Social issues in Mahasweta Devi's Old Women

Dr. Ashok Dayal

Abstract: Mahasweta Devi is not only one of the most prolific Bengali authors, but she?s also an important activist. In fact, for Devi, the two seem to go together. As you can probably tell from the titles, she writes about women and their place in Indian society. Some of the characters in her stories are old women living in poverty, and some of them are exploited because of their lack of wealth; however, some of them are middle class (one of them is even college-educated). Regardless of their status, though, they all suffer some kind of mistreatment, whether it?s physical or mental abuse, but not all of them are willing to accept their fate.

Keywords: poverty, subaltern, sociopolitical, resistance