Quote by Mahasweta Devi: “The exploitation of a woman begins with her mother's womb.”

Injustice against women doesn't start with a single event or decision — it is built into the structure of how society receives female life from the very beginning. Before a girl can think or speak, the world has already decided how to treat her. This is about systemic, not individual, harm.

Devi wrote amid the political turbulence of Indira Gandhi's Emergency period in India, when civil liberties were suspended and marginalized communities faced intense state violence. Her journalism and fiction from this period focused especially on Adivasi and Dalit women whose exploitation was compounded by gender, caste, and class.

Bengali writer and activist, born in Dhaka in 1926, whose fiction exposed the brutal exploitation of tribal and lower-caste communities in India. She received the Jnanpith Award in 1996 and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for her journalism and fiction, including the celebrated story collection Agnigarbha.