Draupadi by Mahasweta DeviSummary

The story of Draupadi is set among the tribal’s in

Bengal. Draupadi or Dopdi as her name appears in dialect, is a
Santhals tribe girl, who is vulnerable to injustice but resist the
burnt of social oppression and violence with strong will and
courage and even try to deconstruct the age old structures of
racial and gender discrimination.

The most interesting part of the story is that Dopdi Mejhen is

portrayed as an illiterate, uneducated tribal woman. Yet she
leads the politicized life amongst all because she is engaged in
an armed struggle for the rights and freedom of the tribal people.
Draupadi, or Dopdi as her name appears in dialect, is a rebel,
hunted down by the government in their attempt to overcome
these groups.

The government uses all forces available to them, including

kidnapping murder, and rape, and any tribal deaths in custody
are invariably ‘accidents’

Draupadi and her husband Dulna are on the ‘most wanted’ list

in West Bengal. They murder wealthy landlords to claim wells
and tube-wells which are their main sources of water in the
village. They fight for their right to basic means of nourishment.

Dulna is eventually gunned down by policemen; however

Draupadi manages to escape and begins to operate helping
fugitives who have murdered corrupt property owners and
landlords, escape. She tactfully misleads the cops who are on her
trail, so that the fugitives’ campsite remains a secret.
However, she is finally caught and kept in police custody. This
is where the story actually begins.

Over the course of a few days, Draupadi is repeatedly raped,

deprived of food and water and tortured by multiple officers
who state that their orders to “make her” have come from their
Bade Sahib, officer Senanayak, in charge of her case.

The Senanayak, an officer appointed by the Government to

capture Draupadi and stop her activities. The Senanayak the
military official, is a senseless, cruel officer for whom murders,
assaults, counter-assaults and sadistic tortures on the tribal
activists reaches a point where if anyone is captured, their
eyeballs, intestines, stomachs, hearts, genitals and so on become
the food of fox, vulture, hyena, wild cat, ant and worm.

After days, the policemen take her back to the tent and tell her to
clothe herself, because it is time for her to meet Senanayak. As
the guard pushes a bucket of water forward, for her to wash
herself, she laughs, throws the water down and tears the piece of
cloth on her body. She proceeds to walk out of her tent, towards
Senanayak, naked and with her head held high.

Senanayak is taken aback and quickly turn away his eyes from
her body. She walks right up to him, hands on her hips

When Senanayak asks where her clothes are, she replies angrily,
that clothes were useless because once she was stripped, she
could not be clothed again. She spits on Senanayak with disgust
She pushes Senanayak with her exposed breasts and for the first
time, he is afraid to counter an unarmed woman.
In that moment, though Draupadi has no weapons, she uses her
body as her greatest weapon. The body which was abused,
tortured and seen as the cause of her downfall becomes the very
weapon with which she stands up for herself.

She refuses to let them take advantage of her emotions, even

though she has been physically assaulted. Draupadi realizes that
raping women does not make the male species ‘masculine’.

In fact, it neutralizes the very purpose. Here Mahasweta Devi

presents Draupadi as a strong female character, transgressing
sexual orientation and social standards. The story ends with a
magnificent final scene in which she faces her abusers, naked
and bloody, but fiercely strong.