Mahasweta Devi’s Rudali: A Saga of Subalterns’ Struggle and Survival

Abstract

In her famous essay " Can the subaltern speak?" Gayatri  Chakravorty Spivak observes that....." the subaltern as a female is much more profoundly in darkness than subaltern males". But Mahasweta Devi's Dalit and tribal women decide to come out of this darkness, they subvert and deconstruct Spivak's  notion of subalternity. All of her subaltern characters such as Jashoda, Douloti, Gangor, Sanichari, Bikhni etc. are victims of exploitative regional, social and economic power structures. Still they refuse to surrender and like Hemingway' s Santiago emerge as  invincible warriors. They prove that subaltern women in Mahasweta Devi can be destroyed but can't be defeated.