Female Agency in Amrutara Santana (the Dynasty of the Immortals): Negotiating Gender, Community, and Survival

Abstract

Shri Gopinath Mohanty won the first-ever Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955
for his novel, Amrutara Santana, and was the first recipient from Odisha to
win Jnanpith Award in 1974 for his epic fiction, Matimatala. In Amrutara
Santana Mohanty portrays the life of the Kondh tribal community in preindependence
Odisha. While the novel is often read as an ethnographic and
socio-political narrative of tribal existence, it also offers a profound
exploration of female agency within a deeply patriarchal and economically
vulnerable society. Female agency means a woman's freedom to make her
own choices in life. This article talks about the female agency in the novel
where the women are not passive victims but active participants in shaping
their lives, relationships, and community structures. Female agency in
Amrutara Santana by Gopinath Mohanty translated as The Dynasty of the
Immortals by Bidhubhusan Das, Prabhat Nalini Das, and Oopali Operajita,
emerges through a continuous negotiation between gender roles,
community expectations, and the demands of survival within the Kandha or
Kondh tribal world. The novel situates women at the intersection of gender,
community, and survival, highlighting how their roles are integral to the
continuity of tribal life. Through the characters of Puyu, Pubuli, and Piyoti,
Mohanty illustrates distinct modes of agency—resistant, assertive, and
adaptive—each shaped by personal circumstances and social expectations.