Mahasweta Devi at 100: Why her greatest legacy lies in the Adivasi movements she helped build

If not for a chance encounter during his years as a rickshaw-puller, the world may never have discovered one of Bengal’s most celebrated Dalit writers. At this year’s The Hindu Lit for Life , former refugee-turned-Naxalite-turned- writer-turned-politician Manoranjan Byapari recalled giving a rickshaw ride to a bespectacled, elderly professor in a sari and jhola from Kolkata’s Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College. His inquiry into the meaning of the word jijivisha (enduring will to live) piqued the professor’s interest. She urged him to write for Bortika , the working-class magazine she edited. Before alighting, she scribbled her address on a slip of paper and signed it: Mahasweta Devi.