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[REVIEW] “A Sobering Read: Mahasweta Devi’s The Murderer’s Mother” by Jack Greenberg

Mahasweta Devi (author), Arunava Sinha (translator), The Murderer’s Mother, Seagull Books, 2023. 248 pgs.

The Murderer’s Mother (Murderer Er Maa), originally published in 1992, is the latest in a new series from Kolkata-based Seagull Books, which aims to introduce the works of the late Mahasweta Devi (1926–2016) to readers outside of Bengal. Devi, a passionate social activist and organiser, lived during a tumultuous period of history in Bengal and India. She wrote over 100 novels and 20 short collections. The pen was her weapon of choice, with which she exposed exploitation and suffering, especially pertaining to subalterns. Whether it be in her fiction or activist prose, she never was one to shy away from dissecting touchy subjects with contemporary political significance.

As soon as I saw The Murderer’s Mother listed on the publisher’s website, I became determined to get my hands on a copy. I was confident that I would not be disappointed. Last year, I lapped up Anjum Katyal’s translation of her 1986 urban novella Truth/Untruth, which I reviewed for Cha and is also part of the new Seagull Books series. Besides the attractive cover, the blurb which spotlighted the book’s marked socio-political context only further aroused my interest as a keen observer and student of Indian politics.

The novel has been translated by the prolific Arunava Sinha, who recently edited the landmark Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories and is responsible for bringing numerous works of Bengali literature to worldwide audiences. I had no doubt that Sinha would be able to deliver a crisp and fluent text, having previously enjoyed a number of his translations, including The Moving Shadow and There’s Gunpowder in the Air.

The Murderer’s Mother takes place in a town near Calcutta in the North 24 Parganas district, which borders the bustling city. It is set in the late 1970s following the formative phase of the Naxalite Insurgency and during a period of governmental change. At this time, the Indian National Congress Party was undergoing a marginalisation across the country, and in West Bengal the Left emerged as a powerful political force. In June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had proclaimed a state of emergency, which lasted for 21 months and led to thousands of politically motivated arrests, press censorship, and numerous human rights abuses. Mrs Gandhi was ousted in the general election of 1977. In subsequent state elections, the Left Front, a coalition led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) claimed a thumping victory. The Left Front would go on to win six subsequent assembly elections, enjoying undisputed power until finally losing its grip in 2011.

The change in political winds is central to the novel’s plot as it precipitates a realignment of power dynamics in the town where it is set. Here, the nexus between politics and anti-social elements becomes readily apparent.

In the opening pages, the reader learns that Tapan’s background is steeped in political violence and moral disorder. As a “Congsal”, he was a part of the “law and order” killings that were systematically carried out against opponents of the Congress, usually described as Naxalites (Maoist-oriented insurgents/extremists). Nevertheless, Tapan finds himself the beneficiary of the political shift. Under the patronage of the glass-eyed Bhabani-babu, he eventually assumes control over the local area from the Congress’s muscleman, Dinu, who “didn’t understand politics”, (13) and is bound to die one way or another.

Bhabani-babu is not a lawmaker but conducts himself as if he is above the law. Unbound by loyalty or ideology, he typifies unscrupulous political fixers. Bhabani-babu “created his own shadow over the town, [and] made it fall everywhere” (70). To further his interests, he hitches antisocial goons, like Tapan, to his wagon and from behind the scenes manipulates them as pawns. Having shaped the local criminal market in his youth and now with ample money at his disposal, “[h]e became so powerful that it was impossible to win a seat in the State Assembly without his support” (11).

Tapan is deployed to dispose of the nuisances who get in the way of Bhabani-babu’s various black money enterprises, including illicit liquor and prostitution dens, and later in real estate. Carrying out the dictates of his boss assures Tapan of “fat sums of money” for the first time in his life, which opens his eyes to a future where he can provide for his mother and the siblings who he had never thought about before. Things, however, get complicated for Tapan when Bhabani-babu orders him to kill off people with whom he is personally acquainted.

With time, Tapan finds himself in dissonance. He realises that Bhabani-babu has bought him but the money he received fails to win the pride of his siblings. Tapan comes to despise his role as a hired killer, a murderer, and “identi[fies] himself [as being among] the most despicable of criminals” (53).

As time passes, Tapan accepts the fact that just like Dinu, he is disposable to Bhabani-babu. Tapan and Bhabani “are like a pair of snakes, neither trusts the other. Each of [them] is looking for an opportunity to show the other who’s more venomous” (193). Even so, Tapan continues to work on Bhabani’s behalf, and while doing so he begins to identify the evolving nature of the political-criminal nexus, which no longer operates behind the label of a single party.

Nevertheless, Tapan has certain principles and strives to differentiate his conduct from Dinu and other antisocials who came before him. He strives to build goodwill and win the hearts and minds of the people. Out of a sense of duty and for tactical advantage, Tapan thus refuses to allow hooliganism to continue. He disavows the harassment of shopkeepers, the collection of protection money, and misbehaviour with women by all kinds of men. He demands that Bhabani stick to “business” and shut down his illegal liquor and prostitution dens.

All along, there is a complex and dynamic bond between mother and son. Tapan’s Ma worries for her son. She has always done so, but her worries become more justified as she sees him become an instrument in others’ hands. But Tapan cannot understand why his Ma still worries for him when he has clearly taken the wrong path. “Don’t worry for me, what’s the point?” he asks (144). He will never lead a normal life. As his hands get soaked in more blood and it becomes apparent that his death is only a matter of comparatively short time, Tapan arranges his money, wishing to settle his mother with a house and bank account that will allow for serenity as she lives out the rest of life. What will bring peace for Tapan is her being somewhere else, where no one will attack her for being his mother. However, it is Tapan’s death, which occurs as he tries to save a girl from prostitution that frees his mother from the shame she long carried. For readers familiar with Devi’s oeuvre, the relationship might evoke comparison to her Mother of 1084 (Hajar Churashir Maa) whereas the mother in both novels finds themselves alone within their family, trying to understand and protect a son who doesn’t abide by societies normal expectations. While the Mother of 1084 focuses more on grief and loss than on political dynamics, it shares multiple overlapping themes with The Murderer’s Mother, including betrayal and violence, and how affected family members and communities respond in varied ways. Readers may find value in reading them one after another.

Devi’s biting commentary, which is sprinkled throughout the novel, makes it a worthwhile yet sobering read as goondaism has sunk deep roots in present-day society. She manifests a future in which “politics and terror” would become one in the lower levels of society, and she predicts [t]hat a whole new generation would turn into criminals; [t]hat corruption would be all-pervasive”. Criminal activity “… would seep through every pore of society… [and the] multifarious activities [of antisocials] would bore into [its] foundations… until they collapsed”. (183). If one Bhabani-babu is eclipsed and a Tapan is felled, new actors would take their places on the stage. “Politicians, antisocials, black money—this nexus thrives everywhere”, (175) and perhaps more so today than it did in the late 1970s or three decades ago when Devi penned the novel.

Political violence and anti-people goonda culture remains endemic rather than episodic in West Bengal. As Milan Vaishnav, Senior Fellow and Director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes in When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics, new outfits have eclipsed the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Left Front in the state, but officially sponsored “goondaism” thrives thanks to its embrace by politicians of all stripes. It is to the advantage of party leaders that they outsource social control to antisocials or local bosses who can bring them the votes they need to achieve personal gain. The Trinamool Congress, which is now in its thirteenth year of governing, has not only failed to break the criminal-political networks that were inherited from the Left Front government, but has proven itself less adept at managing the arc of violence. Recent reports lament a worrying rise in the number of contract killings, an indication that West Bengal politics is increasingly being driven by muscle-power rather than ideology. As the Tapan’s Ma put it so straightforwardly, “The Bhabani-babus [those who hire boys like Tapan to kill] are too… but no one will catch them.” And thus the vicious cycle of violence, revenge, and retribution continues to repeat itself again and again.

How to cite: Greenberg, Jack. “A Sobering Read: Mahasweta Devi’s The Murderer’s Mother.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 6 Jun. 2024, chajournal.com/2024/06/06/murderer-mother.

Jack Greenberg resides in Seoul where he is pursuing a master’s degree at Korea University’s Graduate School of International Studies as a Global Korea Scholarship recipient. He is a former management consultant and originally hails from Toronto, Canada. Jack regularly contributes to KoreaPro, an online subscription resource that provides objective insights and analysis on the most important stories in South Korea. His writing has also been featured in The Korea Times and Asian Labour Review. He is interested in housing issues and urban development and enjoys documenting changing cityscapes through photography in his free time and travels abroad. Follow his work on Twitter at @jackwgreenberg. [All contributions by Jack Greenberg.]