The present paper is a modest attempt to analyze Mahashweta Devi’s “Draupadi” as a narrative of India- a narrative that explains how politics work in a society and that provides a profound insight into the forces that makes an attitudonal shift. Mahashweta Devi’s short story “Draupadi” captures the experiences of a tribal woman. She is involved in a social movement- the Naxalite movement in India. She is living in the Jharkhani forest with a group of Naxalite rebels. The story reveals several significant facts about the Santal tribe through the reminiscences of Draupadi.
Firstly women are shown clearly “protected” by the men of the tribe as the phrase “stood guard over their women’s blood” implies. Secondly, as a group that expected and received such patriarchal “protection,” the women seem not to have engaged in warfare for Dopdi does not mention foremothers in this regard. Thus the proud reference to the “black armour” of the forefathers is also significant, as this seems to indicate that the Santal men were perhaps (good) warriors. Alas! The same could be the state of tribal people today! The same could be the location of a woman today!
It is indeed a matter of lamentation Mahashweta shows how a woman suffers in psychologically, emotionally and physically in society. She swings with oppression between the two versions of her name. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her ‘foreword’ to Draupadi observes: “Draupadi is the name of the central character. She is introduced to the reader between two uniforms and between two versions of her name. Dopdi and Draupadi. It is either that as a tribal she cannot pronounce her own Sanskrit name Draupadi, or the tribalized form, Dopdi, is the proper name of the ancient Draupadi”.
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It is also noticeable in the ‘foreword’ that ” the tribes have no right to heroic names as Draupadi is perhaps the most celebrated heroine of the Indian epic Mahabharata. For this pious, domesticated Hindu name was given Dopdi at birth by her mistress, in the usual mood of benevolence felt by the oppressor’s wife towards the tribal bond servant. ” Here the name Dopdi, the protagonist is indicative of the doubly marginalized location of a woman in a nation. The change of name from “Dopdi” to “Draupadi” brings another kind of oppression to her. When the name gets transformed, she is raped and raped brutally.
The comrades instead of saving her modesty through the implicit intervention of a benign and divine, raped her. Senanayak, the head asked others to “Make her. Do the needful. ” Thus, after Senanayak leaves Draupdi, the narrative re-enacts Draupdi’s consciousness and loss of consciousness, opening and closing of eyes. “Shaming her, a tear trickles out of the corner of her eye. In the muddy moon light she lowers her lightless eye, sees her breasts, and understands that, indeed, she had been made up right. Her breasts are bitten raw, the nipples torn. How many? Four-five-six-seven…
” There is however no room for doubt. The brutality of the rape is brought out in its stark reality through these “impressions. ” Since Draupdi regains consciousness after this, the second rape sequence is actually presented. “She doesn’t have to wait long. And the process of making her begins. Goes on. ” It is seen that the scene of rape in “Draupadi” occurs at the end of the short story. However, instead of building up to it as a kind of climax, it proves to be a “beginning. ” Thus, while the apprehension of Draupdi is viewed as her end “Dopdi Mejhen is about to be apprehended.
Will be destroyed” there is a sudden metamorphosis in Dopdi. Until this moment, when “she crosses the sexual differential into the field of what could only happen to a woman,” she remains faithful to the patriarchal (moral) code of her tribe handed down to her by her forefathers. Dopdi’s training has taught her to sacrifice herself for the cause. Her standards of conduct are governed by the old code of the Santal tribe and that code dictates that one must never betray the members of one’s tribe. Dopdi’s current “tribe” consists also of her comrades in arms.
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Thus when she is captured and first questioned and later raped and tortured she adopts a mode of passive resistance, still holding on to the patriarchal traditions that inscribed her and the instructions imbibed through repeated listening. Although she has heard what it is to be tortured, —“when they counter you, your hands are tied behind you. All your bones are crushed, your sex is a terrible wound”— But in the final scene she realizes that the experiences she went through are those uniquely female ones and it is at this point that Draupadi recreates into a powerful agent.
Unlike the mute women and asking for help ‘Draupadi’ questions the sinners. Instead of crying she shakes the comrades who raped her. After rape, when a piece of cloth was given to her “she tears her piece of cloth with her teeth. ” Senanayak is surprised on seeing her naked body and he is about to cry. “Draupadi stands before him, naked. “. “Draupadi comes closer. Stands with her hand on her hip, and says. You asked them to make me up, don’t you want to see how they made me? ” Draupadi says in a terrifying voice, “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”. Here she challenges and derides their “masculinity. ” This is a reworking of the scene of humiliation in the Mahabharata where the mythical Draupadi was “saved” from the humiliating experience of being stripped, through divine intervention. But Draupadi re-writes this script. Dopdi does not let her nakedness shame her, her torture intimidate her, or her rape diminish her.
Thus the Draupadi identity that she has been saddled with due to the name given to her by Surja Sahu’s wife in what Spivak calls the “usual mood of benevolence felt by the oppressor’s wife toward the tribal bond servant” is replaced with one based on the Goddess Kali. The fact that Dopdi models herself on Kali is significant for Kali, traditionally depicted as standing on top of Shiva, symbolizes Indian female power. Significantly therefore, the description of Dopdi/Draupadi in the last scene is very similar to traditional depictions of Kali.
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“Draupadi’s black body comes even closer. Draupadi shakes with an indomitable laughter that Senanayak simply cannot understand. Her ravaged lips bleed as she begins laughing. Draupadi wipes her blood on her palm” and issues a challenge to Senanayak and his armed force “I will not let you put my cloth on me. What more can you do? Come on counter me”. This last metamorphosis baffles even the all-knowing Senanayak and “for the first time Senanayak is afraid to stand before an unarmed target, terribly afraid” The reversal of traditional gender and authority roles is complete.
Senanayak and the army, the dominant males, the tormentors and authority figures, now “stand before” Draupdi as though before an almighty and powerful force. Her refusal and indeed her challenge to the men “to put [her] cloth on” is a powerful refusal to revert back to the accepted status quo and to hide or blur her new identity as a primeval Indian female force. For, unlike Draupadi of the Mahabharata, Dopdi cannot escape her fate through divine intervention. But something much more dramatic happens. She survives the ordeal triumphantly and is thereby empowered to “become” the goddess.
Her tormentors are now “terribly afraid. ” This is how Mahashweta depicts how politics work in a society and crushes women, instead of shaping them. She is companion of man, but is still dominated and suppressed by men. She also creates an awareness amongst the nation that women of today can handle any difficulty with perseverance and her consciousness. Draupadi proved that woman is the magnificent creation of god, a multi faced personality with the power of integrity and tolerance. She proved the statement correct that “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. “
