“Writing from the Margins: Ekalavya Speaks, A Collection of Poems by Sanjukta Dasgupta” by Nandini Sahu
Sanjukta Dasgupta’s poetry book Eklavya Speaks describes the comprehensive story of the subaltern character Eklavya, outlined in the theoretical contexts of colonial and post-colonial discourses, highlighting themes of exclusion, resistance, agency and exploitation in the hierarchical social system of ancient India. This research re-explains Eklavya as a symbol of subaltern revolution, engaging with protest literature and challenging oppressive systems embedded in class and caste, while sustaining the existence and empowerment of disadvantaged individuals. Considering Eklavya as a subaltern voice, one must decode his account in the construction of colonial and post-colonial studies, highlighting the narratives of marginalized entities. Sanjukta Dasgupta examines Eklavya’s assertion on his silencing, the ensuing resistance, the subsequent exploitation, and Eklavya’s representation as a figure of contest with power structure in modern literary discourses. Eklavya, a character from the Mahabharata, is significantly scrutinized from various analytical stand points owing to the complex ethical and social problems innate in this narrative. Caste-based prejudice is one of the main topics in Eklavya’s story. Because of his caste status, Eklavya is immobilized to gain access to formal education and training, leading him to learn archery from a distance, primarily, self-learnig. Dronacharya, the royal guru, rejected him due to his caste , accentuating the social hierarchies faced by disadvantaged individuals in ancient India. Ethical analysis of Eklavya’s choice of thumb (his teacher’s fee) as Guru Dakshina to Dronacharya has always been a subject of creative literature. Eklavya’s blind devotion to his guru is admirable, but writers and critics contend that his path of sacrifice was forced and unfair. Dronacharya’s demand for Eklavya’s thumb as a condition for his teaching, knowing well that Eklavya’s skill posed a threat to his favourite pupil Arjun, raises questions about the ethical responsibilities of teachers and the power dynamics in the teacher-student relationship. Eklavya’s story also raises questions about the meritocratic ideas of the teacher and taught. As Eklavya is not of the warrior class, he is not able to achieve recognition and validation despite his unresolved aptitude and perseverance. It juxtaposes the ideas of meritocracy, that anyone with the right skills and dedication can succeed in life, with a rigid caste system based on the status one is born into. That is the moot point in the poetry collection Ekalavya Speaks by contemporary Indian poet Sanjukta Dasgupta.
As a fellow poet of Sanjukta and certainly as a critic, I would prefer to read the collection Ekalavya Speaks and decipher Eklavya’s story by the routes of colonial and post-colonial theories. Eklavya is a symbol of those subaltern and underprivileged voiceless people on whom elitism has imposed a broad social structure that has completely subjugated them. Eklavya’s story serves as a critique on the domination of indigenous people and colonialism’s continuing impacts on local traditions. This poetry collection is a timely commentary considering the present state of marginalized people in post-colonial societies. The tragic grandeur of his character is now revered as a heroic figure who combines loyalty, selflessness and an unyielding spirit through adversity. For his guru’s dignity, sacrificing his own success and security, upholding principles of utmost dignity in the face of injustice, Eklavya indeed ‘speaks’. These multilayered representations can be read as opening up an under-explored and perhaps unexplored ground for the perception and compensation of Eklavya’s identity, and his focus in the larger ambit of Mahabharata narrative, at the same time bringing forth timeless questions of caste, ethics, volition, world order and justice in hierarchy. Keeping that in mind, through these opening statements, Sanjukta maps the book’s overarching theme to trace:
“In my 9th book of poems titled Ekalavya Speaks I have tried to address these issues of intersectionality with special focus on caste and gender discrimination. The poem ‘Ekalavya Speaks’ perhaps defines the purpose, perspectives, resilience and relevance of Ekalavya in our times. Many of the poems in this volume address the deep-rooted prevalence of systemic marginalization of citizens of our country, based on caste, class, gender and religion, among others. Othering is the unifying theme in this volume of 100 poems, though some of the poems do not typically focus on issues of discrimination and ostracism.” (Dasgupta 12)… The well-known Mahabharata tale of Ekalavya, a black, low-caste boy whose prowess at archery rivalled that of the Pandavas, the noble heroes, may also have inspired the myth of the weavers’ thumbs. To preserve the Pandavas’ dominance as archers, Ekalavya’s teacher insisted that he amputate his right thumb. ‘An interesting parallel between Ekalavya and Karna, an illegitimate child abandoned by his Kshatriya mother and brought up by a charioteer. Like Ekalavya, Karna finds that his lower caste disqualifies him from an archery contest with Arjuna, again under Drona’s aegis;…”(Dasgupta 9)…‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ Spivak’s rhetorical question initiated a paradigmatic shift leading to the emergence of the visible and vocal subaltern on the centre stage, spectacularly pole vaulting from the remote peripheries. The subaltern did not just speak after centuries of silence, the subaltern made her/himself heard. This game changing transformation revolutionised all the deeply entrenched discourse of pride and prejudice, hate and discrimination towards the ‘other’ who were at the receiving end of an often violent and cruel systemic marginalization. In this collection, the received ‘otherization’ of the subaltern who could never be one of ‘us’ has now been interrogated, deconstructed and redefined.” (Dasgupta 10) With this discourse in her cognizance and this fire in her soul, she pens down Ekalavya’s heartrending poem thus:
EKALAVYA SPEAKS
“Respected, Honorable Sir
I have travelled a long way
I have practiced night and day
As the wise say
“Practice makes perfect”
You saw the arrow leave my bow
Faster than any flash of light
Faster, Swifter, Speedier
Sir, I wished to make you happy
I wished to tell you
I worshipped you
As others worship God.
Sir, you were the God
Whom I worshipped from afar
You were the God whose image
I sat on the mound as my guide
Sir, though we had not met
I knew in my heart
Only you, and no one else
Could be my friend,
Philosopher and guide
Sir, I saw you from afar
Shining like a sword in the sun
Surrounded by the five Princes
The Pandavas, the invincible offspring
Of privilege and birthright
I stood behind a tree
Watching you with eager eyes
You had eyes for Prince Arjuna
As did the charismatic Lord Krishna
Privilege is such an accident of birth
I was born shorn of privilege
I was born to bend and cringe
I was born to suffer and cry
My being born a tribal prince
A matter of mirth and ridicule
I was born a slave they said
Slavery was my birthright
I was also born with a backbone
I was also born with a fearless mind
My head held high troubled you all
But my backbone, mind and head
Were incorrigible
They behaved Otherwise
…
‘Sir, What can I give you as gurudakshine
My revered teacher, my brilliant guide
What can I give you that a guru like you
Would consider worthy, dear Sir’
Your steady voice did not tremble at all
As you my remote guru, my inspiration
My icon, my God simply said,
“Give me your thumb Ekalavya”
No one protested, everyone watched
As with one unerring stroke
I severed my thumb
It quivered in protest,
Red with fresh flowing subaltern blood
I offered you my Gurudakshina
As you desired, how could I disobey you
My guru, my mentor and guide
You deleted me with
Such superb craft of words”
(Dasgupta 23-25)
With the same tone and tenure, Sanjukta poses a few questions to Guru Dronacharya, which are the larger questions of humanity:
DRONACHARYA : THE TEACHER OF PRINCES
“Dronacharya
The pet pedagogue
Of the king’s court
Neither a friend
Nor a philosopher
Not even a guide
Dronacharya
The glamorized bonded labour
Leashed to the regal court.”
(Dasgupta 30)
In the able hands of Sanjukta, Eklavya’s response to his marginalization demonstrates agency and resistance. He does not sit idly and accept his fate, bringing his own woes upon himself, but he seizes action, teaching himself archery, and the resilience and self-discipline he exhibits prove to be pivotal in his story. Eklavya’s evolution from a true disciple to an exploited subaltern illustrates the way caste hierarchies conspire to create injustice. As the price paid as an ugly truth, Eklavya was tormented for his devoted training and skill at archery. Instead of guidance that he sought from his teacher Dronacharya, he received betrayal. Dronacharya sought nothing of proper training of his Dalit disciple, fretted only about positioning Arjun as the undisputed champion prince of war. When Eklavya’s inborn talents threatened Arjun’s fragile ego, Dronacharya callously demanded that the price of Guru Dakshina be Eklavya’s own thumb, thereby crippling the boy and securing his favourite with violence and oppression. The story of Eklavya is one of resilience against harsh discrimination and shows that one’s worth does not arise from the arbitrary hierarchies enforced by birth but is derived from one’s spirit and inner character. The elite may seek to prove its superiority by breaking whomever they can take control of, but oppression never wholly destroys the humanity of the dispossessed. The panopticon and the counter-panopticon are at work in a multilayered way here. Eklavya’s story has not just survived as a tale of subjugation, it has survived as a reminder to every single person at the mercy of a fallacious social architecture and institutional commanders that there is a way to struggle against injustice and get dignity even when so much is done to deny dignity to the deserving. Just like those who fight for social justice and equality, Eklavya cannot be defined or contained, and rather than being moulded by an intolerant system, he rebels against the establishment. Looking at Eklavya’s story through the prism of subaltern studies can help imply about the socioeconomic stratification and its historical remnants in the process of establishment of some classes.
Sanjukta takes incidents from life, here-and-now, and writes poetry of social mobility. For example, the story of a raped girl is the point of concern for here:
“October 2nd is the birth anniversary of the Father (Bapu) of the Indian nation, freedom fighter Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. India gained Independence from British rule on 15th August, 1947. The incident happened in Ujjain Madhya Pradesh on 27rd September 2023. The accused is an auto-driver. His father in righteous indignation has disowned him. One such poem, voicing for the subaltern, the tribal,is :
“HUL: THE SANTHAL REBELLION, JUNE 30, 1855”
That was the first subaltern revolt
Bhognadih, the tribal village,
Was restless that night
No one slept, no one spoke
“Do and die” said their leaders Sidho and Kanhu
As their brothers and comrades cheered
Their rippling muscles and resolute eyes
Shone in the soft moonlit night
Ten thousand tribals, a voluntary army
Vowed to defend their ripening fields
Plundered and sucked dry
By the native mafia
And the white looters
Of the British East India Company”
(Dasgupta 47)
Sanjukta tries her hand at Dalit literature with compete social commitment:
THE CONSTITUTION MAKER: B. R. AMBEDKAR
Ambedkar, the meek Dalit boy learnt
He could not drink water
From a glass or tap while at school
Ambedkar, the Dalit boy learnt
If he touched them
They would be polluted
If they touched him
They would become impure
Ambedkar learnt the lesson of his life
So different from the books prescribed.”
(Dasgupta 49)
Sanjukta critically engages with tribal literature when she writes about “Chuni Kotal, a Dalit Adivasi woman from the tribal community of Lodha Shabars of West Bengal, was the first woman to graduate from a tribal community… Chuni enrolled as an MA student in the Dept of Anthropology in Vidyasagar University. One particular male professor, continuously abused and disparaged Kotal from the very first day. He abused her and her caste during the lectures and marked her absent even when she was present in the classes and purposely failed her by undermarking her answer scripts. On 16th August 1992, Chuni Kotal committed suicide.” (Dasgupta 54) Gender discourse in tribal literature is a rich area of study that looks into the representation of gender roles, identities and power dynamics in the tribal communities. Tribal literature reflects traditional gender roles in indigenous groups. These roles might include distinct responsibilities for men and women in areas such as hunting, gathering, childcare and decision-making. However, tribal literature also showcases the diversity of gender roles in different tribes and encounters stereotypes by depicting women in roles traditionally associated with men and vice versa, which works as the backdrop of Sanjukta’s poetry in this collection. Her kind of tribal literature challenges patriarchal norms and advocates for gender equality. Sanjukta’s contemporaries emphasize women’s contributions to their communities, question gender-based violence and discrimination and push for women’s and marginalized genders’ empowerment. Her tribal poetry examines the interwoven nature of gender with other identity questions like race, ethnicity, class and sexuality. It analyses the ways in which colonization, globalization and modernization intersect with gender to affect the experiences of indigenous people, especially indigenous women. Tribal poetry of feminism by Sanjukta encapsulates diversity, constructing varied themes such as negotiating gender roles, subversion of patriarchal structures, intersectionality, oral traditions and indigenous knowledge systems, colonial and post-colonial outlooks and resistance and resilience. Tribal writers involve in deep dialogues via their creative expressions about gender, identity and social justice.
In Sanjukta’s poems, variety is beauty. The country, nationality and a feeling of belonging to a nation are fundamental elements of her approach. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, an innovative intellectual activist of 19th century Bengal, appeared as an unresolved opponent of embedded social prejudices, especially those based on patriarchy and caste hierarchy. His activism for widows’ rights climaxed in the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act of 1856, and this matter emphasized the social prohibition encountered by women and the continuing shame associated with those who had experienced trauma. Vidyasagar founded a ground in wisdom and rationalised Hindu scriptures, confirming an aptitude for combining progressive thought with accessibility and noteworthy texts to counter traditional opposition. He strongly encouraged women’s education, identifying its ability to change gender hierarchies. The action opposed prevalent critique; yet he instituted various foundations providing women a choice to follow their dreams of education. His disapproval of child marriage exposed the connection between patriarchy and religious beliefs. However, Vidyasagar’s mission faced strong opposition from orthodox factions determinedly aeverse to any change. Challenging such suppressive norms had not only helped bring about similar reform movements in India, but it also established education and reason as instruments of social change making Vidyasagar a fundamental yet practical reformer. Sanjukta talks about Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as well as the communal blocks and how he opposed them:
THE PATH-FINDER
A Tribute to Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar on his 200th birth
anniversary (Birth September 26, 1820. Died July 29, 1891)…
Then the Sati Regulation Act 1829
Acted as a frustrating damper
It was no longer possible
To watch with hands folded
Young women being barbequed alive
On the funeral pyres
Of husbands thrice their age
Often victims of diseases
Unmentionable in those times.
(Dasgupta 78)
As a part of her social movement, the disparate faces of the people have been condemned by Sanjukta in the poem “Platforms Transformed”:
“No pickpockets, no food-stalls, no bookstalls
Few legs, mostly faces and voices on video platforms
Platforms created by the Narcissus Corporate
Streaming of Selfie fantasies more potent than cocaine snorts
Platforms on tables and palms dictate, debate, disseminate
Alas, virtual platforms just transform methods not minds!”
(Dasgupta 113)
Often considered one of the most powerful and transformative poets of the 20th century, Adrienne Rich spent the second half of her life addressing the perils of a society that demands women to be complacent and subservient by breaking the structures of patriarchy in her work and championing feminist consciousness and social justice. Her poetry is laced with an uncompromising critique of systems of power, especially patriarchy, heteronormativity and structural oppression, while saluting the intricacy of women’s lives and relationships. Rich’s early verse, such as A Change of World (1951), displays her methodological genius as a formalist poet, but her later collections like Diving into the Wreck (1973) shine with her radical change into a poet of resistance and action. In Diving into the Wreck, Rich offers her readers language as a means of feminist reimagination, engaging with history to uncover antiquities of expurgation, of silencing piles of stones. Her preoccupation with identity and sexuality and the blurring of the line between the personal and political borders upon revolutionary territory (that certainly benefited from détente), an argument vibrant in The Dream of a Common Language(1978), so that her work is at once a clarion call for commonality and collective effort. Rich’s poetry is not just something beautiful; it is a deep critique of biases with an urgent belief in a brand new world that is not based in power and inequity. Her unflinching probing into the textures of language, the recesses of history and the measure of power reveals her identity not only as a poet but as a cultural and intellectual revolutionary whose craft, roaring against the backdrop of wars fought on gender, race and class, vibrates alongside the liturgy of time. Sanjukta seems to have been deeply inspired by Adrienne Rich. I particularly liked one poem by Sanjukta on Adrienne Rich:
TO ADRIENNE RICH (May 16, 1929- March 27, 2012)
You said
“I make no claim to be universal,
neuter or androgynous”
No one but you could have been
Such an honest path-finder
The road not taken
Was your road
To push the boundaries
To walk beyond borders
To break free
To break in
To break even
To laugh at barbed wires
Was your freedom song”.
(Dasgupta 115)
Feminist literary criticism has made patriarchy a primary subject, and genres and narratives in literature provide material on the ways in which prejudice is constricted via hierarchical structures, which in turn constrain freedom and maintain rigid roles. In A Room of One’s Own, authors like Virginia Woolf show how women’s lack of economic independence and education limit their understanding and creativity. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, is an example of subversion of masculine authority that reveals the triad of patriarchal, racist and class oppressions at work. The Quilt by Ismat Chughtai and Draupadi by Mahasweta Devi are two examples of modern South Asian literature that expose the oppression and exploitation of women in many contexts, including home, community and nation. They praise women for standing together in protest to patriarchal power structures. Literature can speak volumes about underrepresented realities, shedding light on patriarchy and opening dialogs about empowerment and equality. “Husband Ji” by Sanjukta exposes the multi-tiered deterioration of patriarchy. Thus, the narrative conveys a powerful message about the repression of marginalized voices:
“Good wives do not reply,
Good wives do not reason why a
Good wives just do and die
Patriarchy triumphs like a gas balloon
As good wives and their good husbands
Surrender to the lunar lie without a doubt.”
(Dasgupta 178)
The narrative of Eklavya speaks volumes about repressing the minority voices in an ancient India with a stringent social ladder. Even though his level of skill and commitment towards archery is enchanting ,he misses out on awareness of academic and contending. Sanjukta Dasgupta strongly voices this marginalization in this collection like that of the delinquents, philanderers, thieves, or even addictive criminals and rebels, admirers and imitators who never get to be present at the celebrations of the privileged circle of the Royal Court .To speak for the subaltern through poetry that is rooted in mythology and tribal literature and other marginalised narratives is a significant act of literary and socio-political resistance. Sanjukta rewrites canonical myths and roots them in the lives of the marginalized, at one stroke disrupting hegemonic narratives and reclaiming cultural spaces from voices that were historically forced to the periphery. In that reframing, mythology, with its implicit hegemony, becomes subaltern, a dynamic critique of the entrenched dominant discourses, discourses that can offer modes of empowerment by reinterpretations of Ekalavya, or Draupadi by writers such as Sanjukta or Mahasweta Devi where agency and resistance outweigh passivity. Sanjukta provides a living counter-narrative to the written traditions of mainstream/dominant groups that opposes historical epistemic violence of colonial and caste or philosophical historiography. She relies on her poetic expressions to bring together the personal and the political and enters a dialogic relationship with postcolonial and the subaltern theories to expand the parameters of literary scholarship. By interlacing myth and indigenous mythology into the very fibre of verse, subaltern poetics offer legitimacy to disparate forms of epistemology and subvert univocal narratives of history while calling for a radical reconceptualization of social justice. Sanjukta’s reclaiming voice is not simply an aesthetic endeavour but an ethical duty, where poetry becomes both a site of resistance and also a statement for resilience from those who have been on the margins.
Works Cited:
- Ekalavya Speaks – A Collection of Poems by Sanjukta Dasgupta, Penprints, 2023.
- https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/12-year-old-rape-survivor-
found-bleeding-on-street-in-madhya-pradeshs-ujjain/article67354079.ece”
- Guha, Ranajit. Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Oxford University Press, 1982.
- Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea. Edited by Rosalind C. Morris, Columbia University Press, 2010.
- Bama. Sangati: Events. Translated by Lakshmi Holmström, Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies, and Considerations. Translated by Alok Mukherjee, Orient Longman, 2004.
- Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, International Publishers, 1971.
- Guha, Ranajit, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, editors. Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford University Press, 1988.
- Ananthamurthy, U. R. Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man. Translated by A. K. Ramanujan, Oxford University Press, 1976.
- Omvedt, Gail. Dalit Visions: The Anti-Caste Movement and the Construction of an Indian Identity. Orient Longman, 1995.
- Ambedkar, B. R. Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition. Edited by S. Anand, Navayana, 2014.
- Devi, Mahasweta. Imaginary Maps: Three Stories. Translated and edited by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Routledge, 1995.
About the Author
Prof.Nandini Sahu, Vice Chancellor, Hindi University, West Bengal, the Amazon Bestselling Author, is a major voice in contemporary Indian English literature. She has accomplished her doctorate in English literature under the guidance of Late Prof. Niranjan Mohanty, Prof. of English, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan. She has been widely published in India, U.S.A, U.K., Africa, Italy, Australia and Pakistan. Apart from numerous other literary awards, she is a triple gold medalist in English literature; she has received the Gold Medal from the hon’ble Vice-President of India for her contributions to English Studies in India in the year 2019. She is the recipient of the prestigious Michael Madhusudan Academy Award, 2024 and Lifetime Achievement Award(SAFE),2024. She is the author and editor of twenty-one books, The Other Voice, The, Recollection as Redemption, The Post-Modernist Delegation to English Language Teaching, The Post Colonial Space: Writing the Self and the Nation, Silver Poems on My Lips, Folklore and the Alternative Modernities (Vol.I), Folklore and the Alternative Modernities (Vol. II), Sukamaa and Other Poems, Suvarnarekha, Sita(A Poem), Dynamics of Children’s Literature, Zero Point and Selected Poems of Nandini Sahu(Winter-2020), Selected Poems of Nandini Sahu(Spring-2021), Re-reading Jayanta Mahapatra, A Song, Half & Half , Shedding the Metaphors, Collected Poems of Nandini Sahu, Collected Poems of Niranjan Mohanty and Hindu Studies: Foundations and Frameworks. She is the Former Director, School of Foreign Languages, Professor of English at Indira Gandhi National Open University [IGNOU], New Delhi, India, is currently the Vice Chancellor, Hindi University, West Bengal,. Her areas of research interest cover Indian Literature, New Literatures, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Hindu Studies, American Literature, Folk Literature, Children’s Literature and Critical Theory. She is the Chief Editor/Founder Editor of Interdisciplinary Journal of Literature and Language (IJLL), a bi-annual peer-reviewed journal in English. Professor Sahu has designed multiple academic programmes on Folklore and Culture Studies, American Literature, Postcolonial Literatures, British Poetry, Children’s Literature and Indian Philosophical Thoughts for IGNOU and many other universities.
