Multiple Subalternity of Women
as Witch: A Postcolonial Reading of Mahasweta Devi’s “Bayen”
Dr. Biswajit Choudhury
ABSTRACT
Witching-hunting is a camouflage. Women are
subalternized as witch to maintain women in economic and social
subjugation, to exploit them sexually and to wrest property from
their families. In the play Bayen, Mahasweta Devi’s heroine
Chandidasi is a victim of multiple subalternity. She is socially
excluded from the community. Social exclusion and subalternity are
the two sides of the same coin. As a subaltern she speaks of her
words but there is none to listen to her words. She could not create
any discourse before the powerful patriarchal hegemony. This
research article shows that women are easy targets in labeling them
as a witch because of patriarchal hegemony and multiple subalternity
which adivasi women face in postcolonial Indian society. The
mechanism of witchcraft accusation and its resultant torture and
social exclusion are the politics of neo-colonial feudal lords like
Gourdas to rule over the adivasi belt in India. Such postcolonial
intruders like Gourdas in the lives of adivasi create obstacles for
the upliftment of adivasi for their narrow vested interest.
Chandidasi is branded a witch by the master plan of Gourdas. This
article also shows that Mahasweta Devi creates enabling
circumstances through the setting of her play in which female
subaltern ultimately speaks. It is only with her death that
Chandidasi speaks or creates discourse. It is a great loss for our
society. If she had been given chance to speak in her life, the
society as a whole would have been benefitted. With her death,
Chandidasi rises above her multiple subalternity; and patriarchal
society accepts her as a superior human being capable of doing
something great or noble which masculine gender would have never
been able to execute.
Key words: subaltern, witch, patriarchy, discourse, social exclusion
