The Hindu : National : "Poor need to be empowered"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 27, 2006

National

National

"Poor need to be empowered"

Special Correspondent

Mahasweta Devi dedicates award to tribals

KOLKATA : "Even till now India is not truly independent. It will be so only when the poor have been empowered and been ensured their minimum human rights," Padma Vibhushan awardee, novelist and social activist Mahasweta Devi, said here on Thursday.

"I will not say that I am swept off my feet on being chosen for the award even though I am mighty proud. I dedicate this award to the tribals I have been fighting for nearly all my life," she said in an exclusive interview to The Hindu.

"I am not exactly overwhelmed. It's [the award] come so it's come. I am around 80 years old and have been through many ups and downs in life. But this is certainly a national honour." Ms. Devi is among the nine persons to be conferred the second highest civilian honour in the country.

She has devoted much of her life to the cause of the poor who include tribals and to her writings about them. "I try to work to improve the lot of the poor — whether tribal or non-tribal and am perhaps instrumental in launching an all-India movement against the criminalisation of the so-called denotified nomadic and non-nomadic tribes. "I have dedicated my life to them — tribals who are in a very bad way," the 1997 Magsaysay Awardee said.

"We have submitted an appeal to the Prime Minister very recently to do justice towards the denotified tribals and help in removing the stigma that is still haunting them," she said.

"My fight is against the criminalisation of tribes — those who have lost their land and livelihood and whose condition worsened with their denotification by the authorities."

Among those who have suffered the most "this criminalisation" are the Lodhas of Midnapore district [in south-west West Bengal], according to Ms. Devi. Her literary mission is to "write the history of the people by searching the blank spaces between the lines."

"The main offenders in the criminalisation of the tribes are the police as well as the general community. It is they who talk of tribes like the Lodhas as `born criminals'... Can you think of anything more heinous?" she asked.

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