Tale of the dispossessed-mahasweta devi’s little ones

Mahasweta Devi is one of those writers who have been writing for the tribal and dispossessed. She is one of the few writers who have an unflinching commitment and passion for the underdog. Devi is a socially conscious writer, who writes about the most marginalized section of the society. The present research paper is an attempt to expose the hypocrisy of the so called civilized people who have grabbed all the resources and opportunities and have disposed off a large section of society and have forced them in the state of abject poverty and deprivation. These cream of society have been thriving at the cost of these dispossessed people who have in fact become their prey. Her short story, Little Ones or ‘Shishu’ in Hindi is a hair-raising tale of starvation where people become reduced in size to pygmies due to hunger and malnutrition over years. Mahasweta Devi describes the tribal village, where these people live as a place of extreme poverty and scarcity. Here human beings are dehumanized due to years of neglect and paucity of resources. Their bodies never developed, they were born and brought up in starvation. They have seen rice – but only in dreams. Starvation has been the sole meaning of their existence in postcolonial India. Violence in turn is suggested the only way out. Devi’s stories take us to the roots of the problem of complete ignorance on the part of the civilized which makes the situation deeply ironic. This is also the cause of Devi’s anger towards the so-called ideas of progress. She believes that the root cause of these ills lie in the inability of the tribal mind to break free from primitive myths. In other words any move to bring these people into the mainstream will have to function within the paradigms of tribal narratives. She yearns for the demolition of the present state of affairs.