Titu Mir

Titu Mir, a peasant leader, led a revolt against the British in Bengal in 1830–31, in the course of which he was killed. He has remained a hero in the popular imagination. This was a period of transition in agricultural Bengal. The evil effects of the Permanent Settlement were beginning to be felt by the rural people. Traditional zamindars were being replaced by absentee landlords. Indigo plantations were eating up fertile agricultural land. Titu, a headstrong young man, a natural leader, found himself defending the rural poor against the exploitation of the landlords and the British, at the cost of his own life.

In this warmly told historical adventure tale, Mahasweta Devi brings history alive in the person of a charismatic hero, embedding Titu Mir in the larger socioeconomic situation of the times. We get to know Titu as a young boy, fearless and restless, always standing up for victims of injustice, and then trace his gradual development into a rebel leader after his conversion to the Wahabi sect.