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Tribal Life Reflected in Kishor Kale’s Against All Odds and Gopinath Mohanty’s Paraja |
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Dr. Jaysing Babar
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Shahu College
Pune, Maharashtra, India
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DOI: Chapter ID: 17321 |
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Introduction Inequality
and discrimination are the two major factors reflected in Indian society and
represented by the Indian writers in their writings. We can observe the
division of the society into two groups higher and lower. The classification of
people based on caste and gender is an oppressive formation that leads to
unequal socio-economic privileges. So, the higher class discriminate lower one
on the basis of their caste and class, later on keep them at margin and the
process of marginalization and oppression of weaker sections of the society
starts from that point Most
of the marginalized sections in the society all over the world have gone
through similar kinds of oppressive structure in their respective society.
Tribal community in India have experienced inhuman treatment and oppression at
the hands of higher class for hundreds of years. According to Vilfredo Parento,
the higher class in society succeeded in each sphere of life. He observes that
“The elite is a small number of individuals who in each sphere of activity have
succeeded and arrived at a higher echelon in the professional hierarchy.” The
present chapterendeavors to investigate the exploitation of tribals in
societywith reference to the Kishor Kale’s Against All Odds and Gopinath
Mohanty’s Paraja. If we consider Kolhati and Paraja communities in
relation with exploitation, oppression and marginalization in their respective
societies, they have undergone almost the same kind of mental, physical,
psychological turmoil and have been a part of humiliation, torture,
exploitation, inferior status, disgrace, pain, sufferings, and discrimination
on the basis of caste and class. The authors like Kishor Kale, Joseph Macwan.
Arundhati Roy, Gopinath Mohanty, SharankumarLimbale, etc tries to pen down their
sufferings and pain through their writings to the world. The present
chapter explores the dilemma of the tribals through factual description
and bringing into light the plight of being tribals, Kishor Kale and Gopinath
Mohanty have shown to what end the social system became violent and
oppressive towards the tribal communities. Kolhati
Community Kolhati
is a nomadic tribe travelled from Rajasthan and settled in Maharashtra. To
perform acrobatic acts was their business for their early livelihood but soon
they turned to the most lucrative business of dance, which is popularly known
as ‘Lavani’ Maharashtra. The girls and women of the community were trained in
dance and music, and then forced to entertain men and earn money whereas the
men in community lived their life on earnings of their womenfolk. ‘Tamasha’ is
a folk dance which can be performed privately and publicly to please the rich
and wealthy customers. A Kolhati woman has to accept the will and wishes of
their client. Time and again, Kolhati women have to sale out
themselves or to fulfil the sexual desires of their rich clients for money.
These women can deliver their babies but their children would be considered as
illegitimate, since they are not legal wives of their clients. Kishor Shantabai
Kale writes how he is considered an illegitimate son of tamasha dancer and he
has given his mother’s name as he did not know who his father is. It is very
tragic that they don’t have a right to select their husband and also
profession. Paraja Community ‘Paraja’
is a largest tribe from Odisha migrated from Madhya Pradesh. As compared with
the other tribes Parajas have some cultural differences especially in respect
of their settlement pattern, dress, ornament and family system as well. Their
mother tongue is ‘Porji’ which is a form of Gondi belonging to the Dravidian
family. Their main occupation is hill cultivation in the forest. Kolhati Community reflected in the novel Against All Odds by Kishor Kale Women
in the Kolhati community are sold by their own father and brother for money
which is very shocking. Born as a girl in the Kolhati community is welcomed in
the family, but this is a curse for a woman because they have to dance in
Tamasha against their will. The men in the family consider any labour below their
dignity. They just live on the basis of money earned by the women of the
family. Women are given no part of their earning. They are forced be a puppet
in the hands of men. Kale writes, “The Kolhati Community forces its women to
dance to attract male attention. Young, teenage virgins are given to men in a
ceremony called ‘chirautarana’ with all the trappings of a wedding, but none of
its sanity. The man pays a prefixed price for her virginity. As long as he
visits her, she does not dance on stage and does not see any other man. But if
she is abandoned by the man, she has to go back to the stage and earn money
which is appropriated by her father and brothers” (AAO 4-5). The
novel opens with a heartbreaking story of Lakshmi and her children, who runs
from her in-laws house to get rid of the miserable and helpless life there. To
make matters worse she comes in contact with Krushna Kolhati, who brings them
to his house and she becomes his second wife. Though they are from the Sali
community, Gangaram and Jiji receive training in the traditional occupations of
the Kolhatis. He sends her with the troupes of Kolhatis to dance, which makes
her a popular Tamasha dancer. Madhavrao Patil, a rich landlord, watches her
performance on the stage and is passionate towards Jiji. He tells Krushna
Kolhati that he likes his daughter. He asked, “What will you take in exchange
for her?” (AAO 06). Shrewd Krushna agrees to let Jiji live with him because of
his assurance that he will give him a house and twenty-five acres of land in
the village. The
tragic and painful life of Shantabai is shown in the novel. The novelist gives
a detailed estimation of her life that is sexual exploitation, physical and
psychological harassment etc. She started her career as a dancer in tamasha.
She was a favourite child of Madhavrao Patil, who enrolled her at the local
school. She was a bright student, who wanted to learn and become a teacher but
her father denied this and enrolled her for dance classes. Her marriage was
fixed with an officer but it was cancelled by her own father for the dance.
Shanta looked an extremely attractive girl, so Kondiba determined that she
would have to earn for the family. Though he was the father, he made a plan to
cheat the groom. He sent Shalan, a dark and plain girl into the ‘Mandap’
instead of Shanta and then ruined her life by forcing her to dance in tamasha. Her
father beat Shanta until she gave in, and then sent her off to Chandrakalabai’s
tamasha party. She suffered a lot because the audience did not appreciate her
dance as she was not an excellent dancer but a good singer. Many of the
spectators try to hold and press her hand while dancing. She is abducted at
Manvat by the village dada who lusted after her and walked off into dark field.
So she is scared and aghast by this way of life. Kondiba does not like Shanta
to stay at home though she tells him of her troubles in the tamasha party but
for him daughters are money-making machines. A
high weight politician sees Shanta’s performance and falls in love with her. He
asks Kondiba for her and gets ready to pay for her virginity. She is given to
him with all the ceremony of ‘chirautarna’, the Kolhati ritual of selling a
virgin girl. This ceremony is conducted against her will. As per Kolhati
tradition, he becomes Shanta’s husband even though she is not ready to marry
him. Now he becomes her ‘Kaja’ or ‘yejman’, her master. On the first day, a
room is well decorated and teenager Shanta is handed over to him with much
rejoicing. Kishor writes that, “The first man in Kolhati girl’s life had to pay
her family a certain amount of money or agrees to pay it over a fixed period of
time. The money may be paid in cash, gold or land. On the first night Shanta
was dressed in rich red sari, gold jewellery, and a mangalsutra and even toe
rings - just like a bride” (AAO 15).As long as yajman visits her, she cannot
keep any kind of relationship with another man as per their tradition. A few
months later, she gets pregnant and the climax of her tragic life starts after
this. Kondiba refuses to send Shanta with him, not because he cares for his
daughter but because he doesn’t want to lose his most gifted child. Meanwhile
her master stops to visit her and leave her alone. She starts living her life
of a neglected woman with an unwanted baby growing in her womb. Tamasha dancer
knows when she gives up singing and dancing for a man who visits her for few
days and leaves her and disappears. Kale rightly says that, “Like a worn-out
piece of clothing she would be discarded…..like a flower that has lost its
fragrance, we are thrown out” (AAO 29-30). When
Kishor is about two months old, Shantabai rejoins a Jalsa party and Jiji
accompanies her to look after Kishor. Shantabai has no time to breast-feed her
child. Kishor puts it as, “I was only about two months old when Bai (as I and
everyone else in Nerla called my mother) rejoined the jalsa party. This time,
Jiji also accompanied Bai to look after me... Bai had no time to spare for me.
All night she was on stage singing and dancing, all day she rested and dealt
with the men who visited group’s rooms. A tamasha dancer has no time for her
own children. Bai often had no time even to breast-feed me. Jiji used to get
some milk in a bowl, dip a piece of cloth in it and squeeze the drops into my
mouth or let me suck on the cloth” (AAO 18). Once
jalsa party is at Sangli and a landowner, Dada of Sangli watches Shantabai’s
performance and gets impressed. So, he goes to Jiji and demands Shantabai. She
asks to allow her to live with him. Jiji politely says that she will ask her
father about this. They decide to leave Sangli as early as possible. A
landowner threatens and asks them to, “Send Shantabai to me for at least one
night, he said, or else I will kidnap her and then you won’t find any trace of
her ever again” (AAO 20). Shanta gets scared and worried due to his demand. She
runs from Sangli with Jiji and Kishor. Kondiba
sends his younger daughter Susheela in the jalsa party for training because she
is very beautiful. She turns to be the best dancer and impresses her audience a
lot with her performance. They approach Jiji demanding her to be allowed to
live with them as their mistress. She refuses their idea of living with her
because she has awful experience of Shanta, who is abandoned after being a
pregnant twice. SopanraoGolegaonkar from Selu, who has no children, is
impressed by the beauty of young Susheela. He approaches to Jiji and offers to
pay whatever she wants for her. It is very hearth-touching that her father
Kondiba does not agree with this proposal because he does not want to stop her
dancing. Finally, she is given to him when he agrees to pay whatever Kondiba
demands for her virginity. He performs the ‘chirautarna’ ceremony of Susheela
and she becomes his mistress. Paraja Community reflected in the novel Paraja by Gopinath Mohanty The
title of the Gopinath Mohanty’s novel ‘Paraja’ is taken from the tribe from
Odisha named as a ‘Paraja’.Paraja is the Mohanty’s remarkable and well-known
work about the exploitation of Paraja community. The novel is set in the
village from Odisha called Sarsupadar. Domb and Paraja are the inhabitant of
Sarsupadar village. Mohanty rightly pointed out how the corrupt government
officials and money lenders from the village exploits the ‘Paraja’ community
illegally. It is very heart touching that the government officer hatches the
plot against the protagonist Sukru Jani and harasses him for no reason. The
local forest guard asks sukru Jani to send his daughter to him for a night.
When Sukru Jani refuses to do so, the forest guard out of anger, imposes a
heavy fine on them for illegal felling of trees and later imposes fine on his
son Mandia on charges of brewing illicit liquor. The novel also reveals the
plight of two young girls Jili and Bili from the family and how they are sexually
exploited by the powerful class in the society. Jili
and Bili started their job as a worker but The Supervisor takes a fancy to
Jili. Rami a resident of Champi village works for the supervisor and she takes
the initiative in helping the supervisor meet his wants. Bili too follows in
Jili’s footsteps and the supervisor and other young men give presents to the
two girls in exchange for sexual favours. The gifts are in the form of coins,
saris, cakes of perfumed soap, scented oil, beads and rings. Life is full of
work, dance, song and little assets. This incident from the novel shows how the
yougng girls of Sukru Jani suffers and exploited.It is rightly observed “The
main character Sukru Jani is not merely the primitive tribesman ensnared by the
predatory moneylender from the city he he is quintessential man, waging heroic
but futile war against a hostile universe, struggling ceaselessly to accept and
adjust” (Safvan 3) When
the TheSahukar meets Jili, he starts desiring her and then one evening Jili is
rounded up by Madhu Ghasi who used to come with the Sahukar’s proposal and
presents, and who takes her to what used to be the young men’s
dormitory. She accepts Sahukars proposal and her night outs become a
regular phenomenon. It is Kau Paraja who discovers that Jili visits the
Sahukar’s house and in utter frustration Kau Paraja informs Sukru Jani about
it. Sukru Jani is furious and throws Jili out of his house. Jili has no place
to go to and no one to turn to except the Sahukur and his house.The Sahukar
cleverly proposes marriage to Jili and pays the bride price to Sukru Jani, but
Sukru Jani is not ready to accept the situation. Meanwhile, Jili adjusts
herself to her new house. For a few days the Sahukar plays the role of the
infatuated lover and then decides to leave Jili behind and go back to his
village. He sweet talks her into taking care of everything, making her feel
important in unfamiliar surroundings i.e. at Kadamjholla where she lives with
the Sahukar, and where she is actually lonely and unhappy. She cannot even
understand the Kondh dialect. The relationship of Jili with the male characters
in the novel tells quite a few things about the position of women among the
Parajas. Conclusion In
both the novel, it is observed that the class in power exploits the weaker
section of the society especially women. Shanta, Sushila, Jiji, Jili and Bili
are sexually as well as mentally exploited in their respective society. Neither
their parents nor society gives the respect. They are just puppets in the hands
of men in the society. Paraja and Kolhati community does not gain respect in
the society. Kishor Kale and Gopinath Mohanty rightly tries to find out the
sufferings, pain, oppression of Kolhati and Paraja community respectively. References
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