Dudiya

Book Review

Title: Dudiya: In Your Burning Land

Author: Vishwas Patil

Translator: Nadeem Khan

Publisher: Niyogi Books, New Delhi, 2023

Pages: 220

According to official data, 25% of India’s land is forest. In reality, only 12% is forest. The rest has been encroached on by the corporate sector with the permission of the government. Even the Modi government which pretends to be corruption-free and idealistic has altered the forest laws in order to hand over certain forest land to some corporate bigwigs under various guises including environment protection!

The people who are most affected by these shady deals between the Indian government and the corporate sector are the tribals and Adivasis living in the forests. This novel by Vishwas Patil, written originally in Marathi, is about these shady affairs in the forests of the country, particularly in Dandakaranya in Chhattisgarh.

Dudiya is a real character, an Adivasi woman whose people were betrayed first by the government and then by the Naxalites. Vishwas Patil, the author, is a retired IAS officer who was once given election duty in the troubled areas of Chhattisgarh where he met Dudiya. In this novel, he tells the moving tale of this hapless woman who is condemned to live out a pathetic existence even if she is ready to work hard for a better destiny.

Right in the beginning, one of the characters tells the narrator – Dilip Pawar, an IAS officer on election duty in Dudiya’s land – that “our government babus from various departments had let loose a campaign of naked exploitation of the poor tribals, subjecting them to mercilessly high-handed behaviour.” The Naxalite movement is a natural offshoot of that exploitation, he says.

Not only was their land snatched from the tribal people, but the various government schemes meant for them were usurped, and these people’s very livelihood was taken away for the sake of coal, petroleum, minerals, and even to build so-called ‘special environmental projects.’

Dudiya’s brother manages to complete school education and become a police constable. He thus saves himself. But his family is hounded by the Naxalites because of that. Dudiya has no choice but become a Naxalite herself because she, being a girl, was deprived of any education. At the age of 17, the pretty Dudiya takes up AK-47 to fight for the rights of her own people.

The Naxalites turn out to be not much better than the government officials. Jaisekhar is the leader of the group to which Dudiya belongs. He is in his sixties. But he is unable to control his lust when he sees the sensuous charms of young Dudiya. She is forced into physical relationships with him. Later when she becomes pregnant, the man blames her for irresponsible behaviour. When his own wife, a professor in Hyderabad, turns up unexpectedly after an absence of ten years, Dudiya becomes a scapegoat. Dudiya realises that even these Naxalite leaders have no ideals. Jaisekhar’s wife is a rich professor, his son is working in America, and his daughter studies in JNU, Delhi. Reality is not what it appears to be. The Naxalite leaders from the plains of Andhra and Bengal are also exploiters of the tribal people in Chhattisgarh’s hills.  

Dudiya realises that there is a huge nexus of very powerful people working together: the government, the corporate sector, and the manufacturers and dealers of arms and ammunition. Nobody is interested in solving the problems – whether of the tribals or of Naxalite violence – because too many people are reaping profits from the criminal violence. Violence is a productive industry!

This short novel shows us the ugly side of that industry and how it works. Dudiya has a very moving personal history. She becomes the ultimate symbol of the ordinary woman’s utter helplessness in India. Woman empowerment is just another of the umpteen beautiful slogans thrown to citizens like dogs get their share of bones.

The author has written this novel from his personal experience in the Naxal-affected areas of Chhattisgarh. He is also a prolific writer who has some 40 books to his credit. He has won many awards too including the prestigious Sahitya Akademy Award. Yet I was left with a strong feeling of something missing from the novel. It is written rather unimaginatively. It reads like a journalist’s account of the problems in the Bastar hills. Could it be a drawback of the translation? I’m not sure.

In spite of that drawback, the novel – which I read in less than two days – is worth reading. It is an insider’s account of how the powerful government and its accomplices on the one hand, and the rebellious leaders of the tribals on the other, can be equally exploitative when it comes to the helpless tribal people themselves.