Narrative Radicalism as Strategy of Representing the Unrepresented: Analyzing Mahashweta Devi’s Douloti the Bountiful as a Subaltern Text Swathy College

Douloti the Bountiful is one of the three short stories in Mahashweta Devi’s book, Imaginary Map which delves into the unglamorous lives and unattended issues of tribal life in India. The novella conjoins the evil practice of bonded labor and violation of woman in the postcolonial political milieu of India. It narrates the story of Douloti, daughter of an Adivasi bond slave Ganori Nagesia. To relive his debt to the landlord of his village, Nagesia buys off Douloti at a price of three hundred rupees leading her to end up as a prostitute. The story closes in the death of Douloti at a young age of twenty seven, plagued with infection and venereal disease, the same day when India is celebrating the remembrance of her Independence.

Having volunteered for the empowerment of tribal communities in Bengal, Devi acquired a firsthand knowledge about the tribes and tribal life of India. She makes you of this knowledge to let the reader glimpse at the subaltern heterogeneity, the voluminous history and diversity they possess, in the novella. Post-colonial Indian government branded these people to a single label named ‘scheduled tribes’ forgoing their diverse cultural, linguistic and regional variations. She mentions a significant number of...