Dhowli By Mahasweta Devi

Dhowli and her mother were forced into the world of being untouchables because they were widows. It was not from a choice or action; it was because their husbands had died. In India, widows were forced to live a life of isolation and have very limited financial and social opportunities. “Dhowli” by Mahasweta Devi tells the story of Dhowli and the challenges facing widowed untouchables in India. “Dhowli” is about a woman facing a forbidden love that ultimately brings her final downfall of losing her family and becoming a prostitute. Throughout the story, the reader begins to understand the discrimination and hardships that untouchables faced.

Dhowli lives a life of hardships. To begin the story, Dhowli’s parents married her off at a very

young age. Her husband ended up dying and so Dhowli was forced to moved back home to Tahad. After Dhowli moved back her father ends up dying and her family’s land is taken away, so Dhowli and her mother have to grovel just even get a job tending to goats and cleaning yards. While cleaning the yards they would pick up fruit that the birds and bats had eaten part of off the ground to take home and eat. They did not get to take home ripe fruit off the tree, but the nasty partially eaten fruit from the ground and even then they had to get permission. This shows that the untouchables were viewed as so lowly that they had to eat after the birds and insects. One of the Brahman boys, Misrilal, who’s yard Dhowli cleaned was making advances on her that she was trying to ignore and turn down without being rude. He was a boy of the highest rank and she was a Dusad girl, a widow—an untouchable. She eventually fell for him and became pregnant. Misrilal swore he would stay with Dhowli, but his family arranged for him to marry a girl of his own caste. He did as his family planned for him and turned his back on Dhowli and his baby.
Dhowli desperately wanted Misrilal to come back and take care her and the baby, but he never did and his family also stopped giving them employment and food.

So, Dhowli turned to the only source of income left to her—prostitution. She avoided being a prostitute for as long as she could; hoping that Misrilal would send or financial support which never happened. If she had not done this her child, mother and herself would have starved to death. When Misrilal found out Dhowli was supporting his son with money made from prostitution he was appalled he said, “No Brahman’s son is to live on the filthy handouts of the untouchables! How dare you! I’ll kill you” (256). Misrilal never offered to help Dhowli by giving her land or money, but he still felt entitled to have a say in how their child was raised and how Dhowli was providing for her family. He even threatens to kill her and even asks why she has not killed herself before becoming a prostitute. Dhowli’s reply was “At first I wanted to do that. Then I thought, why should I die? You’ll marry, run your shop, go to the cinema with your wife, and I’ll be the one to die? Why?” (255). Dhowli did not want to end her life just to make his life simpler. There was a way for her to live and support her family and she was going to do it because she is a strong, independent, and capable woman. She does not choose the easy route of suicide where she would never have to starve or struggle for money, but it would also be a world

where Misrilal did not have to live with his actions because they disappear all but vanished from his memory. Dhowli wanted to prove to her and everyone else that she was strong and could withstand their discrimination and disapproval—to wear the name of untouchable and not be ashamed.
I decided to look into the untouchables of India in present time.

There is an estimate of 40 million widows in India today that are still social outcasts and shunned by their family and friends. Vrindavan, known as the City of Widows, is a city for widows and other untouchables to go for a safe haven. Vrindavan’s 5,000 temples accept donations from Hindu pilgrims to help provide lodging and a small amount of food to the most destitute (Dhillon). Recently widowed untouchables and some upper caste priests and scholars broke a 400-hundred-year tradition and celebrated Rakhi together (Jaiswal). These widows and upper caste members are progressive and realized that the times have changed and acts such as this one needed to be done to set an example for the

public.
Before reading “Dhowli” I had no idea what an untouchable was—I had not even heard of it. The story allowed me to understand the discrimination and social repression that many people of the Dusad caste experienced. There are approximately 170 million untouchables in India and I had never heard of them. Discrimination is still prevalent and goes unnoticed. I think Devi did an excellent job expressing the treatment and hardships that untouchables went through especially widowed untouchables. The untouchables had to be brave, strong, independent, and self-reliant. They were shunned from society and had no one on their side. Most turned to begging and prostitution just to scrape by. I believe the recent progress the untouchables made is a victory. The influence that the higher caste priests and scholars have will show the public that the untouchables are still people and deserve to be treated like anyone else.
Discrimination against the untouchables still exists, but is starting to dissipate with the help of progressive members of higher castes. “Dhowli” was intended to show the reader the conditions and treatments that the untouchables receive and how lowly they are viewed. It did that and much more it opened my eyes that discrimination is not only in the United States but everywhere. The US news only ever talks about the discrimination within our own country and never addresses the problem in other countries, but this story gave insight into the Hindu culture.