Revisiting Draupadi: Trauma, Caste, and Agency in Mahasweta Devi’s Narrative

Trauma emerges when individuals face extreme violence or oppression
that disrupts their sense of identity and overwhelms their emotional
capacity. Trauma theory emphasizes this rupture—an experience that
resists articulation and exposes the gap between lived reality and
linguistic expression. For marginalized communities, such trauma
cannot be separated from the socio-cultural, geographic, and economic
conditions that shape their collective existence. Mahasweta Devi’s
Draupadi, from the collection Agnigarbha and translated into English
by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, offers a powerful representation of this
dynamic through the lived experiences of Dalit and tribal women. The
story foregrounds how systemic caste and gender-based violence inflict
persistent psychological and bodily trauma, while also revealing
moments of defiance that reclaim dignity and agency. This paper
examines the layered trauma of Dalit women in Draupadi and explores
how Devi’s narrative exposes structures of oppression while
simultaneously charting the possibilities of resistance.