This novel shows the lives of the underdogs - the Lachhimas, the Rukmanis, the Mohors and the Haroas - as a contrast to the lives of their all-powerful overlords - the Medinis and Ganeshes. Mahasweta Devi's corrosive humour and cryptic style are at their best as she takes on issues of agrarian land relations, inter-caste violence, so-called rural development and the position of women in rural India. This novel is considered one of Devi's most important works.
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Mahasweta Devi is one of India's foremost writers. Her powerful, satiric fiction has won her recognition in the form of the Sahitya Akademi (1979), Jnanpith (1996) and Ramon Magsaysay (1996) awards, amongst several other literary honours.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
In the socialist realism mode,
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This review is from: Glory of Sri Sri Ganesh (Hardcover)
This novel is set in Barha, an Indian village like many others, where Rajput Maliks rule with an oppressive hand over the lower castes: kharidi subjects (bonded labour), bhangis and others - forest people and adivasis hover at the margin. Their women are used for home service, but also as concubines. The lines are deeply drawn, so everyone knows his place. Spying, violence, and lack of recourse against injustice secure order from above. It is a totally oppressive system, in which the majority sedulously toils for the elite. The story is poignant in that it shows how the descendants of slaves somehow identify with this system, and voluntarily do their best under impossible and hopeless circumstances.
Lachima is "mortgaged" young by her grandmother to bring up Sri Ganesh, the newborn son of a widowed Malik, and to "press his feet" in the evening. As the boy grows up, her life is wrapped up in this task. Her promised husband is chased away. When age sets in for her, and Sri Ganesh has grown up and married, Lachima is just let go. To save herself from sexual harassement she marries Haroa, a hard-working slave of Sri Ganesh. The story is set as independent India begins to intrude into the village. Things stir, and people from outside intrude just as the violent temper of Sri Ganesh tries to assert his absolute power in ever more brutal fashion. Repeated clashes between Sri Ganesh and the lower castes bring matters to head: after Sri Ganesh kills Haroa, Sri Ganesh meets his fate at the hand of both Lachima and the bhangis. The novel is written in the socialist realism mode. The underdogs are all upright, generous to a fault if hapless in confronting power, the elite is effete or oppressive, and the outsiders are ineffectual, corrupt, or both. Neither the Gandhi Mission, nor government officials, will liberate the oppressed. Only revolution, at the village level, will bring break the fetters. This trope makes for a lot of cardboard characters and predictable clichés that detract from the truth of the villagers' condition.
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