Birthday Tribute to the Great Indian Writer, Mahasweta Devi

Dear Steemians,

Some people study harder and move to a foreign country to earn money and also make their home country proud with their achievements, lets call these people from category 1. There are some other people who also study well and continue to stay back in their home country to work on the issues they have seen around them, lets call these people category 2.

Mahasweta Devi, an Indian writer, social activist and political activist belongs to category 2. As today is her 92^nd Birthday, I think this post will be a tribute to her authoring and her social service to the people of Indian states of West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

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Mahasweta Devi was born in Decca in British India (now the Dhaka in Bangladesh) to writer and social service parents Manish Ghatak and Dharitri Devi.

She completed her initial schooling in Dhaka and after India's partition in 1947, their family moved to West Bengal and continues her studies in Midnapore and Culcutta(now known as Kolkata). She got to study in Shantiniketan and then Visva Bharati University, both are visions of Dr. Rabindranath Tagore, well known Indian poet and author and Nobel Prize winner for Literature.

After her graduation in B.A (Hons) in English and post graduation M.A in English, she started writing novels and short stories in Bengali, her native language, but later worked on translations of her works into other languages as well.

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Her first novel Jansir Rani (based on biography of famous Indian freedom fighter Jhansi Rani Laxmibai) was published in 1956. A notable point here is that, Mahasweta Devi traveled to the Jhansi region in Uttar Pradesh state and gathered information about Jhansi Rani from records, focal songs and by discussing with the local people of Jhansi.

Her other notable works include Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali, Aranyer Adhikar, Agnigarbha, Murti to name a few.

Most of her novels have been used for making films in Hindi, Bengali and other languages.

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Besides authoring, Mahasweta Devi was part of many social service activities such as raising her voice for the tribal people of Jharkhand and Nandigram Agitation against failure of the then Communist Party government to acquire land for Special Economic Zone.

She has been a recipient of many National and International Awards.

She received the highest Indian literary Award "Jnanpith Award" from the then visiting South African President Nelson Mandela.

She received Sahitya Academy Award in 1979 for her Bengali literary works, SAARC literary Award in 2007, Banga Bibhushan, highest civilian award from Government of West Bengal in 2011.

Indian highest civilian awards Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan in 1986 and 2006 respectively.

Her International awards include Ramon Magsaysay Award - Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts in 1997 for her contribution to art and activism to help tribal people, Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France Government.

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She was a bigger influence on the people of West Bengal in particular and people of India as a whole. It's just fitting for me to pay a tribute to Mahasweta Devi on her Birthday.

Thank you all for reading. Wishing you all great Weekend.

References:
wikipedia.org