SPATIAL CONFIGURATION AND SILENCING OF FEMALE SUBALTERN IN MAHASWETA DEVI’S 'THE WITCH-HUNT' (Pages 79-92) by Dr. Anjani Sharma in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Spatial configuration in Mahasweta Devi’s subaltern narratives is closely related to the interlocked dominant-dominated existential fault-line of their inhabitants. In the story that I have taken up for analysis Mahasweta Devi conceptualizes the community/ village life of the subalterns in terms of a series of inside-outside divisions. As the plot of the story The Witch-Hunt unfolds the underlying socio-political matrix of this spatial division become palpable. At the macro level, all the native people, Dushad-Gangu-Oraon-Munda vis-à-vis the mainstream middleclass or the non-natives/ outsiders, mark themselves as insiders. And the relation between the two, despite their close physical proximity, is governed by suspicion and mistrust. The appropriation of subaltern space by the dominant classes affects the subaltern viciously. In my paper I shall discuss how this viciousness manifests itself in three forms. Though the tribal community as a whole is endangered, it is the woman who invariably faces the impact of the threat twice. She finds her space and her movements further restricted within the society already circumscribed by mainstream bulldozing. The suspicion and sanctions are directed more brutally towards her than towards her male counterparts. It is through Somri’s tale in The Witch-Hunt that Mahasweta Devi poignantly exposes and mounts a scathing attack on the bias that inheres in women’s gendered location dented by dual patriarchal onslaught. Somri’s deafness and mental retardation, and her molestation and deliberate demonization symbolically capture the forced silence, insubordination and commodification of women. Keywords: Mahasweta Devi, Space, Violence, Subaltern, Women, Witch-Hunt.