She always focuses on the problems and challenges of subaltern women. She has been concerned with the uplift of subaltern people of our society and her literary works are the medium of her social activism. She is not a votary of the ‘Art for Art’s sake’ doctrine. In the story of Draupadi, Devi has illustrated the tragic story of a subaltern woman. It is a story of Dopdi Mejhen, the most wanted tribal revolutionary woman who went underground and influenced many tribal youth to fight against injustice. At last she was arrested and gang raped in the police custody. The climax of the story lies in the manner Dopdi turns her terrible injuries, pain and humiliation into a means of counter offensive. She faced derogatory treatment from the police in the name of interrogation only because she was a female rioter.