Mahasweta Devi: Short Stories Lesson Plan

What is interesting about the following acts, committed by Dopdi and Dulna, as they are listed in the police dossier?: “Murdering Surja Sahu and his son, occupying upper-caste wells and tubewells during the drought…” What can we learn from this excerpt about the issues that characterize[define] the climate of West Bengal at the time Dopdi and Dulna acted and incited the retaliation of the army? How are these issues reflected as themes throughout the rest of the story?

Students may argue that this question may only be fully answered after reading the whole story, since at the time this excerpt is introduced, we don’t know who Surja Sahu is and we only have the picture of...