Two Awards, Two Authors, Two Activists

But wait, what have we here? Mahasweta also told a journalist, who firstinformed her of the award (not a state official), that there were other peoplemore deserving and also that she’d "like the same amount of cooperation fromthe government to help achieve [her] objective of ensuring the welfare oftribals". Not one to mince words even at 81, is she?

In fact, the recent furore over Arundhati Roy declining the Sahitya Akademiaward (non-fiction) must seem embarrassing for Mahasweta, who’s got a bagfulof them. She received the Akademi (for fiction, Aranyer Adhikar) in 1979,Padmashree in 1984, the Bharatiya Jnanpith in 1996 and the Magsaysay in 1997,the officer desarts et des lettrea (officer of arts and literature),France's second highest civilian award, in 2003. And now, the second highestcivilian award, the Padma Vibhushan from a government that she thinks has notonly not done anything for tribal people but also evicts them with alacritywhenever it needs a piece of their land.

The comparisons between Arundhati and Mahasweta are inevitable. Both work forthe voiceless people and have a large body of non-fiction, and both are known aswriter-activists, though one likes to be so addressed and the other says theterm makes her flinch.And yet, it is one of those ironies, that while one's activism makes the waves,the other soldiers on, away from media spot-light.

Ask any one, or at least the readers of what is called IWE, and they wouldknow what activist Arundhati Roy's causes are (even if they, unfortunately,never get debated or dwelt on in each furore her every action is greeted by), but a mention of Mahasweta Devi'sname still gets quizzical and confused raising of eyebrows. So perhaps the bareessentials. need to be stated: Mahasweta Devi, apart from being an acclaimedwriter, has toiled almost all her life trying to get denotified tribals --primarily the Kheria Shabar community of Purulia, the Lodhas of Midnapore andthe tribals in Chhotanagpur -- a better life and knowledge of basic humanrights. Teaching them how to farm fish, for instance, or get admitted to aschool, how to file an FIR, pick up some income-earning activity, and so on. For20 years now, she’s been editing a magazine called Bortika (the lamp)where the writing is primarily by tribals. The Magsaysay award citation put itin a nutshell: "For her compassionate crusade through art and activism toclaim for tribal peoples a just and honourable place in India's national life.''

Every one perhaps works differently for the causes they espouse. Some seek tobringattention to them by stirring up a debate in the media and some go out of theirway to stay away from the limelight so that they can carry on with the work theyhave chosen to do. Arundhati’s opinion of the Akademi may or may not be justified. But it isdefinitely shared by many including the half a dozen writers who have refused anAkademi award in the past. Perhaps even by Mahasweta.

But then, Mahasweta wouldn’tbelieve in passivity or rejection, but action. She herself had no objection whena band of Left-leaning writers put up her name as a presidential candidate forthe Akademi three years ago. She lost to Gopi Chand Narang who claimed hiselection as a victory of "real secularists over pseudo-secularists". U RAnanthamurthy, one of her leading supporters, said later that Mahasweta put hername up only "to defend the freedom of writers. These are difficult times (theBJP rule) and she would have taken a principled stand". As she had herselfsaid in 1997 talking to us: "These are difficult times, these are the times towork." And she worked behind the scenes, getting prominent citizens tointervene and write to the President when Gujarat burned in 2002.

Indeed, Mahasweta’s life gives lie to the award-snobbery that exists amongintellectuals all over the world; the belief that awards, especially stateawards, are politically motivated and mostly go to the undeserving. Gujaratilitterateur Suresh Joshi felt Sahitya Akademi award had no cultural value. SisirBhaduri, doyen of Bengali theatre, had refused the Padma Vibhushan citing tworeasons. The first was on principle: he felt state awards merely help create a sycophanticbrigade. The second was personal: by accepting, he did not want to encourage theimpression that the government was serious about the importance of theatre innational life. Probably the most controversial event in Jean Paul Sartre’svery politicised and exciting life was his refusal to accept the Nobel awardedby "the bourgeois society".

Yet anti-bourgeois or communist sentiments are not enough to be disdainful ofawards or even, as painter Claude Monet wanted, "to be really undeserving".Mikhai Sholokov called the Nobel an imperialist award when Boris Pasternak wasnamed (he refused), but didn’t have any problem accepting it when he himselfwas awarded with it a few years later. The Magsaysay award carries a lot ofprestige in Asia and has gone to some very genuine names who obviously don’tassociate the award with Ramon Magsaysay, the former Philippine president whohad brutally put out a farmers’ movement with US help. In the media hullabaloo that has followed Arundhati’srefusal, it is important not to lose sight of the real issue: it is not whorejected (a beautiful and intelligent woman who earned one of the biggestadvances in publishing history and likes to court arrest), but why.

What writers hold dearest is their freedom of expression and Roy deservesrespect for standing up for what she believes in. It’s a choice that she hasmade. Fortunately, unlike the tribals and the dispossessed that she fights for,she has always had the freedom to make the choice. So have we. As Mahaswetasays: "Independence is for our class. I belong to a privileged class. We havegot education and everything. I am getting prizes. What have the tribals got?Nothing." When the camera or the recorder stops rolling at the protester or theprotest, it is perhaps time to question if that that freedom and that preciousprivilege is getting wasted. In the abysmalsilence of ignorance and apathy among the educated, something that Mahasweta hasregretted all her life, even the smallest action counts.