Structural Violence and Poverty in the Select Poems of Jayanta Mahapatra

DOI- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22201863

Abstract

The present study focuses on poverty and inequality in four poems of Jayanta Mahapatra, namely, “Main Temple Street, Puri,” “The Whorehouse in a Calcutta Street,” “Hunger,” and “The Tattooed Taste.” Poverty in these poems is not incidental. Here, poverty is a structural issue. It is produced and sustained by religious, economic and social institutions. There are previous studies of Mahapatra that use post-colonial or regional approaches. This study takes a different approach. It brings together Marxist literary theory and Johan Galtung's theory of structural violence. Marxist criticism offers explanations of poverty based on the economic base, commodification and alienation. Structural violence theory is a theory that helps to understand that harm is done by structure, as that is the way that it is structured, not by any one villain. These frameworks help to focus Mahapatra’s social vision in the reading. This study employs a close reading of texts that map poverty in four locations. These are the temple street, the brothel, the fishing hut and the beggar’s corner of the city. Each is a case of poverty being perpetuated without direct coercion of the institutions. Charity, ritual and family only absorb suffering; they do not resolve it. The analysis also focuses on Mahapatra's poetic style. This structural argument is also decoded by imagery, irony, direct address and landscape. They observe suffering, but they never intervene. In addition, the ethical boundaries of Mahapatra’s approach are considered. He prefers criticising the situation rather than resolving it in his poetry. It employs visibility as an ethical address. This method remains applicable in today’s India, as there is still significant inequality and normalised poverty.

Keywords: Structural violence, Poverty, Marxist criticism, Commodification, Alienation, Reification, Social inequality, and Institutional harm.