Book: Devi, Mahasweta. Rudali. Trans. Anjum Katyal. Seagull Books, 1997.
By Ram
Rudali1 is a piece of short fiction written by Mahasweta Devi and later turned into a play by Usha Ganguli. Rudali is set in the rural landscape of Tahad and explores the caste and power dynamics of the village to reveal the themes of casteism, capitalism and commercialisation of the sacred, which plague their everyday lives. Mahasweta Devi takes inspiration from her own surroundings to exemplify the exploitation of the rural societal structure, in essence converting Tahad into a microcosm for the larger rural landscape in India. This is reflected in the following excerpt from one of her interviews:
“So all these books are rooted in the people, from what I have seen about people, what I read about them, what I learnt about them, just like that” (Agarwal, 2010).
The title ‘Rudali’ refers to women, often coming from lower classes, many being pushed into prostitution, who are hired to cry at the funerals of malik-mahajans who often have exploited them in the past, rendering their tears, symbolic of private grief, as a commodity that needs to be sold to their oppressors for their own survival. Above all, it is a story of survival in an unfair world. Mahashweta Devi herself says: ‘Rudali is about… “how to survive”… “bread and mouth.” It is very important in my story. The whole system is exposed through this’ (Devi & Ganguli, 2007, p.9).
The main protagonist of this tale is Sanichari, who, from her genesis itself, fell into misery — being born on a Saturday, she is deemed inauspicious. She is constantly reminded of this fact by her family, but the reality is that every villager belonging to the lower class is a product of this misery. All of them are subjugated by the upper class and are grief-struck and dissatisfied.
The malik-mahajans2 serve as the embodiment of capitalism – they cater to their own benefits while exploiting the lives of the men who work under them. There is also an aspect of caste difference shown, as the majority of the people in the village are Ganjus and Dushads3; this showcases how class and caste work in union to create a cycle of reinforcement. The reason that these maliks are able to exert so much control over their workers is because of bonded labour; by fixing them in a debt trap, they are able to exploit them. When Sanichari convinces Ramavatar to pardon her debt, he is criticised by other jotedars4 because they feel this will incite a movement amongst the untouchable class to free themselves of their bonds.
It was not the amount that mattered—that was of less value than the dust off their shoes. What mattered was the yoke, the burden of debt that kept them labouring like cattle (Devi & Ganguli, 2007, p.58).
The reason the rich are able to chain the poor in the shackles of bonded labour is because there is a structural dependency on these malik-mahajans, as they are the employers of these people. Despite the ill-treatment from Ramavatar and his son Lachman, the workers are forced to send their sons there to work — they even have to beg for their sons to be taken in. This theme of dissatisfaction in the lower class is extremely prevalent in the text. Sanichari is dissatisfied because she is stuck in a debt trap; the daughter-in-law of Sanichari left to fulfil her desires, and Haroa leaves to reclaim agency. This dissatisfaction forces the people to attempt a breakthrough from their shackles, which the system punishes by whipping them with more exploitation. Many women are taken in by men in hopes of a better future, only to be cast out after being used, mostly becoming prostitutes later. The children of these women suffer the same fate — sold off into prostitution by their own father!
The subaltern struggle showcased in the text is reminiscent of the Marxist class struggle. The conversation between Sanichari and her grandson echoes the dynamics of control between masters and their workers. Haroa questions, just because his master pays him and feeds him a meal, does it justify complete autonomy — a treatment like a slave?
HAROA: He makes me slave all day and pays me a measly twenty rupees a month…
SANICHARI: Plus a daily meal.
HAROA: Does that mean he can hit me when he likes, abuse me as he likes…?
SANICHARI: That’s a poor man’s fate, beta—the kicks of his master. Go on, beta, go to work… (Devi & Ganguli, 2007, p.107).
As these women go to malik-mahajans’ funerals to cry, the hypocrisy of the higher class is portrayed, as they are willing to spend a lot of money for the funeral of their elders in order to put on a display of grandeur to showcase their love and respect, but when these elders are sick and on their deathbed, they receive no care — no medical treatment. For them, death means inheritance and more power. Love, another sacred emotion, is just a display mantle to them. Bhairab Singh’s eldest son murders him, Nathuni’s mother dies as she is given no treatment, and Nathuni’s middle wife plans a funeral for his father before he has even died. This raises a deeper question of dehumanisation — the subaltern class is treated as slaves anyway, but this inhumanity doesn’t stop with them; it penetrates into their own family and devours them. Capitalism is then seen as a system that feeds on the suffering of others and corrodes any empathy that a person may have in the body, leaving behind a society stripped of its humanity. This exemplifies Mahashweta Devi’s criticism of capitalism.
In Rudali, religion too is a part of the rural social architecture that treats both the classes in stark difference. For the poor, it binds them in the sets of rituals and obligations that deepen their poverty, whereas for the rich, it becomes a tool of manipulation to clean any dirt from their own social prestige. When Sanichari’s husband dies, she has to carry out multiple rituals to prevent ill omens and to appease multiple priests, which pushes her into debt. For the rich, such as Gambhir Singh, a man who exploited women and even cast his own daughter out of the house when she refused to have incestuous intercourse with her nephew, is deemed completely ‘sinless’ by pandits and astrologers, except for a childhood act of violence where he hit a pregnant cow — even sin and virtue are not above commodification.
The aspect of commodification and hypocrisy is further exemplified when we take in the idea of a funeral, where public mourning becomes a display to flaunt wealth. The malik-mahajans use the system of suppression and exploitation to make women cry to burst open their tears as a display for these men. What’s interesting is that Sanichari doesn’t have the privilege to be able to cry at the funeral for her dear ones because of her distressing condition; she needs to worry about the monetary cost a death brings and the way to resolve it. Most of the Rudalis are prostitutes too, who are sold by these men into prostitution after using them and, ironically enough, are brought back to cry at their funeral. But the rudalis must sell their grief to survive — their wailing choreographed to satisfy the male gaze that profits from their pain.
We’ll roll on the ground, and shall we beat our heads too?
Yes, beat your heads.
Our foreheads will split.
Five rupees each extra for the two of you? Money’s no problem, Sanichari. My father’s cremation and kriya will be the stuff legends are made of. Everyone will talk about it. (Devi & Ganguli, 2007, p.79)
This commodification of the emotional realm of women showcases how capitalism and patriarchy in rural architecture derive their power from women’s coerced labour.
During the climax of Rudali, the death of Gambhir Singh, a powerful malik-mahajan leads to both the symbolic representation of the exploitation Mahasweta Devi wanted to expose and also a liberating resistance for the rudalis. Even as Gambhir Singh lies dying, he is more concerned with having a grand funeral that will preserve his social prestige; it will also ensure that his nephew will not get less money from his inheritance. His nephew’s eagerness for inheritance and waiting for Gambhir Singh to die reveals how deeply the people have been removed from the plane of humanity.
Sanichari’s journey to Tohri, the red-light area, to collect women to cry at the funeral of Gambir Singh becomes a turning point for both her and the women she gathers there. Most of the prostitutes here are victims of patriarchal and economic oppression, tricked or forced into prostitution, including Gambhir Singh’s daughter. Sanichari unites these women and tells the whole Tohri, over a hundred women, to attend Gambhir Singh’s funeral as Rudalis. This act, on the surface, may seem to reinforce their subjugation: women once again selling their grief for survival. But there lies a deeper resonance in this: the very system that once enslaved them will be used by them to get back at their oppressors. When hundreds of women from the whole red-light area will perform the mourning, then the mourning will be grand and dramatic as the rich had demanded the women to do for so long, but it will lose all its trace of meaning and become just an absurd spectacle. The rich before had these women in their control and were trying to exploit their emotions by buying them as commodities. All the Rudalis now break their foreheads open, demanding payment for every drop of blood and tear, emptying the wealth of the malik-mahajan and leaving nothing for the nephew, thus subverting the system.
Mahasweta Devi constructs Rudali as an authentic portrait of rural India, one that is plagued by caste hierarchies, capitalist greed, patriarchal violence, and religious hypocrisy. Yet, the final act of the text showcases a symbolic liberation – showcasing hope at the end of the tunnel. Thus, Rudali is both a critique of the rural architecture of India and also a celebration of the women who, despite being oppressed by the harsh system, find ways to survive and reclaim dignity.
References:
Devi, M., & Ganguli, U. (2007). Rudali: From Fiction To Performance, Seagull Books.
Agarwal, M. (2010). Excerpts from the personal interview with Mahasweta Devi on 12.2. 2008. Impressions: An e-Journal of English Studies.
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