‘Mejhan,an Uprooted Woman: A reading of Budhini by Sarah Joseph through the lens of GBV’

The paper entitled “Budhini Mejhan, an Uprooted Woman: A reading of Budhini by Sarah Joseph through the lens of GBV” looks specifically at GBV against Budhini Mejhan, a woman character in the novel. It discusses what kind of violence targeted towards a fifteen-year-old girl of Santal tribe in Jharkhand. It examines how such brutal activities are directly related to the unequal distribution of power, unequal employment opportunities and to other means of livelihood. This research reveals that religious or social or cultural traditions and customs can be utilised as weapons to harm one's identity and life. It also finds that the hardships and the sufferings by the woman are the unheard, untold violence haunted her throughout life. The paper concludes that Budhini is one of the broken mud blocks during the nation-building process. She is ‘not just a mud block’ but a self-reassembled one. From brokenness to resilience, Budhini emerges as a self-reassembled individual, questioning the notion of nationhood – “What nation? Which is my nation?”.

Keywords: violence, brokenness, identity, inequality, uprooted, reassembled.