1

`A Dissertation

0n

Topic: Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie and Untouchable: A Cultural Study

Submitted to MM Institute of Distance Education

MAHARISHI MARKANDESHWAR UNIVERSITY

For The Award of the Degree of

MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY

IN

ENGLISH

Supervised By: Submitted By:

Mr. Ravi Raj Sunidhi Saini

Lecturer Ref No: A10901337021 Govt.College, Una

MM Institute Of Distance Education ( MMDIE)

Maharishi Markandeshwar University

Mullana (Ambala) Session: (2009-10)

2

Declaration

I, Sunidhi Saini, hereby declare that the Dissertation titled “Mulk raj Anand’s Coolie and

Untouchable: A Cultural study” submitted to the Directorate of Distance Education, Maharishi

Markandeshwar University Mullana, Ambala in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

of Master of Philosophy in English and that the dissertation has not previously formed the basis

for the award of any other degree, diploma, associate ship, fellowship or other title.

Place: Signature of the candidate

Dated:

3

Acknowledgements

It gives me immense, pleasure to express my sincere and wholehearted gratitude to my

esteemed guide Mr. Ravi Raj for his dexterous guidance, invaluable and untiring help, ever

encouraging attitude and supervision throughout my study. To device benefit of their

enormous experience, it is a matter of great privilege to me.

I offer my heartful appreciation to all my friends for their ever willing cooperation, moral

support and best wishes for successfully taking this study. I wish them very best in their life.

I find no words to acknowledge in so formal manner the sacrifice, love, help and inspiration

rendered by my parents to take up his study.

Last but not least, thanks is also extended to the library staff for their kind help and

encouragement given during the various stages of this study.

All cannot be mentioned but none is forgotten.

Sunidhi Saini

4

Certificate

This is to certify that the dissertation titled Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie and Untouchable: A

Cultural study” is a bonafide record of independent research work done by Sunidhi Saini (Reg.

No. ______________) under my supervision during 2009, submitted to the Directorate of

Distance Education, Maharishi Markandeshwar University Mullana, Ambala in partial

fulfillment for the award of the degree of Master of Philosophy in English and that the

dissertation has not previously formed the basis for the award of any other degree, diploma,

associateship, fellowship or other title.

Place: Signature of the Supervisor

Dated: Mr. Ravi Raj

5

CONTENTS: Page No

Declaration

Acknowledgement

Certificate

Tentative Chapterization

Chapter 1: Introduction 6 - 19

Chapter 2: Mulk Raj Anand As a Novelist

Chapter 3: Cultural Aspects in Coolie And Untouchable

Chapter 4: Comparison with other works of Same Genre

Chapter 5: Conclusion

Selected Bibliography

6

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

Chapter 1: Introduction

India has produced several great writers who have influenced a whole Generation and continue

to inspire the coming generations by their writings. Their words vividly portray the picture of

Indian society and subtly brings out the Ills in it. Indian writers Like Prem Chand, Rabindranath

Tagore. Arundhati Roy, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Salman Rushdie Etc. Have played a

progressive part In the reform of Indian society. Before discussing the term English Indian

Literature let us first of all see what does the word literature actually means? And what is its

role? A piece of literature is a social document because it is writtern by a human being who is in

a variety of relationships. It is writtern by keeping audience in mind and is analyzed by its

readers and the writer always has a social message as the part of his ideology and world view.

The Writer’s writings are his reactions to challenges he faces. A piece of literature is not just a

social document but it is a social force. Charles Dickens novel “David Copperfield” forced to

change poor laws in England. A piece of work as said by Hemingway, should be like an iceberg

only one-eighth part is visible. Now the term English Indian Literature (IEL) refers to the body

of work of writers in India who write in the English Language and whose native and co-native

language could be one of the numerous languages of India. It is also associated with the work of

members of Indian Diaspora (non resident Indian). It is frequently referred to as Indo-Anglian

Literature and this term should not be confused with Anglo-Indian Literature. The term “Indo-

Anglian” is used to denote the original literary creation in the English language by Indians. On

the other hand the term “Anglo-Indian Literature” is used to denote the writing of Englishmen

7

in English about India and Indian life.

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

Mulk Raj Anand belongs to former that is Indo-Anglian Literature. Today there are

large number of educated Indians Who use the English language as a medium of the creative

exploration and expression of their experience of life and Mulk Raj Anand is among one of

them. Writings of these writers has now developed into substancial body of literature in its own

right and it is this substancial body of literature which is referred as Indo-Anglian Literature. As

C.R Reddy in his foreword to Srinivasa Iyengar’s work Indo-Anglian Literature points out, “Indo-

Anglian Literature is not essentially different in kind from Indian Literature. It is part of it, a

modern facet of that glory which, commencing from the Vedas, has continued to spread its

mellow light, now with greater and now with less brilliance under the inexorable vicissitudes of

time and history ever increasingly up to the present time of Tagore, Iqbal and Aurobindo

Ghosh, And bids fair to expand with our, as well as humanity’s expanding future.” Indian writing

in English has coruscated World wide and English works of Indian authors have been highly

appreciated even by people of English speaking nations. The story of the Indian novel is really the story of changing India. There was

time when education was a rare opportunity and speaking English was unnecessary. The

stories were already there- in the myths, in the folklore and the umpteen languages and

cultures that gossiped, conversed, laughed and cried all over the subcontinent. With the coming

of Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K Narayan, the Indian English novel had begun its journey.

Anand appeared in Indian Literary movement in 1930s. That was a time of revolution and

8

reformation not in India but for whole world. India was under the grip of rigid social

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

conventions like caste system, child marriage, Sati system and various superstitious beliefs. The

political conditions, too, were against Indian ethos. As struggle for freedom was going on in

India under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Satyagraha, Non-cooperation and call for

empowerment of Down-trodden paved its ways to Literary Movement where writers started to

write and started to speak for the lower castes and neglected people in the society. So the

beginning of twentieth century witnessed the emergence of great Leaders in India and the

world. Marx, Hitler nourished the agitated minds and soothed them with their messages.

Writers soothed the people with their inspirational and motivational writings. Their speeches,

writings, Messages create a consciousness among the people. Mulk Raj Anand An Indian

decided to take writing as a profession. He rose to prominence with his maiden novel

Untouchable (1935). In Coolie Mulk Raj Anand, the social disparity in India is laid bare. In R.K

Narayan’s imaginary village Malgudi, the invisible men and women of our teeming population

come to life and act out life with all its perversities and whimsicalities. In Kanthapura by Raja

Rao Gandhism awakes in a sleepy village down south. India no longer needed to be depicted by

outsiders. Anand choose the English language as an effective medium to express

the Indian Society and life of Indian people. Works Of Anand are more of a study of a

Particular society at a particular time. There are only few studies that study this aspect of

Anand’s writings. We can say that Anand as a writer of social protest, as a writer of poor, as a

9

writer of ignored and suppressed class of the society or to sum up we can say that Anand as a

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

writer of Real India. Different sections of society have different problems but the fact is this

that nobody pay attention to the problems being faced by the lower class just because they are

of low caste, poor, illiterate. So Anand decided to do write something in which he can describe

the problems of these low, neglected class of the society . The first book writtern by an Indian in English was by Sake Dean Mahomet, titled

“Travels Of Dean Mahomet.” Early Indian writers used English unadulterated by Indian words to

Convey an experience which was essentially Indian. Raja Rao’s Kanthapura is Indian in terms of

its storytelling qualities. Rabindranath Tagore used to write in Bengali and English and was

responsible for the translations of his own works into English. R. K Narayan was the writer who

contributed over many decades and who continued to write till his death. Simultaneous with

Narayan’s pastoral idylls, A very different writer, Mulk Raj Anand was similarly gaining

recognition for his writing set in rural India, But his stories were harsher, and engaged,

sometimes brutually, with divisions of caste, class and religion. The major themes of Anand’s

writings includes his empathy with the suppressed class. He portrays them as they are.

Through his writings he wants to fight for against exploitation of man by man.The above

discussion clearly establishes Indo-Anglian writing as a separate genre, as distuinguished from

Anglo-Indian writing. This way of writing has been enriched by such internationally recognized

figures as Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Tagore, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Aurbindo Ghosh and Mahatma

Gandhi. Today This Tradition of Writing has been followed by number of eminent writers such

10

as Mulk Raj Anand , R.K Narayan,Raja Rao and Indo-Anglain Liiterature continues to flourish and

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

grow and attain higher and higher peaks of excellence. Braj’B Kachru remarks :

“ Indian English fiction is now being studied and discussed in the entire English speaking world

by those interested in the Indian sub-continent or in non-native englishes, and by linguists for

its thematic and stylistic Indianness. At least half a dozen Indian novelists have created a small

but slowly increasing international reading public for themselves, e.g, Mulk Raj Anand, Anita

Desai, Kamala Markandaya, R.K Narayan, Raja Rao, Khushwant Singh and Nayantra Sehgal”.

And this international attention to these Indian writers is due to their Indianness reflected in

their works in different ways including themes, images, myths and symbols. Typical Indian

themes are said to be thei caste system, social attitudes, social and religious taboos,

superstitious, nations of superiority and inferiority, portrayal of poverty, hunger and disease,

portrayal of widespread social evils and tensions; examinations of the survivals of the past,

exploration of hybrid culture of the dislocations and conflicts in a tradition ridden society under

the impact of an incipient, half hearted industrialization. Some other themes of novel in English

are inter-racial relations, the Indian National Movement and struggle for freedom ( in Raja

Rao’s Kantapura, Tamas by Bhisham Sahni), Partition of India and death, destruction and

suffering caused by it ( Train To Pakistan), depiction of poverty and hunger of Indians ( Bhabani

Bhattacharya’s, So Many hungers), Indian rural life , conflict between tradition and modernity

( Anand’s Untouchable) etc. continue to engage the attention of the novelists. The theme of

confrontation of east and west has been successfully dealt by Raja Rao, Kamla Markandaya and

11

many others. The theme of rootlessness, loneliness, the exploration of psyche and the inner

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

man have been dealt by Anita Desai.

However it would be interesting to see how these dominant themes and myths are used in

Indian English novels as part of our literary heritage. No doubt these writers have achieved

success despite the overwhelming difficulties which the Indian writers have always faced, and

which they continue to face even today. It is the medium of expression. As Raja Rao in his

preface to novel “Kanthapura” says, English is not a foreign tongue in India, but it is only the

language of oue intellectual make-up, not of our emotional make-up. He rightly suggests that

Indian writer in English must express “Indian Sensibilty” and with this end in view he should

learn to write “Indian English” and not Babu English. In Kanthpura novelist doesn’t write, “Babu

English” but Indian English , an English eminently suited for the expression of Indian (or

peasant) sensibility. He has tried to adapt his English style to the movement of Sanskrit

sentence. His styles has the flavor of Kannada speech, and its rhythm are almost incantatory,

the rtythms of Sanskrit, a language which is the source of Indian languages. The evolution of the

suitable style for the expression of Indian sensibility is Raja Rao’s most significant contribution

to the Indo-Anglian fiction. Another of his contribution is the fusion of a western Art form with

an Indian theme and the Indian way of treating it. He has followed the oral Indian tradition of

story-telling. As a old narrator’s stream of reminiscence proceeds, there is a free mingling of

fact and fiction, poetry and reality, the perennial and the present, and this makes Kanthapura

“a distinctive novel almost a new species of fiction”. The use of the Eliotian mythical technique

12

enables the novelist to exalt Gandhi as Rama, to see Bharat Mata as Sita, and the Red man as

Ravan. This mingling of the Gods and the men, of myth and legend with contemporary reality, is

true to the Indian tradition of story telling. “The Indianness of English consists not in

the sprinkling of Indian vocabulary, though it is there, but in the manner in which they dislocate

the conventional syntax to approxiamate to the patterns and rhytms of Punjabi, Kannada or

Tamil speech in the attempt to catch the very tone of voice, the gesture of hand and the

twinkle in the eye of man and woman who figure in the work of art”. Such Indian English must

be used to express Indian sensibility, i.e, to convey the feel of the cultural and emotional life of

the people to the readers. This is certainly a difficult task but there are number of eminent

writers who have overcome these difficulties posed by the medium of expression, and achieved

international name and fame. Mulk raj Anand is one of them. Because language is a very

important aspect when you are going to study the cultural aspects of a particular society. And

language is the only medium through which we can get deep insight in to their lives.

In the Pre-Independent India People were discriminated on the basis of their caste , color,

religion ,creed etc. With the help of their works Anand Brings to light the particular culture of

the pre independent India and the miseries of the lower class at that time. Lower class was

discriminated to the fullest in the pre-independence India because we were under the British

Rule and Britishers were ruling on us and along with their Racial discrimination was also there.

This study will Study how Anand expressed the feelings of the people who are being oppressed

by the society especially by the upper class and social concern of Anand for the lower class.

Now if we see, One cannot find adequate semantic definition of the term culture.

Every people seems to understand something different about this word in light of their

13

traditions, habits of mind and experience. We will discuss the relevance and applicability in

accordance and context of India. Culture word is derived from latin word “Colere” that means

to cultivate. In other words we can define culture as “An integrated Pattern of human

knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon capacity for symbolic thought and

learning” English poet and Essayist Mathew Arnold used word “culture” to refer to an ideal of

individual human refinement of “ best that has been thought and said in the world ” (Mathew

Arnold 1869 Culture and Anarchy). Culture thus consists of language, ideas, beliefs, customs,

taboos, codes, rituals, ceremonies and symbols. It has played a crucial role in human evolution.

History of culture is the history of man. The stream of culture undergoes changes of content as

well as of form as it flows. Old elements are dropped and new elements are added. Ideas are

the real foundation of the culture. Benedict Anderson’s remarks about the importance Nation’s

culture is true:

“ Nationalism has to be understood by aligning it not with self-consciously held political

ideologies, but with large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which—as well as against

which----it came into being.”

Literature coming from bilingual cultures demonstrates how the tension or interaction between

different cultures, languages and systems can be utilized for narrative purposes.Every society

has its own particular culture, socio cultural system. An individual’s attitude, values, ideals and

beliefs are greatly influenced by culture in which he or she lives and cultural change takes place

as a result of ecological socio-economic, political, religious or other fundamental factors

affecting a society. Culture revealed itself as a construction, an ever evolving phenomenon,

with in a geographical position that bloomed with constant interaction with in a community;

14

though a reversal in its growth is always possible. In the process of making, remaking and un-

making culture, the distinctive, and sometimes the merging strands residual forces, evolving

forces and emerging forces are palapable. Perhaps the most significant aspect of culture is the

fact of its being controlled by the elite class that, infact, paves the way for the rise of popular

culture which, it was established, is a kind of a revenge of the repressed. As we will see in the

Untouchable and Coolie, it was the elite class and the class holding higher ranks that dominated

the lower class and low caste and eventually it became the culture to exploit them as much as

we can. Robert William in his book ‘Culture And Society’ said that culture is ordinary, i.e,

everything in our surrounding is a part of culture, e.g, history, cooking, dressing etc. There is

another fact that culture is political due to that the ruling class is trying to capture society with

the help of media. Some distinctions were attempted to be drawn between mass culture and

popular culture, which are definitely blurred at any given time. Literature , which is reflection of

and a part of (elite) culture, also absorbs the influences of mass and popular culture through

what is called “carnivilization” Bakhtin.

Most of the Indian writers endeavoured to sustain their

natives ethos by their own creative writings. After a second world war, most of the countries

became conscious to promote their native culture in literary writing. If we talk about the

cultural studies, as it is practiced today, speaks in multiple voices and is also represented and

mediated in multiple voices. Plurality and Polyphony are its greatest assests. It deals with the

critical questions of power, history and politics. For example who controls and owns cultural

productions and why; what are the distribution mechanisms for the cultural products and how

these function in the society; and finally what kind of shaping influence do these principles of

15

control and ownership have on the materiality of the cultural landscape.

The basic assumption of Cultural studies anywhere in the world is that culture is not something

given or already made, but always in the state of making or becoming. In other words, it

perceives culture as something that doesn’t carry the burden of the historical past, but forever

lives in the present moment, which is contingent, continuous and eternally changing and

evolving. Cultural studies is a way of theorizing about this present moment, a way of capturing

its eternal restlessness in intelligible terms. And what does it focus on? Cultural Studies

invariably turns to the “everydayness of our lives”. It deals with the clothes we wear, the food

we eat, the music we listen to, the films and television programs we watch, in short the goods,

the objects, images and text we consume in our day to day lives. It is the way of understanding

why we ‘do’ what we do and also why we ‘become’ what we do and beyond that, why we are

always in a state of “becoming” without ever being ‘made’ fully. As we are going to study

cultural aspects in the novels of Anand and others, so it is important to study each and every

thing associated with it minultely. Both the novels of Anand “Coolie” And “ Untouchable ” are pre- independence

novels and depicting the clear picture of the society or we can say that depicting “ Truth And

Nothing Else Than Truth.” Untouchable and Coolie are pre independence novels and Anand

through his novels tried to depict the clear picture that what was the particular culture of that

time how people Especially low caste people were exploited by the Britishers as India was

under their rule. Britishers exploited us in every way mentally, physically and economically.

These two novels of Anand throw the light on cultural aspects of the pre-independent India.

Now if we go back to the pre_independent India India caste system was

16

deeply deeprooted. Now what the Caste system exactly was on the basis of which people were

discriminated. It was basically a construct, product of imperial policies. Caste in Old India was

co-operative and cultural principle. Roles were divided and followed more as an organized

society rather than anything based on ability or birth. Various caste based theories, social

customs were there on the basis of which people were discriminated and this system has

adverse effects in Indian society. Religion especially Hinduism played an influential role in

shaping the economic activities. The caste system restricted people from changing one’s

occupation and aspiring to an uppercaste’s lifestyle. Thus a barber could not become goldsmith

and even a highly skilled carpenter could not aspire to the lifestyle or privileges enjoyed by a

kshatriya (person of a warrior class). The barrier of mobility on labour restricted economic

prosperity to a few castes. This caste system exists between extremes of the very high and low

castes almost in every community. Word caste comes from Portuguese word ‘Casta’ ( breed or

race). The Sanskrit word applied to the grouping ‘Varna’ which often interpreted the color. As

per Mahabharta if different colors indicate different castes hen all castes are mixed castes. The

Hindus also believe that the ‘Varna’ of a man is determined by his profession and deeds and not

by his birth. Traditionally the political powers lay with Chatriyas. Brahmins were custodian of

Dharma. The Vaishya were given trade of economy whereas Shudras were service

providers.Caste was very rigid in India.Low castes have no right to education. Untouchables

were not allowed to school.So one cause of degeneration of Sanskrit language is untouchability

and perhaps this is why Mahatma Gandhi and Ambedkar, R.N Tagore and Swami Vivekanand,

Maharishi Dayanand and Bal Gangadhar Tilak---all have given a scathing attack on the caste

mentality of India. Mahatma Gandhi even went to the extent of calling the untouchable, “

17

Harijan” that is the man of God. Truly speaking the caste division mentioned in the “Vedas” and

in Srimad Bhagwad Gita, is a division based on the natural constitution of the man arriving from

the dominance of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. So the purpose of these lines was not to create

breaches among various castes but to run the society easily and smoothly. The fault of casteism

arose through misinterpretation of our scriptures. S. Radhakrishnan rightly holds the view:

“ The institution of caste illustrates the spirit of comprehensive synthesis characteristic of the

Hindu and with its faith in the collaboration of races and the co-operation of the cultures.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the system of caste is the outcome, of tolerance and trust. Though

it has now degenerated into an instrument of oppression and intolerance, though it tends to

perpetuate inequality and develop the spirit exclusiveness, these unfortunate effects are not

the central motives of the system”.

The caste didn’t constitutes a rigid description of occupation and the social status but the

Britishers attempted to equate the Indian caste system to their own colonial caste system since

the British society was divided into caste. Britishers further codified the caste system in India

and made it more rigid. Anand witness this caste culture that was prevalent in pre-independent

society and noticed that outcastes, untouchables were discriminated and tortured to its

maximum.

As he was against Britishers and an Indian by Heart he decided to depict the conditions of

this class in his writings so he does in his novels as Coolie and Untouchable. One og the prime

concerns of a great author is to highlight the cause of the dumb and the deserted, the lowly and

the lost. The author also brings to light the snobbery, hypocricy of the aristocratic people, who

sometimes stoop low to achieve the end. A writer, the prince of the pen is the voice or mouth

18

piece of the millions of people especially of the untouchables and people who are easy to

attack physically and emotionally, who are victims of tyranny and injustice. And this is what

Mulk Raj Anand did to present the deplorable description of the destitutes. The main aim of

carrying this research is to see Anand’s concern and to study the culture of pre-independent

India by diving deep into the early two novels of Anand i.e Untouchable and Coolie. Anand

himself observes:

“All these heroes as the other men and women who had emerged in my novels….were dear to

me because they were the reflections of the real people I had known during my childhood and

youth. And I was only repaying the dept of gratitude I owed them for much of the inspiration----

they had given me to mature inti manhood, when I began to interpret their lives in my writings.

They were not mere phantoms.they were the flesh of my flesh and blood, of my blood, and

obsessed me in the way, in which certain human beings obsess’s an artist’s soul. And I was

doing no more than what a writer does when he sees to interpret the truth from the realities of

his life.”

References:

1. Anand Apology For Heroism: A Brief Autobiography Of Ideas, Kutub-Popular, 1946 (P. 53-54)

2. Dr. Raghukul Tilak, Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Rama Brothers India Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.

3. M.K Bhatnagar, Indian Writing In English (Vol. 1 to 5), Atlantic Publishers and Distributers.

4. A. Sudhakar Rao, Socio-Cultural Aspects in Selected Novels of Raja Rao, Atlantic Publishers and Distributers, 1999.

19

5. Neena Arora, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Hero, Atlantic Publishers and Distributers.

6. Raja Rao, 1974, “Preface” Kanthapura, London, Oxford University Press.

7. Braj Kachru (1983), The Indianisation of English: The English in India, Delhi: oup.

8. Benedict Anderson (1983), Imagined Communities, London, Uerso and New Left Books.

9. S. Radhakrishnan, Hindu View Of Life, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1954.

20

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

Chapter 2: Mulk Raj Anand As a Novelist

In this chapter we will study different aspects of the Anand’s personality and

Anand as a Novelist. As present study is particularly discussing Anand’s as a

writer of social protest, his concern for the neglected class it is essential to

discuss about his life and his works also. Along with R.K Narayan and Raja Rao,

Anand is credited with establishing the basic forms of modern and Indian

Literature writtern in English. He is the doyen of Indian English fiction, whose

writing career spanned nearly four decades, has carved out a permanent niche

in the literay world. His writings are marked by his fine perception of the Indian

ethos, the sinister forces that operates in the an Indian society, his humanitarian

outlook and profound sympathy for the down trodden and unprivileged. As an

author once told “ I believe in the only ism possible in our age ----humanism.

I feel that a man can grow in to the highest consciousness from insights into the

nature of human experience derived through creative art and literature. The

piling up of these insights May make a man survive at some level or quality of

]life, in our tragic age. I believe in co-existence among human beings and

co-discovery of cultures. I believe that world must end the arms race and get

five percent disarmament to give resources for building basic plenty throughout

the world……….i believe, though man has fallen very low at various times in

history, he is not so bad that he will not survive on this planet---as long as the

21

earth does not grow cold. I always dream the earth is not flat, but round.

Anand’s novels are thus faithful transcripts of and serious comments on the

contemporary social reality. The novels of Anand provide insight and throws a

light on old classics. Novels like Untouchable, Coolie, Two Leaves And Bud and

The Woman And The Cow but also deals with the issues like despair and

delight. Mulk Raj Anand is an established novelist who deals in common to day-

today themes in Indian villages and towns, makes it to the skyscrapers of cities

enabling us to realize the chasm between two worlds. Starting his quest as a

novelist with Untouchable he gets strength to strengthen his characters from

from furnance of the fight for freedom. His simple character smoulder with in

and keep the furnance burning till the fight comes to flames. A comparative

observation of his characters between the first phase and later phase makes

our vision clear. An overall study of His novels proves the fact that most of his

works have taken birth in ‘Despair’ and ‘Delight’. If we see life also moves on

wheels of ‘Despair’ and ‘Delight’. His personal story can be viewed as a story of

torments and ecstasies. Symbolic facts of his life someway or the other related to

his is related to his fictional impetous. At the core of his writings is a humanist

philosophy that incorporates elements of socialist, political and economic

theory. Critics argue that his socially conscious works have shed keen insights on

Indian affairs and enriched his country’s literary heritage. Indian novelist Mulk Raj

Anand passéd away at the grand old age of 98. He was arguably the greatest

22

exponent of Indian writing whose literary output was infused with political

commitment that portrayed the lives of India’s poor and downtrodden people

in a realistic and sympathetic manner. He is one of the highly regarded Indian

Novelists Writing In English. He is a short story writer, and art critic writing in English.

He was among the first to render Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English

called the zola or Balzac of India. Anand drew a realistic and sympathetic

portrait of the poor of his country. One reason for the reflection of political issues

of the independence movement in his writings because he himself had been

involved in India’s freedom movement. Along with his contemporaries

magnificient Raja Rao and R.K Narayan he has been regarded as one of the

‘founding fathers’ of the India’s literary movement in 1930s and of the English

novel. “And he had soon become possessed with an overwhelming desire to

live their life. He had been told they were sahibs, superior people. He had felt

that to put on their clothes made one sahib too. So he tried to copy them as

well as he could in the exigencies of his peculiarly Indian circumstances.”( From

Untouchable, 1935). Anand belonged to a generation that did not worship

money or media hype. For him writing was nothing short of expressing his social

concern and genuinely believing that he was playing an important part in

purging society of its ills. Anand was born at the time when socio-cultural ethos

of India was infested with narrow casteism. Mulk with a masterful artistry etched

out the cultural and social tribulations and the predicament of deprived

belonging to the lower caste according to the social niche. The contemporary

23

social problems, like discriminations on the basis of caste and religion and the

immediate outcome of this discrimination, untouchability are presented boldly

his novels. The characters in his novels are always from the common run of men,

from dust and dirt mean to say that from class who is always suppressed and

who are the part and parcel of the main stream society. Suppression and

oppression of common people by Britishers have developed the hatred of

novelist towards Britishers. The heroes of his novels are blessed with certain

admirable qualities of head and heart but social forces hamper the proper

development of these qualities. The hard working nature, intelligence, sensitivity

are so beautifully suppressed. They just bear and face the tortures of these

practices but the reaction is limited because they belong to the lower class who

can not speak for their rights and who cannot raise their voice. Their helplessness

against the suppression and social set up, traditions, taboos and customs gives

him a acute pain. They can do nothing but accept their fate. So the novels of

Anand, at this period of time took a bold and fearless plunge picking his heroes

from soil and dust. He decided to paint real India in its real colours and stark

reality. Real India he felt could be found amidst untouchables, coolies,

labourers, exploited wives etc. He introduced these victims of society as heroes

or main character in his novels because according to Walter Allen “ It is only

through his characters that a novelist succced in whatis his main social function,

which is to awaken…………..sympathetic comprehension in our readers.”

Anand’s motive behind picking his protagonist from the lower strata of society is

24

to prepare the people for revolution against suppression, Injustice and exploitation. Extremely of its time, novels of Mulk Raj Anand Reflects the socio-political and

cultural forte of the era. Mulk Raj Anand was born on December 1905 in to a family of metal

workers with an army backround in Peshawar, India (now in Pakistan). He was son of

coppersmith and graduated with honours in 1924 from Punjab University Lahore and at

University College at London. Anand began his formal education at a time when the Indian

educational system emphasized proficiency in English. Anad has since criticized the education

he received in Indian primary and secondary schools and at the university of Punjab for

neglecting Indian and European culture and leavind students ill-prepared foe adult life .He was

truly an Indian Author. He witnessed the bloody reality of colonial rule with the Jaillinwala

massacre of Amritsar in 1919. Like most Indians of his generation he was highly influenced by

Gandhi ji and he threw himself into Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement. He received 11

stripes on his back and was briefly jailed. This experience had a great impact on him. “ I had

grown up in the ferment of a great moral and political movement in which I had learnt that

alien authority constricted our lives in everyway. I can’t say there was no bitterness, my hatred

of imperialism because I remember how oftenwaves of fury swept over me to see hundreds of

human beings go to jail after being beaten up by the police for offering civil disobedience.”

These words of Anand clearly shows his anger towards British rule and thats why Anand

protested his father’s servility to British authorities. As his first text was born out of family

tragedy, instigated by rigidity of caste system. His first prose essay was a response to the

suicide of an aunt, who had been excommunicated by his family for dining with the Muslim

woman. Inevitably Anand who spent half his life time in London and half in India he was drawn

25

towards the Independence movement in India. An unhappy love for a Muslim girl, who was

married, inspired some of his poetry. Anand attended Khalsa college, Amritsar and entered the

university of Punjab in 1921. There after Anand did his additional studies at Cambridge and at

London University receiving his Ph.D in 1929. He studied and later lectured at League of Nations

School of Intellectual cooperation in Geneva. Between 1932 and 1945 Anand lectured on and

off, at Workers Educational Association in London. In the 1930s and 1940s, as he was deeply

influenced by Gandhi ji Anand divided his time between literary London and Gandhi’s India. He

joined the struggle for Independence, but at the same time he also fought with republicans in

Spanish Civil War 2 and supported freedom elsewhere around the globe. He worked as a

broadcaster and scriptwriter in the film division of BBC in London. After the war Anand

returned permanently to India, making his hometown and center of activity. In 1946 he

founded the fine arts magazine Marg. He also became a director of Kutub Publishers. From

1948 to 1946 Anand taught in Indian universities. In 1960s he was Tagore Professor of

Literature and Fine arts at the university of Punjab and visiting professor at Institute Of

Advanced Studies in Shimla. Between the years 1965 and 1970 Anand was fine arts chairman at

Lalit Kala Academy ( National Academy of Arts). In 1970 he was appointed as a president of

Lokayata trust, for creating a community and cultural center in the village of Haus Khas, New

Delhi. Anand started to write at an early age. Although Punjabi and Hindustani Were his

mother tongues, he wrote in English, because English language publishers did not reject his

books due to his themes. His career as a writer began in England by publishing short notes on

books in T.S Eliot’s magazine “Criterion”. His acquaintances from his times included such

26

authors as E.M Foster, Herbert Read, Henry Miller and George Orwell. But the most important influence upon Anand was Gandhi ji’s, who shaped his social conscience. In the early 1930s

Anand focoused on books on art history. His works includes poetry and essay on a wide range

of subjects, as well as autobiographies and novels. Prominent among his novels are “The Village

(1939)” , “Across The Black Waters (1940)” , “Sword and Sickle “ all writtern in England perhaps

most important of his works writtern In India and two of those includes Untouchable (1935)

and Coolie (1936) from where Anand gained a world wide recognition. His personal experiences

and the reform of India’s political, social and cultural institutions are major elements in Anand’s

writings. Untouchable was inspired by author’s childhood memory of low caste sweeper boy

Bakha who carried him home after he had been injured, the boy was however beaten by

Anand’s mother for touching her higher caste son. Bakha searches for comfort to the tragedy of

the destiny into which he was born, talking first with a Christian missionary and then with a

follower of Mahatma Gandhi but by the end of the book he concludes that it is technology in

the form of newly introduced flush toilet that will be his savior, while the toilet may deprive

him and his family of the traditional livelihood they have had for centuries, it may also literate

them in the end by eliminating the need for a caste of toilet cleaners. Problem of

untouchablility that was Prevalent in India before independence is discussed and brought to

light in his this famous novel Untouchable, through the life history of 18 year old, Bakha an

unclean outcaste who suffers a number of humiliations in the course of his day. The touching

occurs in the morning and subsequently shadows the rest of the day. Only due to his low birth

he has to work as a latrine sweeper. The powerful critique of Indian caste system suggested

that British colonial domination of India has actually increased the problems of outcastes such

as Bakha. After 19 rejection slips Anand’s novel was published in England with a preface by E.M

27

Forster : “ Untouchable could have only writtern by an Indian who observed from the outside.

No European, however sympathetic, could have created the character of Bakha because he

would not have known about his troubles. And no untouchable could have writtern the book,

because he would have been involved in indignation and self pity”. His friend E.M Forster,

whom he met while working on T.s Eliot’s magazine, wrote the introduction. In his second novel

Coolie (1936) Anand continues to describe the plight of India’s poor by telling a story of 15

year old trapped in servitude as a child labourer who eventually dies of tuberclosis.In reality

both Books were a revelation to the readers unaware of the circumstances of life in a caste

society and sparked extensive critical debate. This simple book which captured the puissance of

the Punjabi and Hindi, idiom in English was widely acclaimed and Anand won reputation of

being India’s Charles Dickens. He was very much concerned about the ignorant class of the

society and his this interest in social themes continued in the Coolie which relate the

tribulations of the working class life in India. Critics assert that in his early works Anand

employed markedly polemical style when attributing India’s social problems to caste system,

British Rule and Capitalism. Mulk Raj Anand’s personal experiences and the reform of India’s

political, social and cultural institutions are major elements in Anand’s writings. Early fictional

works like Untouchable, “Two Leaves And Bud” and “Coolie” dramatize the cruelties inherit in

the caste system and suffering induced by poverty. In His third novel “Two Leaves And A Bud”

(1937) Anand expresses concern for the tears and sighs of the crushed humainity which

culminates in a tragic clash between the poor and the rich, Britishers and the Indians and

above all, proletariat and the Bourgeoisie. This novel described the story of an exploited

28

peasant Gangu of Hoshairpur in Punjab is tempted by a false promises and fettered and

oppressed by the colonial people in the Macpherson Tea Estate in distant Assam. His wife,

Sajani, and his children, Leila and Buddhu also bear the brunt of colonial exploitation. Here

Gangu and other coolies are mercilessly treated even worse than animals. Gangu is killed while

trying to protect his daughter from being raped by a British colonial official. His after works

including the novel Private Life Of An Indian Prince, was more of a autobiographical in nature

and in 1950 Anand embarked on a project seven part autobiography with seven summers, one

part Morning Face (1968) won him the National Academy Award. Confession Of A Lover(1972)

and The Bubble (1988), reveal the story of his experiments with the truth and the struggle of his

various egos to attain a possible higher self. Anand also published books on subjects as diverse

as Marx and Engels in India, Tagore, Nehru, Aesop’s fables, the Kama Sutra, erotic sculpture and

Indian Ivories. Along with the novelist and short story writer Munshi Prem Chand ( 1880-1936),

Anand was involved in forming dalit literature, used to refer to the “untouchable” casteless

sects of India. Like much of his later work it contains elements of his spiritual journey as he

struggles to attain a higher sense of self awareness.

Jaydeep Sarangi sums up what Indian ness in General represents, it is an internal and abstract

value. “ Indian ness is essentially an important criteria for Indian writing in English because it

gives the Indian writing an identity of its own” ( P-71). A prolific Writer first gained world wide recognition for his novels Untouchable and

Coolie both of which examined problem of poverty in Indian society. Among his other works are

The Village (1939), The Sword And The Sickle (1942) and The Big Heart. Anand is a prolific

writer and has written a large number of Extremely varied short stories. They reveal his gift if

humor and deal in a lighter vain with the problems that engage him in his novel- exploitation o

29

the poor, Industrialization colonialism and race relations. One of Anand’s best novels “ The Big

Heart” deals with a traditional coppersmith who eel threatened by mechanization. The large

hearted Anand tries to weld them in to a trade union: he tells it is not the machines but the

owners who exploit them, but he dies in a scuffle before his ideals can be realized. The Old Man

Cow is republished as Gauri) takes up plight of another unprivileged section of society-women.

The heroine, Gauri, is sold to an old money lender by her own mother out of economic

necessity. Gauri re-enacts the Ramayana myth of Sita by staying for some time in the house o

the old banker, just as Sita to stay with Ravana. Gauri is reunited with her husband Panchi just

as Sita was reunited with Rama, and panchi rejects her later, just as Rama rejected the pregnant

Sita because o social pressures. At this point Anand gives a new turn to the old myth Unlike Sita

who bore her suffering meekly, Gauri rejects her cowardly husband and goes on a build a new

life for herself. The story is well conceived and the use of the myth original, but the writing is

hurried and slipshod, the harangues on social justice not organic to the plot. Anand through his

rare prolificacy, bold experimentation and aesthetic sensibility, has made immense contribution

to the Indian as well as world literature in world. He is one of the best known novelist in English in India. Now we

are going to read some lines what Anand said about his works and life that will

clear up the hidden aspects of his personality that what actually encourages

him to write. “ I began to write early- a kind of free verse in the Punjabi and urdu

languages, from the compulsion of the shock of the death of my cousin when

she was nine years old. I wrote a letter to God telling him he didn’t exist. Later

going through the dark night of bereavement, when my aunt committed suicide

30

because she was excommunicated for interdining with a Muslim woman, I wrote

an elegy. Again when I fell in love with a young muslim girl, who was married off

by arrangement, I wrote love verse. The poet philosopher Muhammad Iqbal,

introduced me to the problems of individual through his long poem “ Secrets Of

The Self.’’ Through him I also read Nietzsche to confirm my rejection of God.”

Anand spent a short term in jail also under freedom movement that was going

on at that time,he was punished by his parents for affliations with Gandhi

movement as his father was pro-british. Anand went to Europe and there he

studied various philosophical system and still he was disappointed and found

that these comprehensive philosophies didn’t answer life’s problems. He also

joined Marxist study circle after he was beaten in coal miner’s strike. After that

Anand became familiar with Trade unionist Alan Hutt, Palme Dutt, John

Strachey, T. S. Eliot, Herbert Read, Bonamy Dobree, Harold Laski and Leonard

woolf. It was during this time that Anand fell in love with a young Welsh girl

painter, Irene, whose father was a biologist. For her he wrote a long confession

about the braek up of his family, The British impact on his life. Then Anand

began to write short stories allegories and novels as nobody would publish

narrative. His first attempt at a novel was revised in Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram

in Ahmedabad, But was turned down by 19 Publishers in London.

Since the publication of his first novel, Anand wrote continuously on

the human situation in the lives of people who are rejected in the society,

outcastes, peasants, farmers and other eccentrics, thrown up during the

31

transition from the ancient orthodox Indian society to the self conscious modern

secular democracy. In words of Anand Literature is “ I believe is the true medium

of humanism as against systematic philosophies, because because the wisdom

of the heart encourages insights in all kinds of human beings who grow to self

consciousness through conflicts of Desire, will and mood. I am inclined to think

that the highest aim poetry and art is ti integrate the individual in to inner growth

and outer adjustment. According to Anand the task of novelist is that of all

comprehending “God” who understands every part of his creation, through pity,

compassion, or sympathy which is the only kind of catharsis possible in art. The

word is itself the action of the still center. The struggle to relate the word and the

deed in the lie of men is the part of the process of culture, through which

illumination comes to human beings. The world of art is communication from

one individual to another, or to the group through the need of connect.”

For his realistic portrayals of the social economic problems

suffered by Indians because of the caste system and British colonial rule, Anand

is considered by many critics to be the India’s best writer. The value of his novel

according to Margaret Berry “ is the witness they offer of India’s attempt to

break out of massive stagnation and create society in which women and men

are free and equal.” Although Anand’s early works were faulted by some critics

for stereotypical characterization, didacticism and melodrama. They noticed a

restraint in later novels that enhances the persuasiveness of his appeal. Krishna

Nanda Sinha remarked “while the later novels retain passion for social justice

32

they sound greater emotional depthts.” Anand is the champion of the

underdog. He was the first Indian novelist to make an untouchable the hero of

the novel. Martin Seymour Smith remarked on Untouchable that it is “one of the

most eloquent and imaginative works to deal with this difficult and emotive

subject.” Anand also captures the ambiance of Punjabi life by literally

translating words and phrases, but this device doesn’t always succeed. Readers

outside the Punjab may find it difficult to make anything of phrases like “there is

no talk” and “ May I be your sacrifice”. However, Anand is successful in

presenting a vivid picture of the Punjabi farmer and problems of the poor. The

range of his novels is impressive, covering not only the Punjabi but life in towns

like Bombay and Simla. Tea gardens of Assam. He is above all the humanist, and

his humanism contains in it the all aspects of life, from the contemporary slums to

the Indian art and philosophy.

References:

1. E.M. Forster, Preface to Untouchable, Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable( 1935; New Delhi: Orient Paperback, 1970).

2. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable (1935), Penguin Books Ltd.

3. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, Arnold Hienemann Publishers, New Delhi, Reprinted, 1984.

4. Jaideep Sarangi, Indian Novel In English: A Socio-Linguistic study, Publishers- Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly.

33

5. Mulk Raj Anand, Lines Writtern to an Indian Art, Nalanda publishers, Bombay 1949.

6. Margaret Berry, Mulk Raj Anand: The Man and the Novelist, Amsterdom, Oriental Press, 1971.

7. Walter Allen, “ New Novels”, The New Stateman and Nation 46.1174, 5 Sept. 1953.

8. G.S.Balarama Gupta, Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of his Fiction in Humanist Perspective, Prakash Book Depot, Bareilli, 1974.

9. K.K Sharma (ed.), Perspectives on Mulk Raj Anand, Vimal Parkashan, Ghaziabad, 1978.

34

Anand’s Coolie & Untouchable: A Cultural Study

Chapter 3 : Cultural Aspects in Coolie and Untouchable

This chapter focuses on the different cultural aspects in Anand’s Coolie and Untouchable.

Though Anand had previously published some non-fiction the appearance of Coolie and

Untouchable established his credentials as a novelist. Untouchable(1935) is a fictional

statement on the tragedy of the untouchables in the India of the twenties and thirties, based

on the story of a sweeper lad calles Bakha. Twenty-six years later after the publication of this

work, Anand wrote another novel, ‘The Road’(1961) on the same theme of untouchability

where again he dramatizes the destiny of an untouchable, called Bhikhu, who is a new Bakha in

a changed situation. Both the stories dealt with the down-trodden. Infact, both novels Coolie

and Untouchable are excellent critiques of the Indian caste system and British colonialism.

Anand through these novels the showed the prevailing culture through the characters Bakha

and Munno of that particular time. Untouchable touches upon the life of Bakha, an unclean

outcaste and the humiliations that he has to face, he is eighteen, proud, “strong and able

bodied” a child of modern India who has started to think himself as superior to his fellow-

outcastes. Due to his low birth, Bakha’s fate is to work as a latrine sweeper ,while the Coolie

carries on its shoulders the tragedy of a fifteen year old labourer who dies of tuberculosis.

Today people may find Anand’s razor-sharp realism of Coolie to be brusque, but the fact is

that the novel still makes you squirm in discomfort with its naked realism. Benjamin Disraeli

rightly quipped “Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do, you apologize for the

truth”. The powerful critique of the Indian caste system suggested that British colonial

35

domination of india has actually increased the suffering of outcastes, such as Bakha. After 19

rejection slips Anand’s novel was published in England with a preface by E.M Forster:

“Untouchable could only have been written by an Indian who observed from the outside. No

European, however sympathetic, could have created the character of Bakha, because he would

not have known enough about his troubles. And no Untouchable could have written the book,

because he would have been involved in indignation and self-pity.”

Saros Cowasjee, writing in the Journal of commonwealth Literature, appreciated and

praised Untouchable on many levels. “ The novel is not only a powerful social tract but also a

remarkable technical feat.” Cowasjee wrote “ The action takes place within the compass of a

single day, but the author manages to build round his hero Bakha……..a spiritual crisis of such

breadth that it seems to embrace the whole of India”. Untouchable has two functions Social

and emotional. On social level it awakes the readers from the slumber who are unaware of life

in a caste society, and sparked critical debate and Commentary. On emotional function, E.M

Forster wrote in the preface of the novel “ it has gone straight to the heart of its subject and

purified it”.Anand wrote more than 24 novels and short stories but proper stating of his career

we can say that lunched with the publication of “Untouchable” in 1935.

This novel criticized Indian caste system. Untouchable stands as the most moving

book in the corpus of Anand’s writing. In ‘ The Story Of My Experiment With White Lie’ Anand

reveals that the Bakha story was one of the numerous episodes narrated in a 2000-page

confession he had writtern as an adolescent youth. It was a long, loose, amorphous narrative in

which he had described all his experiences-a kind of body-soul search. Bakha figured in this

narrative as a ‘rare human being’ whom Anand had known from his childhood and “adored as a

36

hero because he was physically like a God, played all the games superbly and could recite whole

cantos from the epic poem Heer Ranjha of Waris Shah….” But this rare person was humiliated

and insulted everywhere because he was an untouchable. Of all his novels it is immediate

product of his personal experience and the culture, ethos of India in which he grew

up. Untouchable is based on an incident in his own life. Injured by a stone, the young Anand

was taken home by the lower caste Bakha, who was subsequently abused by Anand’s mother

for polluting her son. The novel conveys all of these facts along with an understanding of dual

nature of the untouchable mindset, for while the untouchable hated by all Hindus because he

cleans latrines he still has pride. Action of untouchable confined to a place resembling town

with where he lived as a boy. Anand’s boyhood was a cultural changing place. He come in

contact with west as India was under British rule but traditional hold of culture was somewhere

also there. As caste system was very rigid. Uppercastes began to ignore occupational

requirements and taboos. But the rituals cultural constraints were as it is for the low castes

such as latrine cleaner, Street sweeper. To the literate and the educated person all these things

that was prevailed in Indian society seemed to be inhumane and insane. So intellectuals and

writers criticized this blind orthodoxy. Bakha the protagonist, who represents the misery and

inhuman treatment of the crushed before independence. The novelist narrates a single day’s

event in the life of bakha, an eighteen year old boy. He is the son of Lakha, the sweeper the

cleaner of latrines.Through these two characters Bakha and Lakha author hammers hard on the

caste conflict; a conflict which constitutes the core of Hindu religion and procures an obstacle in

the path of peace and prosperity. This novel also shows how an outcaste has to lead a life

meaner than animals; how inspite of his virtue, he has to tolerate insult and abuses, sometimes

37

for cause and sometimes without any cause: hoe he feels like a caged bird that flutters its wings

for a free flight; how “ his feelings would rise like spurts of smoke from a half smothered fire in

fitful jerks when the recollection of abuse or rebuke he had suffered kindled a park in the ashes

of remorse inside him”.

As the novel opens, we see Bakha receiving so many derogatory epithets by Lakha e.g..,

‘son of a pig’ (p-15), ‘you illegally begotten’ (p-17) scoundrel of a Sweeper’s son etc. we also get

description of the uncongenial conditions where these outcastes used to live on the very first

page of the novel “ The outcastes colony was a group of mud-walled houses that clustered

together in two rows, under the shadow of both town and cantonement, but outside their

boundaries and separate from them. There lived the scavengers, the washerman, the barbers,

the water carriers, the grass cutters and other outcastes from the Hindu society. A brook ran

near the lane, once with crystal clear water, now soiled by the dirt and filth of the public

latrines situated about it, the odour of the hides and skins of dead carcases left to dry on its

bank, the dung of donkeys, sheeps, horses, cows and buffaloes heaped up to be made into fuel

cakes… The absence of a drainage system had, through the rains of various seasons, made of

the quarter a marsh which gave out the most offensive stink. And altogether the ramparts of

human and animal refuse that lay on the outskirts of this little colony, and the ugliness, the

squalor and the misery which lay with in, made it an ‘uncongenial’ place to live in.”

So from here one can get the clear picture of the place where these outcastes were forced to

live by the higher class. Bakha goes to clean the latrines of Havildar Charat Singh, the famous

hockey player of the 38th Dogras regiment Bakha used to do his work quickly without any delay

and irrespective of his job of cleaning the latrines he remained clean and Charat Singh is so

38

impressed by his good conduct and he Promised to give him a hockey stick. On getting the stick

Bakha was on seventh Cloud as he was so happy. “ he was grateful, haltingly grateful,

falteringly Grateful, stumblingly grateful, so grateful that he didn’t know how he could walk the

ten yards to the corner to be out of sight of his benevolent and generous Host”.(p.122) Through

this episode of Charat singh giving away the hockey stick, The author wants to point out the

inner urge of the untouchables, which seems To be covered with the ‘dead leaves’ (P.B Shelley’s

Ode to West Wind).

Once Bakha inadvertently touched a caste Hindu in the market. The castemen became so

furious that they began to chide him by dint of abusive language ,swine dog .Bakha continued

to listen to their insult and humiliation but he never opened his mouth .He bent his forehead

and mumbled something .But all his requests fell flat on them .the other man sitting there also

began to hiss like a snake “this dirty dog bumped right into me .So unmindfully do these sons of

bitiches walk in the streets !he was walking alone without the slightest effort at announcing his

approach ,the swine ”,page 54. Bakha was surrounded by the crowd of people .He was so

confused that he was dumb-founded. He felt he should run ,just to shoot across the throng

away from this unbearable torment. But in spite of his earnest apologizes,”the staring, pulling,

jeering and learning ” crowd was sadistic in watching him covered with abuses and curses.

Fortune favored Bakka ,a Muslim Tonga Walla arrived at this critical moment and rescue d

Bakka. It is just an irony a Hindu is insulting Hindu but a Muslim is consoling him !This whole

incident left a deep impact on the mind of Bakha ”why are we always abused the sentry

inspector that day abused my father .They always abuse me .Because we are sweepers.

Because we touch dung .They hate dung .I hate it too .That’s why I came here .I was tired of

39

working on the latrines everyday .That is why they don’t touch us ,the high castes”(page

58).This pettiest plight of untouchable reminds us of the Booker Price author Arundhti Roy who

presents a similar attitude in her debut novel TheGod Of Small things .Velutha ,like Bakha , in

this novel not allowed to enter the house of the upper caste .They were not allowed to touch

anything that touchable touch this dangerous disease of caste conflict was on its full swing

before independence ,it is still seen much or less in almost every state of India. The birth of a

new enlightenment in Bakha results from the central dramatic situation in the novel; touching

of Hindu boy in the market and being slapped and subjected to the most inhuman treatment

before a crowd of people. It is this fateful accident that opens his eyes for the first time and lets

him have vague glimpses into the real meaning of his ownself, his own place in the society. “

For them I am a sweeper---untoucahble! That’s the word: untouchable, I am an

untouchable”(57). This moment is “ the central point of Untouchable”. It becomes a crucial

moment of realization when the main character fully understands his place in the social order.

From this moment of self realization, begins a ostracized hero’s spiritual voyage towards a new

destination. As a hero Bakha embodies the tragedy of a whole community of untouchables of a

particular historical epoch. In Anand’s own words,

“ In Untoucable I meant to recreate the lives of the millions of untouchables through one single

person, in only one incident. The slap on the face of the hero. Now the slap on the face evoked

all human relations…of the sixty five millions of people whom the hero represents, against the

millions of caste Hindus”.

From the moment of the slap on his face Bakha gets transformed in to a fable figure.

The untouchables ,the socially isolated people who from the most important part of the nation

40

have to lead a deplorable and miserable life beyond description .E.M Froster rightly hold the

view :“the sweeper is worse off than a slave, for the slave may change his master and his duties

and may even become free, but the sweeper is bound forever ,born into a state from which he

can’t escape and where he is excluded from social intercourse and the consolations of his

religion .Unclean himself, he pollutes others when he touches them .They have to purify

themselves, and to rearrange plans for the day .Thus ,he is disquieting as well as a disgusting

object to the orthodox as he walks along the public roads ,and it is his duty to call out and warn

them that he is coming” it is to be noted that untouchability is one of the greatest evil of our

country .In the “Manusmriti ”,the law book of the Hindu social code and domestic life ,we see

the pathetic plight of the untouchables ,who are deprived of gaining knowledge, particularly the

vedic knowledge .According to this book the untouchables has no right to go to the temples ,no

liberty to listen the incantations of the Vedas or the other great scriptures at that time Sanskrit

supposed to be the richest language and untouchables were also deprived of reading and

studying this language ,so one of the cause of degeneration of Sanskrit language is

untouchability .One another incident in untouchable that is ‘Temple incident” flings a harsh

and rugged satire on the hypocrisy and ostentations of the upper caste people like Pandit

Kalinath Who though hates the untouchable invites, Mohini, the sister of Bakha to quench his

sexual Thrist. He makes improper suggestions to her. On her denial, he begins to shout ‘

polluted, polluted, polluted’ What an irony! He is the priest, the highest caste in hierarchy of

caste system. He is supposed to lead a life of purity both inwardly and outwardly. But here he

invites the untouchable Mohini to the temple, the abode of God. He wants to molest her and

41

that to just that time where all Dalits and untouchables were exploited badly. Females were

exploited both mentally and physically by the people in command sometimes raising a

question on the integrity and status of the women, whereas writers like Mulk Raj Anand

always aimed at bringing all these evils to light and raising the curtain from the ill-treatment

and ever worsening aspects of lower caste people that were prevalent at that particular time.

This has also become a culture among the individuals holding a reputed and higher positions in

the society to use the Dalit women to quench their unhealthy desires and thirst.Primary

concern of Mulk Raj Anand is to present a humanitarian compassion for yhe dalit and deserted

,He himself admits :

“I hope for world in which the obvious primary degradation of poverty has been

completely removed.So that man can have enough food ,clothing and shelter

to grow up as strong and healthy humanbeings ,physically and mentally and

pro-crate a fine race to people of the universe ,in the place of those stunted

,subnormal ,miserable millions ,tortured by starvation, disease ,unemployment

and war who have been the background of my life .I want this for all men and

women ,irrespective of race ,color and creed, with special provisions for

planned health and housing facilities or the backward and the extara special

provisions for the care of very old and very young”

And this is what the novelist expressed in Untouchable.to crown the fact he has

introduce even Mahatama Gandhi as a character in the novel who delivers a

lecture against untouchability ,superstition and other evils tormenting the nation

from the time in immemorial. Bakka feels delighted when Gandhi gaves the

42

appellation of Harijan sons of God ,to the Bhangis and Chamars .Bakha is

inluenced by his words ‘the fact that we address God as ‘the purifier of the

polluted souls ’makes it a sin to regard anyone born in Hinduism as polluted--it

is satanic to do so .I have never been tired of repeating that it is a great sin .I

don’t say that this thing crystallized in me at the age of 12 ,but I do say that I did

then regard untouchability as a sin ”

Coolie is a great novel of pre-Independence India. It is a masterpiece by

Anand depicting the reality of life. It is a story of a porter boy that shows fingers

to reality of life. He comes from his village home to to the city and works

vigorously in various places. This novel gives a chilling picture of this down

stepped porter boy, Munno, who at his early stage gets into obscurity of his own

existence. Finally he dies of tuberclosis. Munno is severely despised and

maltreated by the callous and entirely adverse people—his aunt in the village,

the Bank Sub-Accountant and his wife in Sham Nagar, Mrs. Mainearing at Simle

etc. Munno starts from his village to a role as a servant in a house likewise as

worker in factory, and then eventually as a richshaw puller. Darkness of life is

completely described by author. Coolie is a novel that beautifully expresses the

struggling, starving mass sometimes without any cause. This novel is a satire on

the tragic denial of the workers—domestic servants, coolies, richshaw pullers

etc. who are tortured and tyrannized by so many evils like industrialism,

capitalism and above all colonialism. Protagonist of this novel, Munoo is a

orphan and he could feel the itch of it and Anand could rightly give a heart

43

throbbing description of his mental state and his all activities in a unique way.

This novel is really touchy for an emotional person. In opinion of K.R.s Iyengar:

“if Untouchable is the micro-cosm ,Coolie is more like the macro-cosm that is

Indian society: concentration gives place to diffusion and comprehension .

coolie,sis verily a cross section of India ,the visible India ,the mixture of the

horrible and the holy,the inhuman and the humane ,the sordid and the

beautiful…in Untouchable the evil is isolated as castes :in Coolie the evil is more

widespread, and appears as greed ,selfishness and inhumanity in there hundred

different forms ”

Munno, who represents the million Indians, bears the brunt of social injustice and

class antagonism from pillar to post. In the opening of the novel we see Munno,

14 year old orphan being ill-treated by his cruel aunt in the village: “Munno!ohe!

Munnoa! Oh mundu! Where have you died? Where have you drifted, you of the

evil star? Munno leaves his native land with his uncle, Daya Ram, the peon of

the Imperial Bank Of Indiaand goes to earn the bread to Babu Nathoo Ram,

Sub Accountant. But his innocence begins to bleed when he comes in contact

with reality. The employer’s wife is so rough tounged and cold to him that she

destroys the sweet dreams of this adolescent boy. He is treated worse than an

animal in the house:

“Eater of your masters !Strange servant you are that you fall asleep before tha

sun sunsets! What is my use of a boy like you in the house if you are going to do

that everyday. Wake up ! Wake! Wake up !and serve the Babauji his dinner . or

44

atleast eat your food before you sleep ,if sleep and die you must ”(p:25)

Undeserved suffering and unbearable taunts of the house mistress one day,

make Munno slip out of the Babu’s house. He heaved a sigh of relief after

escapinp from the Babu’s house and his state of mind was beautifully expressed

in the last lines of second chapter of the novel “Later, he breathed the pure air.

He didn’t know where the train was going, but he was thankful to be in the

moving thing.”(p.76). In the train he sees a ray of hope in the form of Prabha, a

passenger of the train who takes Munno to Daulatpur. But very soon misfortune

invades his life as his benefactor becomes bankrupt. Munno becomes a Coolie

at the station. Ther too he has to face many trials and tribulations, Cares and

anxieties. By accident ,Munno is taken to Bombay with the help of an elephant

driver of a circus company there he starts working in Sir George White Cotton

Mills .This mill was owned by a British men. There Munno met Hari , his fellow

worker and they both lived in a slum .The author presents a truthful picture of

the dwellings of the slum : “The mud flow was at a level lower than the path way

outside ,overgrown with grass which was nourished by the inflow of the rain

water. The cottage boasted not a window nor a chimney to let in the air and

light and to eject the smoke .But then ,had it not the advantage of the sound

sack cloth curtain at its door, when most of the huts in the neighborhood had

torn and tattered jute bags , or broken cane chicks if old rags ,bent tins and

washing and what not ,to guard them against the world ?”(p:202)

These neglected and downtrodden people use to live in the unhealthy

45

atmosphere .Bakha ,the protagonist of Untouchable also lived in such a

atmosphere where it was difficult to stand due to the bad smell and stink

.Hunger and poverty exploitation and retrenchment of workers leads to the

cause of strike . This eruption gives birth to Hindu-Muslim riots. Munno was also a

human being and also have a desires and he wants to escape from all these

burdens and wishes to lead a life of solitude far from the din and bustle of city

life .When he steals out of the place he was dashed down to un consciousness

by the car of Mrs .Main waring ,and indolent lady who takes him with her to

Shimla but his health begins to run down due to overwork ,ill nourishment and

undeserved sufferings :which collectively leads to his lonely death “But in the

early hours of one unreal ,white night he passed away :The tide of his life having

reached back to the deeps .”(p:317)

Thus through Munno ,Anand has exposed the selfishness and cruel

behaviour of the big guns of the society ,who seldom pay any attention to the

cries of the poor ,The Dalit and the deserted .Coolie comprehends the deeper levels of despair

and degradation with a subdued undercurrent of delight. Munno, moves from village to the

town, from the town to the city and then to the mountains broadening the canvas of the novel.

He is eventually swept to his doom. He is a frail boy in a hostile world. He is more a victim than

a rebel. Anand expresses his rage at various kinds of exploitation ranging from capitalism to

communalism. Chapters three and four of the novel depicts Munno’s experiences in Daulatpur

and Bombay emphasizing his savage struggle for survival. Munno has to endure the foul smell

and stink, damp and sticky sweat, dust and heat and dung. In such climate life is threat and

46

death is release. The rich merchants are contrasted with the dark coolies in their patched up

rags who lives in the congested hovels. Coolie has an edge over Untouchable because it is

according to the Iyenger, ‘most extensive in time and space, evoking, variegated action and

multiplicity in character’.

There is enough of such human existence in around and society , but under the pressure of

survival these persons are ignored everyday .This book makes the people to think for a while

who just seek only a decent living .People may find Anands razor sharp realism of Coolie

brusque but the fact is that novel still makes the reader twist in discomfort with its naked

realism .The charm of book lies in its detailed description of the misery of the million mass ;

Munnos’s warm-heartedness : his irrepressible wish to fly freely in the sky of freedom and

liberty. Anand is of the opinion that even the poor and the socially neglected people can also

rise to the status of general people provide they are given proper facilities , proper education

and proper justice .He rightly observed:

“I hope for the world where men and women will awaken through the first elementary battles

for the bread ,peace ,fresh air and freedom ,which they are fighting to see the slow fire that is

rising from the great ,smoldering ashes of their lives :So that having struggled on the horizontal

plane , they earn the right to stand perpendicular and touch the stars ; so that they can live

perceive the true worth of their humanity , dignity of man …

So in this chapter we come across many cultural aspects ,many cultured restrictions

in the novel Coolie and untouchable . Through the lives of Bakha and Munno how it has a

become a culture among the upper caste to exploit the lower caste without taking care of the

47

thing that they are also human beings , they also have some whims and desires .Mulk Raj Anand

dives deep into the water of Indian village lives and churn out those unnoticed pearls and

diamonds .Anand takes a hammer in his hand and blow hard on the dead customs and

misleading customs .

References :

1. E.M Forster, Preface to Untouchable, Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable (1935; New Delhi, Orient Paperback, 1970).

2. Saros Cowasjee, So Many Freedoms: A Study of the Major Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand ( Madras; Oxford UP, 1977).

3. K.R Srinivasa Iyenger, Indian Writing in English 4th ed., 1962 Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1984.

4. Mulk Raj Anand, The Road (1961) ; Sterling Publishers, New Delhi (1987).

5. Mulk Raj Anand, Coolie (1936; Delhi: Hind Pocket Books, 1972).

6. Arundhati Roy, The God Of Small Things, India Ink Publishing.Co.pvt.Ltd., New Delhi, 1997.

7. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, 1935, New Delhi, Publishers- Arnold Heinamann, 1984 rpt.

48

Chapter 4 : Comparison With Other Works of Same Genre

In this chapter, to carry out the research and compare the works of same genre we confidently

select some Indian English novelists that includes Raja Rao, R.K Narayan, Anita Desai and

Arundhati Roy, Who through their writings tried to depict the real India. Indian English novel

evolved as a subaltern consciousness as a reachen to break away from the Colonial literature.

Stories were there already in India steeped in folklores, myths written in number of languages.

However concept of Indian writing in English came much later and it with the coming of Raja

Rao, R.K Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, the journey of English novel began. Social disparity of India

which was aptly described by Mulk Raj Anand in Coolie, imaginary village with its entire

realities in R.K Narayan Malgudi Days and aura of Gandhism depicted by Raja Rao’s Kanthapura.

They portray India with her sheer grandeur, tradition, realities, myths, heritage in most

eloquent ways.Another novelists like Amitav Ghosh dabble the post colonial Indian realities

while helps Vikram Seth to depict a rather new India laced with an air of Victorian aristocracy.

Actually it the Indianness of these writers that helped them to depict the culture of the society

of that time clearly. Sarangi in his book wrote “Raja Rao’s Indianness is a binding force the

result of many other forces-sense of tradition , culture ,heritage, geography,life attitude, habits,

deep rooted philosophy and social life”(P-49). It is very important to well versed with the

society about which you are writing. Sarangi also wrote “ In India writers have gone back to

their roots and yet, they have totally rejected the language of the colonizer, they opt for

hybridization of the adopted language”(P-119).

Raja Rao comes of a very old South Indian Brahmin family. He was born in 1909. He lived in

49

France from 1928 to 1939 and returned to India on the outbreak of World war second in 1940.

Again he went to France in 1946 and lived there till 1956. It was in France, thousands of miles

away from India, That he wrote his first novel Kanthapura (1938). His second novel ‘ The

Serpent and The Rope’, published after a gap of 22 years, has France as its scene of action, and

reveals that Raja Rao has fully absorbed and assimilated the culture of the west. In the early

thirties before leaving for France for higher studies, Raja Rao had writtern a couple of essays to

express his love for his motherland and his fascination for Indian culture and vedantic

philosophy. All this love of Indian culture and philosophy colours ‘ The Serpent And The rope’.

Raja Rao is a great son of mother India, and his greatness has received national and

international recognition. He won the Sahitya Academy Award for ‘ The Serpent And The Rope’,

which has been called the best Indo-Anglian novel ever writtern.

Raja Rao is a very prolific writer. He writes slowly, revises frequently and his works have been

published at a great intervals, because he wants to achieve perfection. ‘The Serpent And The

Rope’ has cultural and ascetic contents in it. Rooted in native ethos, the novel manifests the

basic assumptions which sustain Indian culture in all its complexity. The theme of love and

marriage, leads to the larger concern of the quest for self-knowledge beautifully suggested in

the very title itself. Though Raja Rao spent most of his life abroad, his love for the inherited

culture has not diminished and remains his central preoccupation. Raja Rao himself admitted

this that “ My roots are in this country…..i live abroad but I am chained to this country(India)”. It

is obvious that among the Indian novelists Raja Rao is the greatest interpreter of Indian thought

and culture. While the contemporaries like Mulk Raj Anand and R.K Narayan by and large

confine themselves to the social realities, Raja Rao concentrates on cultural and philosophical

50

dimension in his creative writings. Raja Rao has a wide experience of regions, languages,

cultures as he has traveled widely and had been in contact with different cultures of various

countries. As a result, his social contacts show variety of cultural fabrics mixed up in the

cultures of world. The novels of Raja Rao basically illustrate not anything else but character’s

awareness about their own culture while interacting with western culture. There is a significant

relation in man and culture. Culture as whole is the overall pattern of human action in a

particular society, culture is powerful than life and even stronger than death. So sometimes it

doesn’t satisfy us and sometimes it fulfill our desires.

His masterpiece ‘ The Serpent And The Rope’ begins with Ramaswamy’s coming back to India

after spending some years in France, and his metaphysical definition of the re-discovered

country. In this case, protagonist’s awareness of the two cultures intensifies his concern for his

own identity. He is in search of true image, torn between the traditional values he has absorbed

from childhood and the new values his education has bestowed upon him. The hero of the

novel Ramaswamy, met Medelaine, a college teacher of history at the University of Caen. She

loved Ramaswamy because he was an Indian and she loved India. Soon they are married and

have a child. After sometime it was discovered that their marriage was not a union of souls but

a result of temporary lust for physical pleasures. The initial proximity between the two coming

from diverse cultural stocks as they do undergoes a serious rift and eventually they part away.

Both of them are not satisfied with each other’s behaviour and try to find some anomaly in

their way of living. What Madelaine says about herself to Ramaswamy is meaningful in view of

her class and so to which she belongs:

“ you will never understand us the French. There is piety of course and compassion. But Lord

51

there is so much calculation. I tell you virtue is a part of French bourgeois economy”( Serpent p-

136).

Moreover , in the marriage of Rama and Madelaine, two contrary world views come together

and novel is a study of that encounter. While comparing and contrasting the culture of two

main characters, Raja Rao comes to the conclusion that both are complementary to each other.

As the hero Ramaswamy believes that one can know one’s culture better by coming in contact

with another as he himself realizes in the company of Madeliane and she also feels that she has

come to know Indian culture through her contact with Rama. Inspite of their sharply

differentiated attitudes towards life, Ramaswamy and Madelaine has one striking similarity as

characters: they are intensely conscious about the epistemologies they represent. Hardly ever

do they regard themselves or each other simply as individual human beings. Instead they are

constantly interpreting their own and each other’s actions in terms of their national and

cultural differences, invariably comes to an end with generalizations about Indian and western

traits of characters. Besides dealing with Ramaswamy’s relations with Madeliane and Savithri,

the novel is essentially a spiritual autobiography of Ramaswamy, for that matter Raja Rao’s own

spiritual quest in so far as there is a close resemblance between the hero and the novelist. The

hero tells his own history and includes as much as possible with a view to telling the whole

truth. It is not mererly the events of his life that Ramaswamy recounts but but tries to find the

truth hidden behind them.

Finally , Ramaswamy realizes on his return to India that the whole European culture and the

materialistic civilization is only an illusion like the Serpent, while the Indian spiritual Advaitic

Vedant based vision is the reality, the rope. However , The Sahitya Akademi awarded fiction

52

The Serpent and The Rope seems to be very unique in that context which highlights the cultural

and philosophical heritage of India. Raja Rao succeeded in achieving a synthesis between East

and West, “tradition” and “Individual talent” while endowing it with an unusual spiritual bias.

His novel Kanthapura is a classic of the Gandhian movement, a work in which the Gandhian

struggle for independence and its impact on the Indian masses finds its best and fullest

expression. This novel is a impact of this Gandhian struggle on a remote South Indian village

named Kanthapura, and what happens in Kanthapura was happening all over India in those

stirring years from 1919 to 1931 of the Gandhian non-violent, non-cooperation movement for

the independence of the country. Gandhi ji doesn’t make a personal appearance in the novel,

as he does in the Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable with such disastrous consequences, but he is

constantly present in the background, and at every step there are references to important

events of the day such as the historic Dandi March and the breaking of the Salt law. Hence for the proper understanding of different aspects of novel it is essential to form a clear idea of the

important political and social events connected with the Indian Freedom Struggle. India’s

struggle for independence from the colonial rule of the British goes back to the war of 1857,

which the British dismissed as a mere mutiny. The valiant Indian freedom fighters were

defeated in their first war of independence but their spirit of India was not crushed. The battle

of India continued to be fought on the social and economic fronts. Some of the name of social

reformers are Aurbindo Ghosh , Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindra Nath

Tagore and Keshav Chandra Sen who brought about the renaissance of the late 19th century.

They work ceaselessly for the eradication of such social evils as child marriage, Sati,

Untouchability, Purdah system and exploitation and ill-treatment of widows. They waged a

53

constant war against illiteracy, superstition, blind faith and orthodoxy. They highlighted the

grinding poverty of the Indian masses who were being rendered poorer and poorer as a result

of the economic exploitation on the part of their foreign rulers. In this way these early patriots

paved the way for the Gandhian struggle for independence. It is also a great village novel, a

novel with, “ the various facets of the village life, with its socio-economic divisions,

superstitions, religious and caste prejudices, blind faith in God and Goddesses, poverty, petty

jealousies, dirty lanes, shady gardens, snake infested forests, dirty pools, hills, rivers, and

changing seasons.” The Kanthapura is a microcosm of the macrocosm; it is Indian in miniature.

It is one of most authentic and most remarkable village novel ever writtern by an Indian in

English. It is also remarkable for its realistic and impartial presentation of the impact of

Gandhian movement. The novelist succeeded to capture the very spirit of that stirring days

when Gandhi transformed the entire nation in to an army of freedom fighters.The novelist’s

style of narration makes it a Gandhi Puran or a Gandhi epic. Kanthapura is a major achievement

but Raja Rao himself considered it confused and immature. Kanthapura was published in 1938,

after that there was a long silence till 1960 when he came out with his “The Serpent And The

Rope”. In an interview published in the Illustrated Weekly Of India in january 1964, Raja Rao

said “ for me literature is Sadhna---not a profession but a vocation”. All the things major or

minor that were present in the culture and society pre-independent India and that shaped the

minds of the people are beautifully mentioned and discussed in this novel. Religion also played

an important role and Indian masses were deeply religious and so religion was freely exploited

by the Indian patriots all through the freedom struggle, as they were ready to do anything on

the name of religion. It was also a part of that blind faith in religion that the higher class used to

54

treat the outcastes, untouchables so badly. The religious sentiments of the rural folk were fully

exploited by B.G Tilak, by introducing the Ganpati festival in Maharashtra and instilling in them

courage, patriotism, discipline and unity. Students were also persusaded to take part in these

celebrations. The festival was used as a suitable instrument foe educating the masses and

making them politically conscious. Even the Britishers took advantage of this blind faith of

Indians and made them fight on the name of religion. In the Bhisham Sahni’s novel Tamas,

religion has been used as a weapon to disintegrate the people of India, as Britishers were also

aware of the fact that it will become very easy for them to rule over India. In Tamas there was

an incident that was responsible for Hindu-Muslim riots and killing of many innocent people.

Britishers by hiring the people of India by offering them money or some other temptations they

throw a dead pig in front of mosque and a cow in front of temple. So at this Hindus-Muslims

keep on fighting with each other and Britishers become spectators and do the work of adding

fuel to the fire. So these kind of incidents were very common and from here we can judge and

see the blind faith of the people on religion that thay were ready to go to any extent.

It is mentioned in this novel Kanthapura also that religion was used in

this way to awake the people. There are recital of Kathas and holding the Harikathas in the

novel. People of Kanthapura are poor, ignorant and superstitious. As we have already discussed

that people of pre-independent India were deeply religious and this deep faith of the people

can be better seen in the novel. People of Kanthpura have full faith in Goddess Kenchamma,

the pressing diety of the village. Right in the centre of the village is a temple dedicated to

Kenchamma, “ Great Goddess, Benigh one.” Marriages, funeral, sickness, death, ploughing,

harvesting, arrest, release—all are watched over by Kenchamma according to the faith of

55

villagers. “ There may be small pox or influenza around but you make a vow to the Goddess, the

next morning, you wake-up and you find the fever has left you. Didn’t she kill the demon who

killed their children and molested their wives? And so she will continue to protect them, come

wind, come rain, come any distress.”

Moorthy or Moortahappa is an educated young man. He is the central figure in the novel. But

he has nothing heroic about him, nor he can be called the hero of the novel. He is an ordinary

young man with common human weaknesses. He is one of those thousand of young men who

were inspired by Mahatama Gandhi to give up their studies. The Gandhian struggle for

independence had three strands—political, religious and social and all these strands meet in

Moorthy. It is not mere a political novel, but the novel concerned as much with the social,

religious and economic transformation of the people, as with struggle for political freedom. All

the incidents that are depicted in the novel are the actual incidents of the India’s struggle for

freedom. This book pictures vividly, truthfully and touchingly the story the resurgence of India

under Gandhi leadership. As we are already discussing that many bad social evils were there in

pre-independent India as casteism we discussed in untouchable, exploitation of lower castes

we see in Coolie. So Gandhi freedom movement came as boon for the lower castes and as a

curse for the Britishers. With the efforts of many social reformers now the common people of

India started understanding what Britishers are actually doing. They are exploiting us in every

way. Money is their main aim. The boycott of foreign goods was meant to cripple the efforts of

foreign manufactures to exploit and impoverish India, and the insistence on spinning taught

people the dignity of labour as well as self reliance. In a poor country like India simple living

must be practiced. Moreover, spinning could provide a regular income to the common masses ,

56

especially to women who have no other means of earning available to them. Gandhi’s

emphasis on education and avoiding alcoholic drinks had both a moral and economic aim. If the

poor coolies who are grossly exploited by the owners of plantation learn to read and write, they

would better aquainted with their rights and would not be cheated so easily. Drink is the

greatest enemy of the poor because because it never allows a person to spend his income on

essential items or make a saving for the rainy day. The novel opens with an account of the

situation, the locale of the village. Kanthapura is a village in Mysore, province of Kara. After

giving the account of the topography Raja Rao comes to the village itself. It has a complex

structure based on caste divisions. It has four and twenty houses in the Brahmin quarters, it has

a pariah quarter too, a potters quarters, a weavers quarters and a Sudra quarter. These socio-

economic divisions in the village, which has in all 600 or 100 houses, at once strike one with the

novelty. And the novelty is not the invention of the novelist, it is there in the village, has always

been there, in this land of villages. In this way by telling us of the various quarters into which

the village was divided, the novelist has higlighted the fact that the Indian villages are caste-

ridden, that there is no free mixing of people even in the small and the limited community of a

village. In Kanthapura there is much implied criticism of casteism. It is described through

Bhatta and later through Swami. Both are conservative, orthodox Brahmins, are the agents of

British government and work together to frustrate and defeat the Gandhi-movement. Since the

Swami’s power rests on the superiority of the Brahmins over the other castes, he takes the view

that the caste system is the very foundation of Hinduism. He maintains that no Brahmin should

have contact with the pariahs, and threatens to excommunicate Moorthy because he does so.

Later this threat is actually carried out people of the lower castes are not admitted inside the

57

temples but must Have darshana of god from outside.The villagers are also depicted in their

real colours.Thus the political movement of Swaraj is closely linked with religious reforms and

social uplift in Kanthapura. Kanthapura unlike coolie focuses on the intensity of Indian life, its

physical immediacy, its traditional swaddling and its religious murmurations ( William Walsh).

Mulk raj Anand was able to unite nationalism with socialism in to one Humanitarian movement,

a single revolt against oppression. But Raja Rao’s novel suggests here and there a conflict

between the conservatism of Gandhi and the socialist aspirations of many of his followers

including Moorthy. It is a regional as it deals with the physical features, people life, customs,

habits, manners traditions, language etc. Of a particular locality. And after reading this novel

we dive more deep in to the culture of the India particularly when India was fighting for its

freedom.

Another leading figure in the history of Indo-Anglian literature along with Mulk Raj Anand

and Raja Rao is R K Narayan. He is widely regarded as India’s greatest writer in English. He has

gained international reputation even among the readers in England and USA , who’s native

language is english. R K Narayan had an ability to make he rhythm and intricacies od Indian life

accessible to people of other cultures. Narayan is the pure artist. He remains unruffled by

political movements. He is free from Anand’s propaganda as well as Bhavni Bhattacharya’s

vigour. He does not disparage the Indian politician’s nor does he believe in exsulting the

importance of Indian spiritual heritage like Raja Rao. He is the only major writer in Indo-Anglian

fiction who is free from didactiscism or propaganda. He has no desire to preach, to advise , to

convert. Narayan may be described as the novelist of middle class. His noves presents members

of Indian middle class as engaged in a struggle ‘To extrigate themselves from the automism of

58

the past’. In the words of Dr Paul Verghese, “ Though not vehicles of mass propaganda, his

novels also depict the breakdown of feudal society and express the changed ideas concerning

the family as a unit and the conflict between old and new.” R K Narayan is a novelist of

common people and common situation. He is a realistic writer but his realism is different from

surface realism. He did not see the ugly side of reality. Narayan wrote all his novels in a type of

English which is peculiar to him with a distinct Indian colouring. He has writtern 15 novels and

scores of short stories. Narayan wrote art for art’s sake. In each of his novels he has presented a

slice of life as he saw it, with colourful description. His main works includes Malgudi Days,

Swami And His Friends, The Guide, The Vendor Of sweets. He told stories of simple folks trying

to live their simple lives in changing world. The characters in his novels were very ordinary,

down-to-earth Indians trying to blend the tradition with modernization, often resulting in

tragic-comic situations. As we are discussuing in this work that, people were deeply religious,

society was changing rapidly, and the conservative people were trying to adapt the changing

world, people were finding it difficult to adapt the modern western ideas. All these problems

are beautifully depicted in the novel ‘The vendor Of sweets’. The novel revolves round a father

and son ‘Jagan’ and ‘ Mali’ depicting the rae complexities of the Indian-middle class society

trying to adapt to the changing world, blending the traditional values with modern outlook and

style. Jagan, the central character in the novel is a widower, the sweet-meat vendor, who has a

deep love for his son Mali which often comes out as an embarrsed affection. As we discussed

kanthapura as a complete Gandhi-epic, here like Moorthy the main character of Kanthapura,

Jagan’s role model is also Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi being his role model, Jagan lived strictly

adhering to Gandhian principles though he was very much particular of his profits from a sweet

59

shop. Jagan always keep the charkha with him and spins. He lived a simple life as Gandhi had

preached and practiced, keeping only two suits of dresses. Believing in the non-violence of

Gandhi, he wears the shoes from the skin of the cow which has died its own death. He never

looses temper, never becomes violent and never rebels. The novel thouroughly highlights the

difference in view points between Jagan and Mali, induced by the drastically changing and

modernizing world around. When Mali decides to abandon his schooling and does very

arrangement for his studies abroad Jagan’s paternal feeling are thrown into confusion. Jagan

was deeply bewildered when Mali returns from America after 2 years with a foreign girl which

he introduces as his wife. He was also disturbed by his son’s new business plans for marketing a

story writing machine. Jagan’s fatherly love for his son however covered up his frustration and

silently agreed to Mali’s views. As the novel progresses Jagan is found utterly shattered when

he realizes his son had ruined the sanctity, his cherished traditional notions of marriage, morals

and principles. After recollecting his adulthood and married life jagan realizes the the drastic

disparity that had grown between perceptions of himself and his only son Mali.

Finally, at the age of sixty, Jagan tries for an escape bombarding his tight shell of parental

love leaving every thing else behind. The novels of narayan upholds the Traditinal Hindu world

view. The novel has caught the the very flavor and atmosphere of Hindu way of life. Novel is the

veritable picture of Indian life, and Jagan, the unheroic hero of the novel is the spokes man

through which this Hindu life has been exhibited. He himself writes, “you cannot write a novel

without Krishna Ganesh Hanuman, astrologers, pundits and devasis.” The Bhasmasur legend

serves as a background in his novel. The man-eater for Malgudi. Jagan the vendor of sweets

speaks out in the very beginning of the novel a universal truth enunciated in The Gita, “conquer

60

taste and you will have conquered the self”. Jagan all the time keep on sitting under the picture

of goddess Laxmi hanging on the wall, and all the time offers prayers. The main attaraction of

Narayan’s personality is that he is pure Indian both in spirit and thought. Vendor of sweets is

essentially an Indian novel. He catches the atmosphere and the very flavour of the economic,

religious and social life of India in all his novels. We can see the joint family culture in his novels.

He describes even such minute observations as the hunting of the grasshoppers are reluctant to

leave the paltry shade of the weed-plants. Narayan offers us a peep in to the literary and

religious life of India by reffering to some of the immortal books like Kalidas’s Shakuntla. Social

life of India is also depicted in the novels of Narayan. Through the social life we better come to

know about the culture. At many places we get a deep glimpse into various aspects of social life

of India. He describes the joint family of Jagan’s parents, the crowded houses, the bustle and

the pomp, the glory it was once and then the loneliness of the later life, the caste system,

traditions and customs, faiths and superstitions. The Indian marriage has been vividly

described. The expedition for seeing the girl, the acceptance, the visit of the bride party along

with gifts, pundits the declaration of the marriage, and the dowry, the marriage party

expedition to Kuppam village, the celebration of the marriage with fanfare and pomp, the

quarrels threatening the breaking of marriage, Jagan’s passion for Ambika, his wife, the

expedition to the Badri hill for prayer, the birth of Mali, the conflict between father and son,

the advent of Grace, her house hold duties like a Hindu wife all these are vividly and

enchantingly described. The guide is also one of the most popular novels of R.K Narayan and it was awarded

Sahitya Academy honour. The authorial presence is there, but it is always intercepted by

61

looking back in to the past. And connecting Raju’s previous affair with the dancer to the to his

present life as a fake sadhu. Narayan works in to the deep-seated convictions of the poor

villagers, in India. Sadhus in India are not always born they are also made. Narayan works with

the popular psyche of people living in villages, by bringing it upon the hero of the novel who has

already found himself in jail. This is an important feature of The Guide. The railway Raju

becomes a tourist guide, then he gradually shapes in to a Sadhu. Narayan’s story moves

through a cycle: the railway Raju turns in to guide, then sadhu and finally he is transformed in

to a human being who practices penance for the welfare of the other people. The guide is far

from being an expose of phony Godmen exploiting the gullible masses. Narayan cannot make a

pitch in favour of mechanization or development as the cure of all ills, including drought.

Instead , very hesingtatingly, very tentatively, richly embroiding his text with irony and

ambiguity. Narayan actually seems to ask, “who is to say that these things cannot be true? Who

is to say that a man like Raju cannot become a Guru?”. Narayan does not endorse tradition in a

loud and sententious manner, but because he doesn’t reject it outright or condemn it out of

hand, he creates a special space for it. Tradition thus reaffirms itself as an unusual, unexpected

way quietly, not stridently. In the struggle between tradition and the modernity, tradition wins

not in a triumphalist way, but in an unassertive, almost inept way-----inspite of itself, very

reluctantly as it were. This is because both raju’s penance and his ultimate sacrifice are real no

matter how painfully flawed his motives may have been earlier or how ineffectual their

outcome.

Apart from untouchability and casteism another thing that was prevalent in Pre-

Independent was feminism and gender discrimination. As it was a conservative patriarchal,

62

male dominated society where woman have a very little share in total happiness of the family;

where they are seldom allowed to take education and where men always ruled over women,

the powerful over the weak and touchable over the untouchable. There were and are many

evils that are prevalent in the society. And the writers from time to time with the power of their

pen tried to write on these evils. Out of those Arundhati roy in her novel The God Of Small

Things portrays a truthful picture of the plight of the Indian women, their great sufferings, cares

and anxieties, their humble submission, persecution and undeserved humiliation in a male

dominating society. It also shows the struggle of women for seeking sense of ‘Identity’ in a

totally aversed and envious society. The social structure of an average woman is full of many

ups and downs, ifs and buts. It can be clearly seen in the woman characters like Ammu,

Mammachi, Baby Kochamma, Rahel and Margaret Kochamma.

Education is said to be the third eye of man. It must be given to both men and

women without any gender and racial discrimination. Education develops all the faculties of

man—physical, mental and spiritual. It enlightens and broadens a person’s outlook. But we

come across another cultural aspect of the pre-independent society that it was not only

untouchables that were not allowed to enter that school but women were also not allowed to

study. They donot have right to education.This aspect is highlighted In the novel “ The God Of

Small Things”. In this novel Ammu didin’t get higher education because her parents think that

higher education corrupts the lady. As preference was given to male child in our society and

this is still valid till the present date. Ammu has to discard education; but on the other hand,

Chacko, her brother is sent to Oxford to study, though he didn’t do good there. What an irony

that male child was forced to study even if he denied but female child was not even if she

63

wished to study. In fact even today, though inspite of a fundamental improvement in women’s

stature by our constitution and various amendments, we see in India, except a fistful section of

society, that the conservative and superstitious mind of a large number of people are against

the higher education of girls. This problem can be clearly seen in a conservative family where

‘purdah’ is strictly maintained and also in the rural areas where women are supposed to be

meant only foe mating and procreating. Ammu is the central character of the novel who was

humiliated, insulted and misbehaved by her father, ill treared and misbehaved by her husband,

badly insulted by police and deserted and rendered destitute by her brother. Her tragic story

from the beginning to the end, arouses our sense of pity and catharsis. According to Aristotle

man of high rank can have the tragic grandeur. But here Ammu falsify this conception of

Aristotle. Like the tragic heroes of Shakespeare she has to suffer many trials and tribulations as

In “Hamlet”. Hamlet is a tragic hero and he suffered due to one flaw in his charcter that is

indecisive nature. He kept on delaying the revenge of his father due to one reason or the other

and in the end we felt pity for him and for his flaw that drove him to the death. Like Hamlet,

Ammu also has one fatal flaw in her nature that ultimately leads her to death, is that she didn’t

follow the age long rigid tradition of a patriarchal love laws that lay down “who should be

loved. And how. And how much?”

All the suppressed persons do have some whims and desires in them as Bakha ans Munno in

Anand’s Untouchable and Coolie. Ammu in ‘the God Of Small Things’ fed up with the torture of

his father wanted to fly freely in the sky of liberty. Her wings fluttered:

“ All day she dreamed of escaping from Ayemenem and the cluthches of her ill tempered father

and bitter, long suffering mother. She hatched several little wretched plans. Eventually one

64

worked. Pappachi agreed to let her spend her mother with distant aunt who lived in

Calcutta.”(p.38-39)

There in someone’s wedding reception she met an Assistant Manager of a tea estate in assam

and decided to marry him. But soon after marriage she discovered that she has jumped out of

frying pan into the fire. Her husband was alcoholic. Again here we can see the never ending

lust of males towards women. The English Manager of tea plant wanted to have sexual relation

with Ammu. Husband of Ammu put this proposal in front of her and in a scuffle she hit her

husband and left a place with the twins Estha and Rahel. When she returned to Ayemenem she

found her parents cold and indifferent to her and her children. Arundhati Roy wants to make us

feel that without the presence of woman, home is not home but dreary wilderness. But what

Ammu has to see both in her husband’s house and her own house is not based on the fiar

principle of equality. In this way author filngs a harsh irony on the man’s domination over

woman. She seems to say that women are not a mere toy or an object of pleasure or a means

of gratifying the man’s baser passions but the noble and the richest part of man’s life. It is

also a great irony that a daughter estranged from the husband is tortured and tyrannized in the

parent’s house. But on the other hand, an estranged son, Chacko, not only receives warm

welcome but also remains the rightful inheritor of the family’s wealth and fortune. When he

flirts with the low woman he was encouraged by Pappachi in the name of “Man’s need”.

Where as the same behaviour of Ammu is termed as illicit, untraditional and sinful. She was

locked in a room and is beaten black and blue. In brief, at the age of twenty four, an age of

enjoyment and merriment, Ammu’s life came to a standstill---“ she spoke to no one. She spent

hours on riverbank with her little plastic transistor shaped like a tangerine. She smoked

65

cigarattes and had midnight swim” (p-44). In other words, all her home and in her family and

society, she became virtually “untouchable”. It can be seen in the point of view of Baby

Kochamma:

“……. A married daughter had no position in her parent’s home. As for a divorced daughter, she

had no position anywhere at all. And as for a divorced daughter from love marriage, well, words

could not describe Baby Kochamma’s outrage. As for a divorced daughter from a

intercommunity love marriage---Baby chose to remain silent on the subject.”(p.45-46)

So we can see that the prevalent traditions, cultural restrictions of the society in which one lives

from a long time washes away the brain of the person that even the mother is saying all these

things to her daughter and irony here is that woman are against the novel. Ammu comes in

contact with Velutha, a paravan untouchable caste and she developed illicit sexual relation with

him. When her father discovered this Ammu was locked in a room. So having no support, no

sympathy from anywhere, she left big house Ayemenem and “died in a grimy room in the

Bharat lodge in Allepey, where she had gone for a job interview as someone’s secretary. She

died alone”(p. 161). In the morning when the sweeper went to the room he found the Ammu

dead. She aws dragged outside. Ammu is such tragic character that her last rite was not done

properly with the traditional rituals. Even the church refused to burry Ammu. So Chacko, hired

a van to transport the body to the electric crematorium where “no body except beggars

derelicts and the police custody dead were creamated there”(p.162). No one from the family

was present there. “ The door of the furnance clanged shut. There were no tears” (p.163). Thus

the Ammu is an entirely tragic character tortured and abused by police, family and politics. It is

not the male folk alone responsible for her tragic plight but mostely the woman characters like

66

Mammachi and Baby Kochamma who may be called the real culprit to engender suffering in

Ammu’s life. Thus Ammu’s character presents the picture of the average woman in the present

day social set-up.

Out of main voices of modern English fiction Anita Deasai is the major voice. She ushered in a

new era of psychological realism in this genre with her novel ‘Cry, The Peacock’. The

reoccurring themes of her novels that we come across is the agony of the existence in a hostile

and male-dominated society that is not only conservative but also taboo-ridden. The texts of

Anita Desai are remarkable for their socio-cultural commentary on modern modes of existence.

City life in India in all its variety and detail, constitutes a large chunk of her writings. Her

protagonists are usually sensitive women who, haunted by a peculiar sense of doom, withdraw

in to a sequestered world of their own. Breathing the polluted air of the city her characters try

to escape from the cages, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, and in the process get

mentally bruised and spiritually battered. Her novel “The Village By The Sea” has a sub title “ An

Indian Family Story”, and it has been praised for its building up the Indian scene most

successfully.Dr. R. K Dhawan observed about this novel is “Through the characters of Lila and

Hari, who are brothers and sisters, and who take upon themselves the task of looking after their

younger sisters owing to the ill-health of their mother and the unemployment and the

diplomacy. Here Anita Desai presents the vivid picture of the freshness of rural life in

contradistinction to the mechanicality of life in the metropolitan city of Bombay. She also

shows very clearly hoe the innocence of rural life can provide a healing touch to the bruised

mind of Lila’s father and hoe the curse of poverty and superstitions could be transformed with

the help of the forces of science and the process of industrialization”. Supremacy and

67

importance of family is the another weighy themes in the works of Anita Desai. The family

motive was used by Anita Desai in the novels “ Voices in the City” and “ The Clear Light Of the

Day” very successfully. In ‘ The Village by the Sea’, the motive is used in a more primitive and

elemental manner. Drunkenness of the father, sickness of the mother, dowry for virgin sisters---

food for all and clothes are to be arranged, and the entire family has a collective fate of joy and

pain, poverty and prosperity.

Every society has some ills in it and in the same way and if we talk about pre-independent it

also has many evils in it as we have discussed in above mentioned works of the Indian Novelists

like Raja Rao, R.K Narayan, Arundhati Roy and Anita Desai. Duty of a true author is to become

the mouthpiece of the people of society and bring out the existing evils with in the society. So

like a true authors , all worked for the reform of the reform of the society. They become the

voice of the lowly rustic people.

References:

1. William Walsh, R.K Narayan: A Critical Appreciation ( Heinemann: London, 1992), p.61

2. Jaydeep Sarangi, Indian Novel in English: A Sociolinguistic Study, Publishers- Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly.

3. Amar Nath Prasad, British And Indian Literature: A Critical study, Publishers-Sarup And Sons, New Delhi.

4. K.R.S Iyenger: R.N.Tagore: A Critical Introduction, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi 1987

5. Arundhati Roy, The God Of Small Things, India Ink Publishing.Co.pvt.Ltd., New Delhi, 1997.

68

6. R.S.Sharma, Arundhati Roy’s The God Of Small Things: Critique and Commentary, Creative Books, New Delhi, 1998.

7. Mithilesh K. Pandey, Academy Awarded Novels In English: Millennium Responses, Publishers- Sarup and Sons, New Delhi.

8. Raja Rao, The Serpent And The Rope(1968), Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi.

9. C. Paul Verghese , Problems Of Indian Creative Writers In English, Bombay, Somaiya Publication.

10. Dr. Raghukul Tilak, Raja Rao’s The Vendor Of Sweets, Publishers- Rama Brothers India Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.

11. Raja Rao, 1974, “Preface” Kanthapura, London, Oxford University Press.

69

Chapter 5 : Conclusion

An attempt has been made in the foregoing chapters to study the novels of Anand as

a cultural study and study of culture of Indian society particularly before independence. of that

particular time in which they are writtern. While this study can lead to some important

conclusions, it may also help us to see the fictional art of Anand in its process of

development.This chapter focuses on the major conclusions that are obtained from the results

of analysis of the collected data. Literature is a writtern evidence of human achievements,

predilections, predicaments recasting human relations in given society. Society is a group of

individuals with shared beliefs, common ties and general laws. Man is a member of society. He

can’t live in isolation. As both the novels which we have choosen to carry out the research

Coolie and Untouchable are novels of pre independent India, Anand also joined the struggle for

independence and was much inspired by the preachings of Gandhiji and this is the reason that

he was present in that society and described the prevalent dominated culture in such a lively

manner. Anand’s writings are masterpiece of his natural talent for storytelling and the richness

of his description and exploration of humanity. Anand seems to be the crusader against all sorts

of injustice. The real test of man is to treat him above the barriers of all kinds. Anand’s love

hate attitude to both tradition and modernity becomes transparent in the novels discussed. He

attacks the ossified systems of traditional life with the hostility of an iconoclast, at the same

time, clings to tradition with nostalgic fondness. He presents modernity as an alternative to

traditional ways of life in novel after novel, but reveals the dreary face of modernity too.

Through his writings Anand also makes us realize that every man has its own self, Own

70

individuality and freedom of choice. Boundaries of caste, creed and nationality seems to affect

him. According to him the traditional beliefs and orthodox ideas stunt the growth of an

individual. By comparing we came to the conclusion “Indianness is essentially an important

criteria for Indian Writing in English because it gives Indian writing an Identity of its own”(P-71)

(Sarangi) Untouchable is reminder of unsolved questions. By careful study of Anand’s works we

come to many conclusions and get many messages.The message from The Untouchable,

writtern in pre-independent era is still valid. The story is heart touching and the message is

convincing. Mulk Raj Anand considers that the caste system can only prevail with the job one

carries and the easy way to remove it is to upgrade the work environment and bring dignity to

each work. We have no right to downgrade any work. The novels of Anand simply shows to a

way to solve the problems still lingers in India like sanitation and casteism. The novel

Untouchable simply shook our conscience. The author criticizes the social injustice with the

powerful words. He rips apart the hypocrisy of the powerful. Meaninglessness of worship and

its uselessness when it is not practiced is stressed. This book is also a small reminder of

ignorance of strength by the lower caste and need for moral rejuvenation. Above all, ‘any social

revolution should be practical’ is another message that these two novels of Anand Untouchable

and Coolie manages to convey.

On larger canvas, the author must have viewed untouchable living in all of us. Citizens

deprived of rights and burdens with obligations. The hurdle we have to overtake and how the

knowledge, civilization and technology can make a better world. By reading these two novels of

Anand and seeing the cultural restrictions and boundations on the individuals we feel and come

to the conclusion that most of the problems of Indian are self created. The Britishers could rule

71

India only because the masses were not seriously disturbed by their presence. Infact they were

busy in fighting with in themselves. We say that the Britishers made the caste system that was

already prevailed in India more rigid. But this is wrong but we Indians are responsible for this.

Britishers only took advantage of this and this is the factor that attracted them from thousands

of miles away to India. Infact we made it more easier for the Britishers to rule over India.

By reading ‘Two Leaves And A Bud’ we can see from the story and life of Gangu that it is a world

where innocence has to bend down before cruelity; where the wives and daughters of the

workers have to satisfy the lust of the White Sahibs; where the guiltless workers and low castes

have no right to raise their voice against their masters; where the insulted and the injured have

also to be the victim of pestilence hunger and poverty. All rights were with the higher and rich

people but nothing with the poor. And if someone gathered the courage to speak against

injustice his voice was also suppressed by killing that person or by causing harm of job, family

etc. Example of this is De La Harve, a sympathetic and ideal protector of the unprivileged. He

has to loose his job only because of his sympathy for the dalit and the destroyed. John De La

Harve is the mouthpiece of the novelist---a man who recognizes imperialism as a dangerous

part of capitalist exploitation. He works all day in his primitive labortary, observing cultures of

bacilli under a very old an inadequate microscope. During his process he thinks: “ All the

processes of change, colouring and unification were complimentary chemical decomposition.

And what was true of nature was true of society. Society development also was a complicated

process of action and reaction, of separation and systematization, in so far as individual existed

only in this relation to the community, in so far as he was the product of the climate in which he

was born and reared of the customs of the society in which he grew up.”

72

Another man in this novel is Reggie Hunt, the most cruel man of the novel. He behaves like a

brute. He even goes to the extent of making an attempt to rape Leila, daughter of Gangu, when

she leisurely plucked the leaves of the tea plant alone. But she manages to run away, he

followed her to her house. Mad with lust and fear, Hunt even guns down Gangu, who comes to

protect his daughter from rape. As no father can see his daughter being raped in front of his

eyes. But Irony is that Mr. Justice Mowberley finds Reggie ‘not guilty’. These kind of rape

incidents were common on Pre- Independent India but no one had courage to speak against

this. Even today if we see evils of that time are still in the one form or the other like casteism,

rape, honour killing are prevalent in the society. It is been more that 60 years of India’s freedom

and We still consider the caste of the boy or girl before marriage. Inspite of many laws people

still feel shame to come and talk about rape. If something of this kind happened they prefer to

hide this with the fear that what people will say, no one will marry etc. In untouchable the

intended meaning seems to be rejection of Hindu-society with its age old lies and brutal

discrimination against millions of untouchables. This rejection is to be accompanied by an

acceptance of the modernist values of the western world. Right from the beginning till end

Bakha’s dream is to be like the sahibs, the world of Tommies is his ideal world.

In the preface of ‘Two Leaves And A Bud’ Mulk Raj Anand wrote:

“ The world I knew best was the microcosm of the outcaste and peasants and soldiers and

working people……In so far, however, as my work broke new ground and represented a

departure from the tradition of previous Indian fiction, where the pariah and the bottom-dogs

had not been allowed to enter the the sacred precincts of the novel, in all their reality, it

seemed to become significant and drew the attention of the critics, particularly in Europe which

73

only knew Ommer Khayam, Li Po and Tagore but very little or nothing about the sordid or

colorful lives of the millions of Asia.”

Coolie as a fictional narrative basically reflects Anand’s ambivalent responses to the question

of the fate of man in a capitalist society of ruthless class exploitation. A Marxist humanist,

Anand shows a tendency to confront the dehumanization of capitalism with unyielding hostility.

Coolie has been described as a naturalist portrayal of life at its darkest moments. Munno is

orphan boy from India who wants to venture out in to the world. Yet the gist of the novel is

Anand’s analysis of the boy’s inner fears, thoughts and emotions and the description of the

darkest moments of Munno’s life until the moment of his death. Unlike Untouchable which

distuinguishes itself for its “miniature excellence and compressed simplicity” with its exclusive

focus on the protagonist, Coolie presents a vast and vivid panorama of the Indian society with

all its variegated facets of life. K.R Srinivasa Iyenger says “if Untouchable is a microcosm, Coolie

is more like the macrocosm that is Indian society; concentration gives place to diffusion and

comprehension, with several foci of concentration”.

There is in the novel a breathless shifting of the scenes, from the peasant household in the

Kangra valley to the oppressive tyranny of the sub-accountant’s house in Sham Nagar, from the

Imperial Bank at Sham Nagar to the pickle and jam factory in Daulatpur, from the horrors of the

Cat Killers’ lane to the sweat and tears of the vegetable market in the city, from the circus tent

in Daulatpur to the cotton factory of Bombay city, from the red light streets of Bombay to the

coolness and beauty of Simla, etc. As part of this largeness of canvas and topographic variety, a

whole range of distinctively varied characters pass through the richly textured panorama of life-

--the destroyed peasants and the parasitic landlords; the petit-bourgeois Indian babus and the

74

domineering English officials; the silent wives whose distuinguishing badge is the patient

suffering and the vituperative women reveling in sadism; men who are kindly and saintly and

those who are evil and satanic; the masters who ruthlessly destroys the workers and the coolies

who are subjected to endless suffering; motherly women with their loving protectiveness and

the prostitute women who lives a soulless life. Such is the hypnotic spell of this vast and varied

environment. Anand’s personal experiences and the reform of India’s political, social, and

cultural institutions are major elements in Anand’s writings.

Humanism in the novels of Anand is an interesting subject to understand and find

out a new outlook for the study of his novels. Anand is a humanist. His insistence on the dignity

of man irrespective of caste, creed and wealth , his plea for the practice of compassion as a

living value, his conception of the ‘whole man’, the profound importance he attaches to art and

poetry as instruments for developing whole men, his crusade against superstition, feudalism,

and imperialism—these are some of the chief characteristics of his humanism. The study of

‘Morning Face’, an autobiographiacal novel, brings out the ideas of Mulk Raj Anand on

Humanism. Like other humanists he believes that “ Man is the measure of all things”:man is the

maker and the breaker of the world. He believes in the supremacy of man. Anand admires man

and even adores him. According to him a man can solve his many problems with the help of

imagination, reason and advancements of science. The themes of his all the works is ‘whole

man”. ‘Morning Face’ and ‘Seven Summers both are autobiographical. ‘Seven Summer’ is the

story of Indian childhood that covers the first seven years in the life of the protagonist while the

‘Morning Face’ shows the protagonist passing from childhood to adolescence. (Naik ,1973:

112) Apart from Krishan the novel is peopled with variety of characters who almost create the

75

impression that we are here following, not the life history of an individual alone, but that of a

people, the society. Old—world manners, customs, attitudes vanished since and long forgotten

incidents, come back as if some body is unrolling a treasured tapestry. ‘Morning Face’, which a

wider scope presents the interaction between tradition and modernity in much more

comprehensive manner. Anand’s philosophy is an inveterate enemy of fascism, feudalism,

imperialism and other similar tendencies, which comes in the way of man’s effort to achieve

freedom. He believes in democracy and socialism, and the peaceful co-existence of all nations.

He further says that all people must have freedom social, economic, political, intellectual and

emotional without, of course any encroachment upon’s other’s freedom. Krishan also has many

dreams inside him as one of his dream is of owing “one of the topees which the sahibs wore.”

‘Morning Face presents the inner world of the protagonist’s consciousness and the outer tone

of the society in which he lives and grows. (Naik, 1973:128) the life of the Krishan is based on

the conflicts and clashes of mind in which he grows. Krishan says:

‘Similarly I loved my mother, because she was partial to me and yet despised for her

indulgence in all kinds of superstitions, ritual, her frugality and hate campaign against the

people she did not like.’M.K Naik in his book Mulk Raj Anand has discussed Anand’s Humanism

in detail. Anand thus become a novelist with a mission and his theory of the novel is naturally in

line with his commitment to his creed. Anand rejects God, fate, religion, past and future and

this philosophy of Anand we can find in all his novels.

Mulk Raj Anand is considered by many critics to be one of India’s best writers and

is often described as “father of Indo-Anglian literature.” He wrote a number of short stories,

novels and countless articles ranging from art, literature and painting. There are number of

76

books writtern on Anand. Through his socially conscious novels and short stories, Anand attacks

religious bigotry, established institutions, and the Indian state of affairs. At the same time, he

has greatly enriched his country's literary heritage. In The world literature Today ,Shyam M.

Asani comments that "Anand writes about Indians much as Chekhov writes about Russians, or

Sean O'Faolain or Frank O'Connor about the Irish." Along with R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao, he

has established the basic forms and themes of Indian literature that is written in English. Anand

told the World Press Review that Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met in the 1930’s, significantly

shaped Anand’s social conscience and showed him the power of truth and simplicity. Thus the

brief survey aptly shows that Anand’s primary business as a writer of fiction is to attack the

social snobbery and prejudice, superstitions and untouchability. He seems to urge for an

attitude full of love and sympathy for the millions of people living under the poverty line and

leading a life worse than an animal. Almost all novels of Anand venture in to that land, which is

largely ignored. In the history of Indo-Anglain fiction, the credit at first goes to Mulk Raj Anand

who identifies himself with the weak and the vulnerable, the hated and the insulted. When we compare the works of Anand with the works of another novelists of same

genre we will find the main aim of all were to bring out the evils of the society whether it is

casteism, discrimination, untouchability, male dominance etc. In Arundhati Roy’s “The God Of

Small Things” we witness the problem of every common woman of the society through the

character of Ammu. And through character of Ammu, Arundhati Roy raises a number of

question marks on our age long myths and traditions, history and legends. She shows that right

from the beginning of creation ‘ woman have been subject to many insults and abuses.

Arundhati Roy lashes out at the hypocritical moral code of the society, which makes a great

difference between men and the women. As a matter of fact importance of woman in the life

77

of man can not be ignored. Woman holds an important place in their lives. Without woman the

life of man is like a ship without radar. Critical exploration of the novel clearly told the untold

miseries and undeserved suffering of male domination silently and meekly. In other words, the

book presents a universal theme of social consciousness. It also examines jealousy between

woman and woman, the plight of woman in the male dominated society. This novel on larger

canvas seems to be that author has expressed her sympathy towards a social woman whose life

in society is full of uncertainity, humiliation and ups and downs. She is like a bird in the cage

that wants to fly freely in the sky. But her wings are cut down by the callous society. She shows

how a woman in the patriarchal society, yearns for pleasure and happiness and life free from

social constraints. Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for literature by her debut novel, The

God Of Small Things, a novel which registered a tremendous sale all over the world. The book

has been translated into more than 40 languages in the world. This novel is bit a

autobiographical in nature. As Anand’s Untouchable is inspired by his childhood incident this

novel of Arundhati Roy also has reflections of Roy’s own childhood on the limpid black waters

of the Kerela and the society she lived with caste prejudices. Kerela, the most educated state

with many castes and classes has been beautifully represented. The novel peeps into the life of

Kerelaite society, their rites and customs, traditions and patriarchal domination; a caste ridden

mentality of some certain section of people. The book is writtern and moulded in such a way

that it surely will shook the conscience of reader and cannot help without giving a jolt and jerk

to the average reader. Narayan’s stories also begin with realistic settings and everyday happenings in the lives of a

cross-section of Indian society, with characters of all society. Gradually fate or chance, oversight

or blunder, transforms mundane events to presposterous happenings. Unexpected disasters

78

befalls the hero as easily as unforesenn good fortune. The characters accept their fates with an

equanimity that suggests the faith that things will somehow turn out happily, whatever their

own motivations or actions. Progress, in the form of Western-imported goods and attitudes,

combined with bureaucratic institutions, meets in Malgudi with long-held conventions, beliefs,

and ways of doing things. The modern world can never win a clear-cut victory because Malgudi

accepts only what it wants, according to its own private logic. So Anand speaks not only of the reality in the phenomenal world but also of the reality in

world that is non-existent. This non-existent world is a product of his imagination.

References:

1. Mulk Raj Anand: Aopology for Heroism, Bombay:1946

2. Mulk Raj Anand: Morning Face, Kutub Popular, 1968.

3. M.K Naik: Mulk Raj Anand. London, New Delhi: Heinemann India, 1973.

4. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, 1935, New Delhi, Publishers- Arnold Heinamann, 1984 rpt.

5. Jaydeep Sarangi, Indian Novel in English: A Sociolinguistic Study, Publishers- Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly.

6. Arundhati Roy, The God Of Small Things, India Ink Publishing.Co.pvt.Ltd., New Delhi, 1997.

7. Mulk Raj Anand, Preface to the Second edition of Two Leaves and a Bud; 1951.

8. Amar Nath Prasad: Nagendra K. Singh, British And Indian English Literature; Roots and Bloosoms, Vol 2., Sarup and Sons, New Delhi.

79

9. M. K Naik (ed.), A History of Indian English Literature, New Delhi, Sahitya Academy, 1982.

Selected Bibliography

1. Primary Sources :

80

(a) Novels

Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, 1935, New Delhi, Publishers- Arnold Heinamann, 1984 rpt.

----Coolie, 1936, New Delhi, Arnold publishers, 1981

2. Secondary Sources :

(a) Works by Mulk Raj Anand ( Fiction)

---Two Leaves and a Bud, 1937, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1983.

---The Sword and the Sickle, Kutub Popular, Bombay, 1955.

---Seven Summers,1951, Orient Paparback, New Delhi, 1970 rpt.

---The Private Life of an Indian Prince, 1953, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1983.

---Morning Face, Kutub Popular, Bombay, 1968; Arnold Publishers, New Delhi, 1976.

---The Old Woman and The Cow,1960, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1980.

---The Road, 1963, Sterling Paperback, New Delhi.

---Confession of a Lover, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1976.

---The Bubble, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1984.

(b) Non-Fiction

Mulk Raj Anand, Apology for Heroism,1945, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1985.

---Lines Writtern to an Indian Air, Nalanda Publications, Bombay 1949.

---Author to Critic: The Letters of Mulk Raj Anand to Saros Cowasjee, Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1973.

(c) Articles :

Mulk Raj Anand. “ Anglo-Indian Literature” Life and Letters Today, Vol. 15, No. 5, Autumn 1936.

81

---“ The Writers Role In National Integration”, Indian Literature, 1963, Vol.6, No. 1, 1963.

---“ How I became a writer”, Contemporary Indian Literature, Vol. 5, Mulk Raj Anand special 1965.

---“ The Story of My Experiment with a White Lie”, Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English, ed. M.K. Naik, S.K Desai and G. S Amur, Dharwar, 1968.

---“ Why I write?” Perspectives on Mulk Raj Anand ed. K.K Sharma, Vimal Parkashan, Ghaziabad, 1973.

(d) Critical Books On Mulk Raj Anand :

Saros Cowasjee. So Many Freedom: A Study of the Major Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand, Oxford University Press, Madras, 1977.

M.K Naik, Mulk Raj Anand, Arnold Heinemann, New Delhi, 1973.

Jaydeep Sarangi, Indian Novel in English: A Sociolinguistic Study, Publishers- Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly.

Anand Apology For Heroism: A Brief Autobiography Of Ideas, Kutub-Popular, 1946. Dr. Raghukul Tilak, Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Rama Brothers India Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.

M.K Bhatnagar, Indian Writing In English (Vol. 1 to 5), Atlantic Publishers and Distributers. Neena Arora, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand; A Study of His Hero, Atlantic Publishers and Distributers

(e) Other :

V.T Patil and H.V Patil, Gandhism and Indian English Fiction : The Sword and the Sickle, Kanthapura, and Waiting for the Mahatma, Devika Publications, Delhi 1997.

82

A. Sudhakar Rao, Socio-Cultural Aspects in Selected Novels of Raja Rao, Atlantic Publishers and Distributers, 1999.

Neena Arora, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Hero, Atlantic Publishers and Distributers.

Raja Rao, 1974, “Preface” Kanthapura, London, Oxford University Press.

Braj Kachru (1983), The Indianisation of English: The English in India, Delhi: oup.

Benedict Anderson (1983), Imagined Communities, London, Uerso and New Left Books.

S. Radhakrishnan, Hindu View Of Life, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1954