1

CHAPTER 1:

General Introduction
 2

The topic “Portrayal of Realism” where Anand’s Literature develops out of life and records
our fantasies and thoughts, expectations and yearnings, disappointments and frustrations,
intentions and interests, and encounters and perceptions. Throughout the years, literature has
mirrored the common social issues in numerous famous works of literature under the shadow
of authenticity. In Realism, social the truth is one part of the picture yet it can't be secluded
just as it were an entity without anyone else. It can't be removed from the setting of the general
cultural example of a period. Indeed, even there have been straightforward endeavors to
recreate 117 occurrences from extraordinary literatures of the past ages. It is again because of
a specific vulgarization on an alternate level. With all their colossal resources of visual
presentation, the creators of our spirit of workmanship. However
that reality has been passed on for many years by the workmanship players of Bengal's field
who work without a stage or picturesque impacts, practically with no sort of hardware,
depending completely on the least difficult emotional gadgets. They pass on truth, reality of
feeling, which is a definitive of authenticity.

Early life:

Mulk Raj Anand was born in a Hindu family of Kshatriyas on (12 December 1905) in
Peshawar and died in(28 sept 2004) , the central city of Northwest Frontier Province, now in
Pakistan. He was the third of five sons of La1 Chand, a silversmith turned sepoy. Anand's
father belonged to the Thathiar caste. People of Thathiar caste were workers of copper and
silver. Lal Chand left his hereditary occupation to attend school. He learnt English, took a
British military examination and served in cantonments including Sialkot. Ferozepur,
Peshawar, Mian Mir, Nowshera and Malakhand. He was appointed a head clerk, attached to
the Thirty-eighth Dogra Regiment. He was said to be the only literate man in the whole
regiment. Anand's life is basically divided into 3 periods, consistent with the place of his
residential, working and the later years:

(a) Initial years in India till his departure for European country 1905- 1925;

(b) 1925-1945; time he spent in Europe

(c) the later years in Bharat, 1945.

First period of his life reveals the varied strands and influences that formed his mind and
reflects upon his writing. The second period shows Anand's struggle to become a novelist-
and also the ultimate success that he got. The third period reveals his achievements within the
 3

social and cultural lifetime of Indian society. A distinguished Indian author in English who is
additionally known for his realistic and sympathetic depiction of the Marginalized in Bharat
and is also thoughtabout as a founding father of the Anglo- Indian novel. His father was a
coppersmith and he belongs to a Kshatriya’s family and from his childhood to adulthood he
has seen the India's Fight for independence and additionally the society that was existed
around him. Anand graduated with honors from Punjab University and then he visited the
University of Cambridge London for his additional degrees. Where as in Europe he took
interest in political activities seeing the struggle of Bharat for independence and their once he
started writing a series of various book on totally different aspects of South Asian culture.
Anand gained quality for his novels untouchable and coolie that highlighted the issues of
economic condition, category distinction in Indian society.

The present research title is an attempt to study several social issues and aspects are reflected
in the work of Mulk Raj Anand. The novel throws light on contemporary social belief
,custom, tradition and social evils of the Hindu society , particularly the curse of the caste
and close system . Mulk Raj Anand writing focused on realistic and naturalistic fiction

Mulk Raj Anand is the most distinguished prolific and committed 20th century Indo -
Anglican literary figure. Today, he is widely acclaimed in India as well as abroad as a great
novelist, essayist and short story writer. The term “Indo Anglican” is used to denote
original literary creation in the English language in the middle of the 19th century by
Indians . At present there are a large number of educated Indians who use the English
language as a medium of the creative exploration and expression of their experience of
life. It has now developed into substantial literature in its own right and it is the
substantial body of literature which is referred to as Indo- Anglican literature. Indo -
Anglican literature continues to grow and there develops a translation system and a number
of English classics are translated into various Indian languages. So, most of the early Indian
writers were inspired by those translations. English classics seem as the models for the
Indian writing in English. Nowadays most of the Indo- Anglican novels’ themes are
many and varied for projecting the widespread social evils and tensions, hardships of the
hybrid culture, dislocations and conflicts in a tradition rooted society . Due to the
conflict of industrialization between tradition and modernity in society, Anand engages
himself as a novelist like other international personalities Rabindranath Tagore,
Aurobindo Ghosh , Mahatma Gandhi, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao, etc. They continue to
write in English and Indo- Anglican literature continues to grow to reach the peak of
 4

the excellence. Among the contemporaries, Anand is the most committed writer. So, today he
is widely known in India and abroad as one of the greatest novelists, essayists and 2 short
story writers. Mulk Raj Anand, R. K Narayan and Raja Rao are the founding fathers of the
Indian novels in English. In this regard, prof. Walsh gives his view, “If Anand is the novelist
as reformer, Raja Rao the novelist as the metaphysical poet, R.K Narayan is simply the
novelist as novelist” (1).

Among his contemporaries, Anand presents the reality of Indian life in his major works. He
shows a real suffering, poverty, misery and injustice of common people of Indian society in
his novels. He depicts the real image of exploitation of common people in the name of caste,
class and gender. Moreover, Anand writes not only about the poor and their suffering but
also the brutality and cruelty of the traditions especially in Hindu society which controls and
deprives every individual from the harmonious development in the name of caste, sex and
creed.

We can learn Anand as a humanist writer. His aim of writing is to free human beings from
all sorts of boundaries. He always criticizes the exploitation existing in the society. He
believes in struggle and suggests those who are being exploited. As Anand himself
acknowledges in the preface written in Apology for Heroism, “Always I believe in the
struggle of men to free themselves and to expand freedom to others to sustain the ever
expanding areas of consciousness, to make man truly human” (25). For Anand, literature is
an instrument of social change not a mode of personal expression .He believes in struggle for
the change of society. Freedom is the main way of consciousness which gives the birth for
literature. On the account of humanism, Mufti contends the speech of Anand as:

Anand argued that goal of social realism is as much the

portrayal of all those tragedies in the obscure lands and

alleys and village as is the imperative to release the

dormant potentialities of our people buried in an animal

biology. Realism here is only as much a matter of mimesis

as it is of narrating the passage from primitivism to

modernity. (12)
 5

The miserable life of Indian peasants is above the level of animal biology. It is the work of
prolific writer to narrate the conditions of theirs to uplift for existence. In the novel, Anand
champions the poor and oppressed through the character Bakha. Anand is known for his
realistic presentation of the poor. Anand’s novels Untouchable and Coolie play a vital role
to form a bridge between the National Independence Movement and the Literacy
Movement of the time when Anand has shown the deep feeling for the deprived people.
Goyal says about him, “Mulk Raj Anand is a prolific writer and art- critic, historian and
humanist, journalist and novelist , short story writer and freedom fighter” (96). Anand is a
versatile writer. He turns his eyes to every field of literature to dig out the realities of the
society. He writes against the social suppression and injustice and he has the commitment to
humanism. Walsh mentions:

His fiction is of course, exclusively concerned with India.

He is passionately involved with the villagers, the

ferocious poverty, the cruelties of caste, and the wrongs of

women and with orphans, the untouchables and urban

laborers. He writes in an angry reformist way, like a less

humorous Dickens and more emotional well of the

personal sufferings induced by economic injustices. (64)

Anand shows the social inequalities, oppression of capitalists and condition of lower class
people. He has created an image of social realist writers through his major novels. In fact
'social realism’ perceives that literature and society are all of a piece. 4 Although realism and
social purpose are presented in his novel, from the point of technique he covers mainly four
themes – social, cultural, political and autobiographical. The period of 1930s seems a good
time for Freedom Movement in India which strengthened Anand’s humanistic learning and
gave him a direction to patriotism. Among the movements, The Gandhian Satyagraha
Movement (1930-1932), The Three Round Table Conferences, The Government of India Act
(1935), The Introduction of The Provincial and Autonomy (1937) and The Gandhian
Movement for political and social change , the Gandhian ideology deeply impresses him .
Anand writes about contemporary politics of India. As a writer of political novels, Anand
is influenced by European political ideologies, especially Lenin, Tolstoy and Mary. Some
 6

of his novels The Sword and the Sickle (1942), Private Life of An Indian Prince (1953),
Death of a Hero (1963), etc. cover the political perspective of India. In the same way, Anand
presents himself as a cultural critic and exposes all evils in human society which hinder
culture. He thinks that literature aims at promoting culture which implies enlightenment,
rational thinking and knowing the dignity of a man. His novels also are based with cultural
consciousness which project the caste, community, religion etc. Among the novels, The
Village (1939), Across The Black Water (1940), The Sword and The Sickle (1942), Gauri
(1960, Lament on The Death of A Master of Arts (1939), Death of A Hero (1963), etc. cover
the entire cultural perspective of India. Similarly, as an autobiographical novelist, Anand's
place is very high in Indian English literature. His autobiographical novels narrate the
novelist's experiences, ideologies, love affairs and their life styles. Seven Summers 5 (1951),
Morning Face (1968), Confession of A Lover (1976), The Bubble (1984) and The Seven Ages
of Men are autobiographical novels. As a social novelist, Anand deals with social purpose.
He primarily deals with the misery and wretchedness of the poor and their struggle for better
life. He is conscious of the need to help the untouchable, the coolies, the peasants, the serfs
and other suppressed members of human society. For that Cowasjee says :

Anand is deeply concerned with social problems that he

committed to the eradications of the evils which infest

modern society. Is this a deplorable aim of an artist? Is

"untouchable" a propaganda because it reveals the

exploitation of the poor by rich? Propaganda is a term

given currently by the bourgeois critic and loosely used

in India to caption any work where the author’s

intention is plain. (21)

Untouchable (1935), The Road (1961), Coolie (1936), Two Leaves and A Bud (1937) and
The Big Heart (1945) are based on social theme. Anand has different definite patterns to be a
novelist. His earlier novels are based on sense of horror and disgust against social and
economic ills. The novels of middle period present a great concern for and with the human
heart, and the later novels are in the passion for social justice and they are emotional. Before
1932, Anand’s view of literature and art is mainly concerned in philosophy and religion but
 7

after 1932, it is changed. Due to his reading of Karl Marx’s three letters on India in The New
York Herald Tribune of 1853, his perspective is changed to a socio- economic view of
literature. So, he himself levels as communist. Anand draws both external and internal
realities of society in his writings. Its class- based exploitations and its stubborn refusal to
change and a human relation are the major characteristics of the novels of his later phase of
writing. It’s not Anand’s 6 purpose to support the old - blind belief orthodox and gender
discrimination and superstition but his purpose is to expose all types of discrimination
prevailing in the society. He is always concerned with the question of meaning of life and the
power of existence in human life.

Mulk Raj Anand as a novelist:

Mulk Raj Anand is an Indian novelist, a short-story writer, and a critic, writer in English. He
was one of the first writers who extended Punjabi and Hindustani phrases into English. In his
works, he always reflects the sense of realism and sympathetic portrait of the poor in India.
Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan are frequently referred to as the "founding
fathers" of the Indian English novel. Anand's works reveal his deep understanding of socio-
economic problems. During World War 11, he worked as a broadcaster and scriptwriter in the
film division of the BBC in London. After the war, he settled down in Mumbai. Anand made
his name with the novel Untouchable. A distinguished Indian author in English who is
additionally known for his realistic and sympathetic depiction of the Marginalized in Bharat
and is also thought about as a founding father of the Anglo- Indian novel. His father was a
coppersmith and he belongs to a Kshatriya’s family and from his childhood to adulthood he
has seen the India's Fight for independence and additionally the society that was existed
around him. Anand graduated with honours from Punjab University and then he visited
the University of Cambridge London for his additional degrees. Where as in Europe he took
interest in political activities seeing the struggle of Bharat for independence and their once he
started writing a series of various book on totally different aspects of South Asian
culture. Anand gained quality for his novels untouchable and coolie that highlighted the
issues of economic condition, category distinction in Indian society. A familiar name
among Indian English writers, Mulk Raj Anand was an inspiration of the 20th-century
Progressive Writer’s Association. He was the first who had drafted the first manifesto of the
literary association. Along with Raja Rao, R.K. Narayan and Ahmed Ali, Anand is
 8

considered one of the pioneers of Indian writing. His purpose of writing was to question the
social realities of British India in the language of the colonial master. Mulk Raj Anand came
into the field of literary writing after facing a family tragedy related to the rigidity of India's
caste system. Anand took education at British Indian academies. As a boy Anand was
extremely sensitive and physically active and full of zest. which, in turn, turned him into a
utopian and an adorer of nature. Nature is his upmost concerned in all his important novels.
Anand started questioning the meaning of life and suffering. Anand's mind was
exhuaghsted seeing the condition of people by the British oppression in Jallianwalla Bagh.
He studied at the Khalsa College at Amritsar. It was there he met the philosopher Iqbal the
poet who influenced him through his poetry. In 1925 he went to London and enrolled as a
research scholar in Philosophy for a Doctor's degree, under Professor G. Dawes Hicks, a
prestigious Kantian Scholar and a member of the Editorial Board of the' Famous Hibbert
Journal. His writing 2000 runner admission became the source of his fictional stories. Anand
followed many philosophers work as he was substantially told by Darwin's The Origin of
Species, Including Freud and Jung. He started writing for Eliot's Criterion. Anand received
his Doctorate for his thesis on the Philosophy of Berkeley, Hewn, and Russell in 1929. He is
not only a fictional writer but also an art critic of International character. Mulk Raj Anand
had a special relish for his short stories because he could make them a suitable source for
communication with intensity of lyrical appeal and sharpness of social re view. Mulk Raj
Anand didn't believe in the principle of' Art for the Sake of Art'. But on the other hand like
other progressive pens, Mulk Raj Anand believed in the dictum of' Art for the sake of
humanity’. Anand followed the profession of a litterateur with as great a nationalistic spirit as
national leaders during country’s independence. Mulk Raj Anand, philosophy is that like
Charles Dickens and Galsworthy to concentrate the attention of the readers on the miseries
and life of the poor sacrifice of Indian society. Mulk Raj Anand's heart steps out for the
miseries of these poor victims of social, profitable and political order of the day. An angry
youthful man that he was, he could forgive those who are the instruments of, and the
perpetrators of this undeserved Moons to which these unfortunate miserable are
subordinated." Mulkraj Anand is a committed writer who is committed to expose the social
injustice, and miserable life of poor, and also economically backward people. Anand is a
humanist writer, a true democrat who believes in equal rights for men and women. In his
stories concerning.
 9

The theme of the novel - untouchability it self is very realistic. Untouchable is a realistic
novel of socially crushed protagonist Bakha. It is a slice from a life without any modification.
The novel begins with a realistic picture of the outcastes’ colony. The local color of the novel
is evoked with the photographic realism and accuracy. Anand describes, “The outcastes’
colony was a group of mud walled houses that clustered together in two rows, under the
shadow both of the town and the cantonment, but outside their boundaries and separate from
them. There lived the scavengers, the leatherworkers, the washer men, the barbers, the water
carriers, the grass cutters and other outcastes from 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 odor of the hides and skins of dead carcasses left to dry on its banks, the dung of
donkeys, sheep, horses, cows and buffaloes heaped up to beamed into fuel cakes.” This
realistic description is what Anand himself has seen and presented as it is. This mode of
realistic description continues throughout the novel. Anand has painted the realistic colony
Social Realism in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable and the Barber’s Trade Union where
untouchables and other outcaste people stay and wait to be humiliated by others caste Hindu.
From the description of the novel, it looks like that Anand has spent a day with Bakha
and observed it minutely. It is very much real and true. Bakha’s day starts as writes, “Bakha
thought of the uncongeniality of his of his home as he lay half awake in the morning of an
autumn day, covered by a worn-out, greasy blanket, on a faded blue carpet which was spread
on the floor in a corner of the cave like, dingy, dank, one-roomed mud house. His sister slept
on a cot next to him and his father and brother snored from under a patched, ocher-colored
quilt, on a broken string bed, on the other side.”3 This is the reality what one can see in the
hut of an untouchable. Anand observes and presents the real photographic picture.

Mulk Raj Anand’s story, ‘The Barber’s Trade Union’ is about the exploits of a barber’s
young son named Chandu. The motive behind the story is to arouse social awareness and
show the then real and existing social situations. The story includes the human beings and
their behavioral aspects, caste-discrimination, self-respect and victory of humanism. The
people who are thought as useless or having no respect of them as they are poor and thought
as belonging to lower strata of society are mistreated by the so-called rich or high caste
society but in the end, it is well illustrated through the marvelous narration and
exquisite framework of the story that no one is lower or higher to other in society.

Chandu, the barber boy of his village as a maker of modern India: Due to his peculiar action a
new social movement started which became a special feature of modern India. Through the
 10

common observations of life, Anand’s writing becomes realistic and shows signs of hope in
the times of trial and darkness and a concern for society. The story very well depicts the child
psychology as there is no difference between children, and in them, the difference is created
by the elders. The caste-discrimination is created by human beings. For, the betterment of
society, it is necessary for us to be humane for others and behave in a just way. The story
provides a complete structure- theme, conflict, characters, solution .The quote told by him

“How queer, the Hindus don’t feed their cows although they call the cow
“mother”!’ Bakha thought.”

“His feelings would rise like spurts of smoke from a half-smothered fire, in fitful, unbalanced jerks when
the recollection of some abuse or rebuke he had suffered kindled a spark in the ashes of remorse inside
him.”

Awards and achievements:

Mulk Raj Anand received numerous accolades throughout his illustrious career. Notable
among his achievements are the Padma Bhushan, India's prestigious civilian honor, and the
Order of the British Empire (OBE) from the British government. He was also elected as a
Fellow of the Sahitya Akademi and awarded honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by Delhi
University and Banaras Hindu University. The nuanced nature of Anand’s works put Indian
Literature on the global map, while earning him recognition for his global impact. His work
continues to be widely translated, studied, and celebrated both in India and around the world.
The following are some of Mulk Raj Anand’s awards –
Padma Bhushan (1968) – Mulk Raj Anand was honored with the Padma Bhushan in 1968,
one of India's highest civilian awards. He received this recognition for his outstanding
contributions to literature, particularly in the realm of Indian English literature.
Fellow of the Sahitya Akademi (1957) – In 1957, Anand was elected as a Fellow of the
Sahitya Akademi, India's premier literary organization. This recognition highlights his
significant impact on the Indian literary landscape Honorary [Link] from Delhi University
and Banaras Hindu University – Mulk Raj Anand received honorary Doctor of Letters
([Link]) degrees from prestigious institutions like Delhi University and Banaras Hindu
University, acknowledging his scholarly and literary achievements.
Order of the British Empire (OBE) (1959) – The British government bestowed Anand with
the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1959. This honor recognized his literary prowess
and his ability to bridge the gap between Indian and British literature. Commendatore
dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia – The Italian Government conferred upon Mulk Raj Anand the
 11

title of "Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia," recognizing his global literary
significance and contributions. Featured in Who's Who Biography Publications – Mulk Raj
Anand's works and teachings earned him a place in renowned biographical publications like
"Who's Who," further solidifying his reputation as a literary [Link] Indian
English fiction's 'golden age' – Anand is often regarded as a seminal figure who inaugurated
the "golden age" of Indian English fiction. His works played a pivotal role in shaping and
defining this genre, making it a serious and respected literary form.
Widely translated and studied with global relevance – Mulk Raj Anand's writings have been
translated into numerous languages and continue to be studied worldwide. His themes of
social justice, humanism, and cultural insights have a lasting global relevance.
Immortalized through monographs and conferences – Anand's contributions to Indian English
literature have been the subject of extensive monographs and academic conferences. Scholars
and literary enthusiasts continue to examine and celebrate his enduring legacy.

Father of Indian English Literature:

Mulk Raj Anand is known as the Father of Indian English Literature due to his pioneering
contributions that laid the foundation for the growth and recognition of Indian English
literature as a distinct and esteemed literary genre in India as well as globally. He was the
first major Indian writer to establish the genre of Indian English fiction and receive global
acclaim for the same. His novels highlighted social realities of the lowest strata of Indian
society with compassion. The following are the key reasons why Mulk Raj Anand is
recognized as the Father of Indian English Fiction –

Anand's novels, particularly "Untouchable" (1935), were groundbreaking. They were among
the earliest works of fiction in Indian English literature that tackled sensitive and deeply
entrenched social issues . Through his powerful narratives, Anand gave a voice to the
marginalized and oppressed, shedding light on their [Link]'s writing style was
characterized by its stark realism. He used simple language that allowed for a universal
appeal while retaining the authentic flavour of rural India. His works resonated with readers
from diverse backgrounds, making Indian English literature accessible to a wider audience.

His novels addressed pressing social concerns of his time, such as poverty, inequality, and
exploitation of the working class. This commitment to addressing social issues through
 12

literature set a precedent for future Indian English writers to use their craft as a medium for
social change.
Mulk Raj Anand pioneered the technique of focussing on economic and political factors
affecting masses. He skilfully brought rural, small-town Indian experiences alive through his
stories. He projects Indian identity to global readership sensitively through English language.
Anand experimented with narrative techniques, blending realism with elements of magic
realism and employing symbolism and allegory to subtly convey social messages. His
innovative storytelling captured the attention of literary critics and scholars.
Anand's works gained international acclaim and recognition. He received the Order of the
British Empire (OBE) and other honors for his literary achievements, which not only brought
Indian English literature into the global literary discourse but also showcased India's rich
literary heritage. Anand's mentorship of aspiring Indian English writers, such as R.K.
Narayan and Raja Rao, contributed significantly to the growth of the genre. He played a
pivotal role in nurturing literary talent in India.
 13

Work Cited
[Link], M.H. ed. A Glossary of Literary Terms.7th ed. Banglore: Harcourt Brace and
Company, 1993.

[Link], Mulk Raj. Untouchable. New Delhi: Penguin Publication, 2001. ---. Apology for
Heroism. New Delhi: Arnold- Heinemann Publishers, 1975.

[Link], Francies Herbert. Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay. London

[Link] and the age of Realism. Philadelphia J.B.: Lippincott Press, 1954.

[Link], Christopher. Romance and Realism. New Jersy: Princeton University Press, 1970..

[Link] S. Goyal, Mulk Raj Anand -- The Writer as Humanist, Culture and Commitment;
Aspects of Indian Literature in English, (Shalabh Book House, Meerut, 1984), P. 70.

7. M.K Naik, Infinite Variety Bhatnagar, M.K. and Mittapalli Rajeshwar. (Eds) The Novels
of Mulk Raj Anand: A Critical Study: Atlantic Publisher. New Delhi. 2000 Print.

8. Mulk Raj Anand, Coolie. New Delhi: Penguin, 1936, 162.

9. Saros Cowasjee, Introduction to Coolie. New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann, 1985, 6-7. 12.
Srinivasa Iyengar KR. Indian Writing in English New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd,
1995, 343. 13. Margarate Berry, Mulk Raj Anand: The Man and the Novelist. Amsterdom:
Oriental Press, 1971.

[Link] S. Goyal, Mulk Raj Anand -- The Writer as Humanist, Culture and Commitment; Aspects
of Indian Literature in English, (Shalabh Book House, Meerut, 1984).

11.. Paul Premila, Mulkraj Anand: An Indian Daedal us, The Novels of MulkRaj Anand: A Thematic
Study, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1983,

12. M.K Naik, Infinite Variety : A Study of the Short Stories of Mulk Raj Anand, Ed. by K.K. Sharma
( Vimal Prakashan , Ghaziabad, 1978),

13. Farhad , s “A Critical Analysis of Films, Literature and Culture AS an Element of Trilogy in
Social Context”. Journal of English Language and Literature, Vol.5, No.3, [Link]

[Link] Raj Anand, ‘Why I Write?’, Indian Writing in English, ed. [Link] (New Delhi:
Heritage Publishers, 1979.
 14

CHAPTER 2:

Reflection of caste system

 15

The word ‘Caste’ derives from the Spanish and Portuguese word ‘casta’, which means “race,
lineage, or breed”. Another similar word related to ‘caste’ is ‘Jati’, originated from the root
word ‘Jana’ which implies ‘taking birth’. Thus caste is concerned with birth. The word
‘caste’ is not very concrete to define easily. Different people define it differently. Some
definitions regarding caste system are mentioned below:

1. Mr. Nesfield defines caste as, “A class of the community which disowns any connection
with any other class and can neither intermarry nor eat nor drink with any but persons of their
own community.”1

2. Dr. Ketkar defines caste as, “A social group having two characteristics: (i) membership is
confined to those who are born of members and includes all persons so born. (ii) the members
are forbidden by an inexorable social low to marry outside the group.”

3. According to Anderson and Parker, “caste is that extreme form of social class organization
in which the position Of individuals in the status hierarchy is determined by ‘descent and
birth”.

Indian Hindu Society from the ancient time is based on caste-system, which made barriers
among people and divide humanity into four main classes -the Brahmins, the Kshatriya, the
Vaishyas and the Sudras. This complex social structure of Indian Hindu society is devoid of
humanism. The Brahmins belongs to the highest point of the social Pyramid; they are the
priests andthey dominate over others. The Kshatriyaare are the warriors and the defenders of
society; they come next only to the Brahmins. The Vaishyas are the business community and
the producers of wealth; their duty is trade and commerce. They hold the third rank in the
society. The Sudras are the weaker section of the society; they are the peasants, labourers, the
workmen, the serfs, the coolies, sweepers and the other suppressed members of the society;
they are considered the lowest caste. They are suffering because they are by birth outcaste.
Among the Sudras the sweepers and the scavengers are regarded as untouchables because of
they have to do filthy works cleaning latrine with their hands. The prejudice in the minds of
the caste Hindus against the sweepers and the scavengers are very strong. They treat the
sweepers and the scavengers unjustly for one reason or another. E.M. Forster considers it a
devilish system which could have been contrived only by man, the animal being incapable of
devising such an infernal system. Mulk Raj Anand‟s “Untouchable” shows the realistic
picture of Indian society of the nineteen thirties dealing with the caste conflict. The novel is
concerned with the feelings of Bakha, a sweeper boy and his experiences in the course of a
 16

single day in the town of Bulandshehar, in Punjab. The protagonist, Bakha suffers due to his
belonging to a low caste Hindu family. Bakha symbolizes the racial discrimination,
exploitation and oppression which has been the fate of untouchables like him. We can realize
the humiliation and physical as well as mental agonies of the untouchables throughout the
novel. Saros Cowasjee remarks: “Anand is deeply concerned with social problems and that he
is conunitted to the eradication of the evils which infest modern society. Is this a deplorable
aim of an artist? Is Untouchable a propaganda because it reveals the exploitation of the poor
by the rich? Propaganda is a term given currency by them.

The Indianness of Indian society is that “The individual, to a very large extent, is
subordinated to the group. His functions and duties are determined by the caste to which he
belongs”. It seems its Anand’s conviction, as in many other stories, to show this Indianness of
Indian society and individual’s predicament in it. He attaches importance to the ordinary
unlettered Indian in the story. It has enjoyed enough popularity and has continued to provide
entertainment to the readers. But at the same time it seems that shorter fiction of M. R. Anand
needs still more critical attention, dexterous interpretation and revaluation than it has gained
at [Link] was in its sources a ballad born of the freedom I had tried to win for
truth against the age- old lies of the Hindus by which they upheld discrimination. The
profound thoughts of the upper orders in ancient India about caste were often noble. Someone
in the great Mahabharata had cried “Caste, caste- There is no caste!” And I wanted to repeat
this truth to the “dead souls” from the compassion of myself explanation in the various Hindu
hells, in the hope that I would myself come clean after I had been through sewer, as it were.”
(Anand, 11)

Mulk Raj Anand’s masterpiece Untouchable (1935) is a novel with great social concerns
which focuses on some of the worst customs and traditions which authorize the caste Hindus
to exploit the outcastes for their selfish interests. In this novel, Anand is on sure ground, as he
is denouncing an aspect of traditional Hindu society which deserves wholesale condemnation.
E. M. Forster, in his Preface to Untouchable, comments that the Indians – “have evolved a
hideous nightmare unknown to the west: the belief that the products [of excretion] are ritually
unclean as well as physically unpleasant, and that those who carry them away or otherwise
help to dispose of them are outcastes from society. Really, it takes the human mind to evolve
anything so devilish. No animal could have hit on it.” (Forster,6). The novel Untouchable is a
saga of injustice and exploitation of the underdogs by the caste Hindus. The novel is a
sensitive record of the painful experiences and sordid occurrences in a single day in the life of
 17

a teen-aged sweeper boy, Bakha in Bulandshahar. Everyday Bakha cleans three rows of
latrines single handed. Anand’s ground breaking novel, Untouchable begins with the vivid
description of the inhuman condition of the ‘outcaste colony’ in which the untouchables are
compelled to live in. The colony is a dark damp and uncongenial place. The cottage with mud
walls clustered together in two rows, are utterly ill-fitted for human beings to stay in. The
inhabitants who do necessary works for the higher caste people live there. In small hole like
huts poor people of different professions – scavengers, leather workers, barbers, grass cutters,
washer men and water carriers – all huddled up together. They are in utter poverty and living
without any privileges. They are humiliated and exploited in one or the other way by the so
called superior caste people.

The writer has observed that the caste system is created by some powerful wicked people
because it provides unfair advantages to others completely and it damages the social cohesion
of the society. It is like contagious disease of small pox and it poisons and destroys the
dignity of man. The writer has shown the evils of caste system in the following novels
namely Untouchable (1935), The Road (1961), and The Big Heart (1945).

According to Anand, casteism is a heinous crime and it is realistically portrayed in this

novel. It is a sociological novel, and it is concerned with the injustices and exploitation to
which one large section of the Hindu society is subjected by the other section enjoying a
higher status in the social hierarchy. The novel is about the life of the untouchables, who
have been the victims of the social injustices of oppression and exploitation. It deals not
merely with the life and suffering of one individual, Bakha, but through Bakha, it
presents before a gigantic problem of Hindu society. This untouchable Bakha is almost
always a dispossessed man, deprived even of the basic right to live like a human being in
freedom, honor and dignity, in utter poverty and isolation, though. The innate creative
impulse in him chocked his sensitiveness to beauty strangled and his tenderness or love
crushed. Yet, the resilience of his spirit cannot be broken; it has remained in fact, despite
centuries of oppression, holding out a promise for the future of humanity. Anand as true
humanist, rejected fate or God. In his belief, the root cause for the sufferings for Bakha is
not fate, but the cruelties of mankind. They considered him as an inferior to their caste.
Instead of creating a brotherhood affection to him, they treat him only as untouchable.
The following quote taken from Untouchable where in we read about the lady, at whose
doorstep Bakha was at rest, treats the so-called Sadhu passing through the alley and
 18

Baksha who has to plead for his bread after sweeping the alley, is a telling illustration
of two contrasting and attitudes:
As a humanist, he believes that man can solve the problem by universal brotherhood love
and compassion. Even though the high caste Hindus considered him only as an
untouchable, there are also good fellows life Havildar Chart Singh, who gives much love
and consideration to him. The Tommies also treated him like a human being, while to the
caste Hindu, he is untouchable. Prof. [Link] Murthy quotes the words of Anand that,
“the tragedy of my hero (Bakha) lay in the fact that he was never allowed to attain
anything near the potential of his qualities of manhood”.
Mulk Raj Anand a pioneer of Indian writing in English, he gained an international
following early in his life. His novels Coolie and Untouchable set an entire generation of
educated Indians thinking about India's social evils that were perpetuated in the name of
religion and tradition. These and other early novels and short stories brought into sharp
focus the dehumanizing contradictions within colonized Indian society. Through his
writings he revealed that in addition to the foreign colonialism of Britain there existed
layers of colonialism within Indian society. This internal colonialism stood in the way of
India's transition to a modern civil society. While exposing the overarching divide
between the British and a colonized India, he reveals an Indian society creating its own
layers of colonizers and colonized thereby rendering the fledgling Indian nationalism an
extremely problematic concept. If Bahka is to be seen as a representative of his class, his
inability even to articulate the words of Gandhi, for example, puts him at an immediate
disadvantage. In fairness to Anand, the portrayal of Bakha is complex, and he certainty
allows Bakha to be rebellious. This rebellion, however, is always internal and uttered with
a silent voice. After the novel's pivotal "touching" scene in the village market Bakha
reacts to the event with anger: "the strength, the power of his giant body glistened with
he desire for revenge in his eyes, while horror, rage, indignation swept over his frame. In
a moment he lost all his humility, and he would have lost his temper too"(50), if it were not
for the disappearance of the man who struck him. He is depicted as havinga "smolderi ng
rage within his soul," and then resorts to self questioning: "why was I so humble? I could
have struck him!"(51). Thus we see that Bahka has the potential for rebellion, yet Anand
chooses to silence this rebellion by creating a condition that does not allow for the
expression of it. Bakha then comes to a self revelation a few paragraphs later: "I am an
Untouchable! he said to himself, an Untouchable!"(52).
 19

Anand believes in the dignity and equality of all people. He was deeply hurt by the so-called
"two births" approach for those who could not be contacted. The tragic life of those who had
not been touched in Bakha was reflected. Roaming from the only well in the city of
Bulandshahr, the caste well, was prohibited. Sometimes they should have to wait a few
hours for a generous Indian break to fill the pitcher with water. Owner Raj Anand had
a profound influence on Gandhi. He began a career as a literary novelist with his first
novel Untouchable. This novel is famous worldwide and is considered Anand believes in
the dignity and equality of all people. He was deeply hurt by the so-called "two
births" approach for those who could not be contacted. The tragic life of those who had not
been touched in Bakha was reflected. Roaming from the only well in the city of
Bulandshahr, the caste well, was prohibited. Sometimes they should have to wait a few
hours for a generous Indian break to fill the pitcher with water. Owner Raj Anand had
a profound influence on Gandhi. He began a career as a literary novelist with his first
novel Untouchable. This novel is famous worldwide and is considered Untouchable is a
remonstration novel in which Mulk Raj Anand’s technique of attacking the social
malevolence of caste discrimination invited the concentration of the people. Pre-
independence time sweeper Bakha, who is 18 years old, strikes up a relationship with
untouchable. Additionally, it looks at the despair of outcasts or members of the working class
as well as their resentment of the upper caste. The narrative illustrates the tense and troubled
interactions between upper caste Hindus, Muslims, Christians and untouchable oppressed in
colonial India. The work offers a fantastic starting point for the Indian-English author to
explore the subaltern realm. The novel, Untouchable expresses optimism for both
untouchable Hindus and India by incorporating Gandhi’s ideology, which aims to increase
consciousness in order to abolish the caste system and other forms of hierarchy in Indian
culture. Untouchable is a heartbreaking depiction of the sufferings endured by members of
the lower classes under British rule as well as the weight of restrictive norms and obsolete
Hindu/Brahmin traditions. For the previous 200 years, slavery had been a heavy burden on
Indian civilization. The unfettered spirit of man has continued to be crushed by age-old
discriminatory customs based on caste and class, which have also served to keep men apart
from one another. The society experienced various forms of suffering but was unable to
imagine coming together under the ideals of humanity without prejudice. Under several flags,
they persisted in and bad odour throughout. The invisible tears of Bakha, who patiently
endures the most embarrassing and terrible days of his young life in this novella, cover nearly
every page of the novel. He must cope with prejudice, bigotry and hypocrisy starting at dawn.
 20

Bakha’s daily regular job starts with his father abusing him repeatedly: “Get up, ohe, you
Bakha, Oh the son of pig! ....... Are you up? Get up, you illegally begotten”. (Untouchable, 5)
The protagonist, Bakha is an extremely skilled worker and passersby frequently admired his
prowess and briefly wondered whether he belonged cleaning public restrooms. Despite
Bakha’s talent and dedication, he had no chance of succeeding in life. He was born into a
lowly class, thus he is bound for life to his onerous, degrading employment. The potentials of
Bakha are stifled and choked off before they can even begin to grow. Despite his strong
desire to attend school and further his education, he is unable to do so because the high caste
parents will not let their sons come into contact with the low caste man’s son. Bakha was
enchanted by the glitz of the white man’s lifestyle while working in a British regiment’s
barracks. He has his own set of dreams and is quite enthused. He must, however, actually beg
for food and suffer humiliation at every bend of the route due to his meager resources and the
situation. They had to wait for hours for the clemency of the upper caste and were not even
allowed to draw water from a well. They will be fed by throwing, and if they accidentally
contact somebody, they will be punished. However, the higher class does not view this as
untouchable when they abuse their teenage girls. Before the day is out,In The Barber’s Trade
Union by Mulk Raj Anand we have the theme of class, appearance, alienation, arrogance,
ingenuity, independence, admiration, respect, control and freedom. Taken from his Selected
Short Stories collection the story is narrated in the first person by a young unnamed boy and
after reading the story the reader realises that Anand may be exploring the theme of class.
Chandu is considered to be of a lower caste or class than other people in the village. It is as
though he is being judged solely on the fact that both he and his father are barbers. The
content of their character is not taken into consideration rather a traditional hierarchy is
imposed by those of a higher caste. The simple matter of Chandu changing his clothes to a
style that he prefers is also frowned upon by those in the village who are of a higher caste.
This may be important as those of a higher caste may be suggesting that Chandu because he
is of a lower caste. Has no right to dress as he does. Something that some readers might find
unusual considering that Chandu is only trying to improve his appearance. However, it is by
improving his appearance that others feel threatened and as such alienate Chandu.
Unfortunately, others do not respect or admire Chandu. Something that is clear to the reader
by the fact that Bijay Chand throws Chandu out of his home because he believes that Chandu
has no right to dress as he is doing so. What is interesting about Bijay Chand and others is
that they do not appear to realise that they need Chandu more than he needs them. He may be
of a lower caste and attempting (in their eyes) to dress above his class but he is the only
 21

barber in the village. Chandu has a monopoly. Something he himself is very much aware of.
Chandu can also go into town and earn money and not be judged for wearing the clothes he is
wearing. If anything the fact that Chandu can earn a rupee for a haircut yet only two pice in
the village suggests that not only is Chandu not being judged by his caste but his efforts are
also respected by those in the town. It may also be important that Chandu buys the bicycle as
symbolically this may suggest he is independent of those in the village. He has his own
means to get into town and earn money. He is not reliant on the business of the men who
alienated him because of his choice of clothing. Anand has all along written novels and short
stories with a view of teaching men the fundamental principles of human living and exercise
vigilance in regard to the real enemies and socialism. It has been a life time apostolate for
him ( which he still continues ) to help raise the untouchables, the peasants, the serfs, the
coolies and the other suppressed member of the society to fight for human dignity
deliberately denied to them by the privileged section of the society.
Social protest is not a new phenomenon but we see lots of criticism during the period of
Chaucer, basically, the Neo-classical Age and Victorian Age are known for the social
criticism. It reforms the society a lot. Mathew Arnold defines poetry as a criticism of life. He
wants to convey the message that primary aim of any part of literature is that to point out the
part of society which is rotten up and also suggests some solutions. It also explores the
problem into deep level and tearing the glittering veils of hypocrisy. Keeping these views in
mind, the article examines the novel Untouchable with the particular reference to the Hindu
caste system and its practices. Westerners and Indian intelligentsia consider it as a bane for
the Indian society. If it is seen the problem with the post-modern perspectives or the post-
modern writers as well as the people see it as anachronistic. It was not only Mulk Raj Anand
who raised this problem rather there were other writers like R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao and
others who raised the issue of caste [Link] is very well known and very well-
knit novel and the subject matter of the novel has been derived from the Confessions which
he wrote earlier under the influence of Irene who was his first love. Despite it, Mahatma
Gandhi who asked him to write a pamphlet on untouchability in 1930 and he produced the
novel. The novelist describes that that one day he read an article in Young India written by
Gandhi ji. In the article, he openly wrote that how he had met Uka, a sweeper boy wearing
torn clothes and took him to the Sabarmati Ashram. This was written in pure simplicity. Mulk
Raj Anand was influenced by the article and he wrote to Gandhi ji and wanted to meet him.
Gandhi ji replied him to do so within three months and the result was to this conversation that
the writer met him in the spring 1929. Gandhi ji opposed the theme of the novel as he felt that
 22

it was about a love affair of a boy and a girl but the writer explained it in detail and assured
him that it was about a young untouchable boy Bakha and he is presented in a such a way that
his position reached to the hero but finally, the novel deals with the problem of untouchability
which exists even in modern society. The action of the novel is a sort of chain of incidents of
humiliation in the life of the protagonist named Bakha from the morning to the evening.
“The outcastes were not allowed to mount the platform surrounding the well, because if they
were ever to draw water from it, the Hindus of the three upper castes would consider the
water polluted. Nor were they allowed access to the nearby brook as their use of it would
contaminate the stream. They had no well of their own because it cost at least a thousand
rupees to dig a well in such a hilly town as Bulashah. Before, they had to collect at the foot of
the caste Hindus well and depend on the bounty of some of their superiors to pour water into
their pitchers”. (Untouchable, 15)
Social protest is not a new phenomenon but we see lots of criticism during the period of Chaucer,
basically, the Neo-classical Age and Victorian Age are known for the social criticism. It reforms the
society a lot. Mathew Arnold defines poetry as a criticism of life. He wants to convey the message
that primary aim of any part of literature is that to point out the part of society which is rotten up and
also suggests some solutions. It also explores the problem into deep level and tearing the glittering
veils of hypocrisy. Keeping these views in mind, the article examines the novel Untouchable with the
particular reference to the Hindu caste system and its practices. Westerners and Indian intelligentsia
consider it as a bane for the Indian society. If it is seen the problem with the post-modern perspectives
or the post-modern writers as well as the people see it as anachronistic. It was not only Mulk Raj
Anand who raised this problem rather there were other writers like R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao and
others who raised the issue of caste system.
Anand has clearly defined that he came across a story about a sweeper boy story named Uka which
was written by Mahatma Gandhi in Young India. From this article, the writer was inspired too much
and got the inspiration to write the novel. Mulk Raj Anand is known for depicting the pitiable
situations and conditions of the downtrodden. In this novel, the writer has shown the inhuman attitude
of the upper caste people towards the untouchables. In his novels, he depicted the inhumanity of man
towards his fellow man. He has shown the exploitive nature of man regarding his caste. Anand is an
impressive writer as Dickens himself. His novels made the public aware and induce their
consciousness towards the injustice which was inflicted on untouchables at that time. Mulk Raj Anand
is the first Indian English novelist who wrote the realistic fiction and depicted the pathetic lives of
oppressed classes. In his novels, he has portrayed the lives of downtrodden, sweeper, a coolie and a
peasant etc. who are the victims of upper castes as well as capitalist class.
 23

Gandhi's speeches serve as a uniting influence for Mulk Raj Anand. At first,
he stares at Gandhi with awe, admiration, and even terror. Later, though, he begins to sense an intense
closeness and warmth emanating from him. Gandhi enlightens him to the reality that 'Untouchability'
was never approved of by religious authorities. In order to make him aware of their rights, Gandhi
tells him that they should demand clean, unspoiled grains as payment for their labor rather than the
spoiled scraps off the upper caste's plates. Critics have said that Anand presents Marxism
in Untouchable and his previous books. rather than the Marxist ideology of vengeance against the
powerful. It would seem that Anand is more persuaded by the nonviolent philosophy of Gandhi. He
believes that the exploiters will alter their ways if the exploited submit to them nonviolently. While
researching and writing his book, Anand stayed close to Gandhi. He followed Gandhi's directions and
revised the text while staying at Sabarmati Ashram. This suggests that Gandhi, rather than Marx, is a
major inspiration for Anand. Marx believed that religion was the opiate of the people and should be
eradicated for their own good. He speaks ill of the priests who act as go-betweens in religious
services. They make it easier for others to take advantage of the worshipper and extend the distance
between God and the worshipper. Marx aspired to preach a gospel of revolution to the worlds
underprivileged. Gandhi's goal was to educate people about their rights and eradicate poverty, which
he saw as the root cause of oppression. He advocated a nonviolent approach to combating their
oppressors. Anand believes that the first step towards the outcastes' liberation is to educate them about
the exploitation they face at the hands of the superior castes. This crisis of self-awareness that Bakha
or Chandu experience.
 24

Work cited
[Link], Mulk Raj. Untouchable. Penguin, 2001.
[Link], Mulk Raj. Apology for Heroism. Arnold Heinemann, 1986.
[Link], B.R. Annihilation of Caste with Reply to Mahatma Gandhi. Amritsar,
Ambedkar [Link] of Thoughts, Katra, Ed, Jaman Wingh, 1945.
[Link], E.M. Preface to Untouchable. Penguin India, 2001.
[Link] M.K. Mulk Raj Anand. Arnold- Heinemann India, 1973.
[Link],Mulk Raj.(1970) .Untouchable London: The Bodly Head.

[Link],Neena.(2005).The Novels Of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Hero. New Delhi:

[Link], Mulk Raj. Untouchable. New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann Publishers, 1981. Sharma,
S. K. “Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable : A True Picture of Indian Society”, Epitome
International Journal.

10. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 330-363.

 25

CHAPTER 3:

Discrimination and Exploitation

 26

Mulk Raj Anand was one of the triumvirates who inaugurated the new section of writers of
fiction along with R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao. Anand is a novelist of urgent social
concerns and preoccupations, and the social impulse is at the heart of his writing. He is
considered the Messiah of the downtrodden, the unwanted and the unloved. Even in a
random reading of Anand‘s novels, the reader becomes immediately aware of such issues
as the tyranny of the caste system, its injustice, and its social, moral and economic
consequences, class conflicts, exploitation of various kinds of the poor by the rich, quest for
identity, search for freedom etc. Under colonial rule, a number of social and economic
changes took place and as a result of feudal society was gradually into a capitalist one. The
class system in India has turned out to be a new kind of caste system. It is built on the cash
nexus on which it thrives. It has created a society much more complicated and devious and
in some respects more rigid than the one created by caste. Therefore, it has become a very
powerful device force, for more damaging to social cohesion than caste, as it had tended to
segregate people into the rich and the poor, the haves and the haves-not Mulk Raj Anand
has also shown the exploitation of children, like Munoo in Coolie, Bakha in Untouchable
and Bhikhu in The Road. Coolie is one of the classic example of the story of the exploited
children as far as the Mulk Raj Anand‘s novels are [Link] the another hand in his
short story The Barber’s Trade Union Chandu who suffered the exploitation by the upper
caste people. Its appeal is so much innate, humane potential and wide extensive that has
designed it purposive to be translated into more than 38 languages of the world. It has
earned for Anand a global reputation as one of the prolific and prominent English novelists.
The story covers the span from 1930 to 1940, when poverty, slavery and the inhuman
exploitation of the masses were at the peak. It was Gandhi who had wedged a war against
the forces behind these evils. The novel describes a single day in the life of the protagonist
Bakha, a scavenger bay. The entire action takes place within a period of less than twenty
four hours. Though the scene of the novel belongs to a small, inferior town of Punjab. The
happenings are pan Indian in character. Bulandshehar, a small town with a out-caste colony
on the outskirts represents a normal Indian town found anywhere in India. Most of the
actions of the novel take place at an outcaste colony and in the streets of the small town.
Bakha starts his day welcomed by the abuses of his father. He is forced to clean the
Latrines with a brush and as basket. His sister Sohini goes to fetch water from the caste
well where she is compelled to wait for a caste Hindu to draw water which is again a
routine for her life. Pundit Kalinath fills his pitches with water and summons her, with an
ill intention to clean the temple courtyard. Bakha on the request of his father rushes to the
 27

town to clean the roads. On his way, he meets his friends and they plan a hockey match in
the afternoon. While walking through the streets of the town, a caste Hindu gets defiled by
his touch to which he tries to apologize, joining his hands in humility, he stands deaf and
dumb. The people gather around the scene and abuse Bakha. He pleads but no one feels
pity for him. The defiled man gives a slap on Bakh‘s face and leaves the place. For the first
time in his life, Bakha is made aware of his status as an un- touchable. He feels insolent and
rushes to the courtyard of the temple announcing his arrival aloud. While roaming outside
the temple, he curiously looks into the temple. A Brahmin sees Bakha on the steps and
shouts at him for polluting the tem-ple. While climbing down the steps he finds his sister
Sohini standing in the court-yard frightened and speechless. She tells about the priest‘s
attempt to molest her while she was cleaning his latrine. She further tells him that she
screamed out of fear and the priest came out shouting that he had been defiled by an
untouchable girl. An enraged Bakha decides to look for the priest but Sohini stops him. As
both of them realize their helplessness due to the limitations of their caste, they decide to
give up. Bakha sends Sohini home and goes to an alley nearby to beg for food. He starts
shouting for food but nobody responds. Tired of the hectic schedule, he sleeps on the
wooden platform in front of a caste Hindu‘s house. A high caste woman comes out of the
house on the call of a Sadhu. She shouts at Bakha for polluting her house. She asks him to
clean the drain to get a piece of bread. Meanwhile, a woman This is yet another kind of
colonial exploitation of the downtrodden. He how-ever does not fail a victim to his
psychological exploitation. Bakha‘s driving the strength from the sun shows his faith in the
Hindu religion. But being a Hindu, him-self, he is doomed to suffer monstrous injustice.
The pompous behaviour of different from that of the Hindu Pundit Economic exploitation
has been a common cause of poverty and hunger in the countryside of India. This has been
the subject of a number of Anand‘s novels. The landlords and moneylenders exploit the
peasants and become moneylenders exploit the peasants and become the cause of their
poverty and hunger. The exploited have no liberty to earn their living. They are at the
mercy of the exploiters for their basic needs. The sweepers work for the high castes but
they do not get anything in return. They beg food, water and clothes. The description of the
outcaste colony in the beginning of the novel reveals not only poverty but also the
subhuman level of their existence. The entire set up where Bakha lives with his family
reveals the poverty of the downtrodden. There lived the scavengers, the leather workers the
washer men, the barbers, the water carriers, the grass cutters and other outcastes from
Hindu society. A brook ran near the lane, once with crystal- clear water, now soiled by the
 28

dirt and filth of the public latrines situated about it. The odour of the hides and skins of
dead carcasses left to dry on its bank. The dung of donkeys, sheep, horses, cows and
buffalos heaped up to be made into fuel cakes. The absence of the drainage system had,
through the rains of various seasons, made of the quarter a marsh which gave out the most
offensive smell. And altogether the ramparts of human and animal refuse that lay on the
outskirts of this little colony and the ugliness.
The castes who look after the cleanliness of the high castes are destined to live in dirt.
Anand holds the mirror in the inhuman practices of the Hindu social structure.
Due to being a realistic social novelist, Anand does not make his protagonist a rising force
or rebel against the capitalist exploitation but makes him a victim to it. Being a child, he is
not even aware of the nature of exploitation; so there is no question of freeing himself from
or rebelling against the exploitation. In Untouchable, Anand has shown his protagonist as
both a victim of a rebel against the caste system but in Coolie, the arch character is only a
victim of the class system. The want of provisions makes him dream of tasty food to eat,
beautiful clothes to wear and of costly toys to play with. He remains innocent throughout
the short span of his life. A number of social factors push him into the active made of [Link]
this caste ridden Indian society an untouchable is no less than a worm of a gutter. He is
treated as dirt. Even older untouchable is humiliated by the younger born in high caste.
Written after Independence, “Old Bapu” is a sincere social criticism. It also criticises the
Indian government for its failure to provide employment to the poor and the unemployed.
The casteist society unleashes atrocities on the poor and the low caste people without any
practical reason. Another story titled “The Barber’s Trade Union” deals with the problem of
caste system which has sacrificed innumerable people since ages at the altar of this biggest
evil of Indian society. This story is about Chandu, the son of a barber, who is trained to
follow the traditional profession of a barber in the village. He is dynamic, energetic and good
at studies, but he has to discontinue his school and follow the traditional work after his
father’s death. The narrator of the story, Chandu’s fast friend, belongs to a high caste. So his
mother dissuades him from keeping company with Chandu, Barber by caste, a low caste in
the hierarchy of caste system. After accomplishing his professional work moving door to
door in the village as a routine work, Chandu visits the town where he meets people of
progressive ideas, and involves in healthy interactions with them. He believes in the equality
of human beings. He is attracted to doctor Kalam Khan’s attire and procures this type of dress
with his hard earned money. One day he sets out for his daily routine work in the village
wearing his new dress, a coat and trousers and holding a leather bag in his hand. This new
 29

attire upsets the elder upper caste people of the village, and he is humiliated every step due to
this new gesture. First, he visits Bijay Chand, the landlord of the village where he becomes
the target of reproach and humiliation. Chandu’s new dress infuriates the landlord. As
Chandu enters his house, he rudely shouts at Chandu, “…The son of pig!
He is bringing a leather bag of cow hide into our house and a coat of marrow of, I don’t
know, I don’t, I don’t know some other animal, and those evil black Angrezi shoes. Get out!
You will defile my religion…” (9) He orders Chandu, “Go away and wear cloths be fitting
your low status as a barber… else I will have you flogged.” (9) He uses abusive language for
him. Although Chandu clarifies that it is an apparel of a doctor, the arrogant landlord has no
patience to listen to his words. Chandu hears this and leaves the landlord’s house without
doing his work. Secondly, he confronts with the village Sahukar who also exhibits the same
prejudice. Sahukar comments, “You little swine, you go distinguishing yourself as a clown
when you ought to be bearing your responsibilities and looking after your old mother…. Go
and come back in your own cloths! Then I shall let you cut my hair” (10). Chandu cannot
wear the cloths in the village due to the opposition of the upper caste people. Being born in a
low caste, he is not supposed to wear such cloths. Discrimination based on caste is seen in the
behaviour of Pandit Parmanand, too. He tells the narrator, an upper caste boy, You boys have
been spoiled by the school education which you have got. It may be all right for you to wear
those things because you are going to be a leaned man, but what right has that low caste boy
to such apparel? He has got touch our beard, our heads and our hands. He is defiled enough
by God. You are a high a caste boy. And he is a low caste devil. He is a rouge! (10) Chandu
hears this, but does not yield. He revolts against the humiliation accorded to him. Instead of
following the beaten path he stops rendering services to them in the village and opens a
saloon in the town. Consequently, the upper caste men are forced to come to the saloon for
shaving and hair cutting. Chandu’s rebellious activities take a large dimension. He undertakes
a Herculean task to organise the other barbers of the district. Saving time from his work he
moves across the district for organising the barbers, and after discussion and persuasion he
unites them in his favour. Ultimately, the upper caste people of his village reconcile with
Chandu. Thus he emerges as a union leader. He advocates for equality and identity of the
downtrodden section of our society. The rigid pattern of the caste system in our society is
revealed in this story. In his famous short story “Lajwanti”, Anand depicts the plight of
another subaltern group- the poor women of our society. He is very particular about the
women’s problems of Indian society. In the Introduction to Selected Short Stories: Mulk Raj
Anand, Saros Cowasjee aptly comments, “In Anand’s works sympathies for
 30

women have a special place as their suffering is the greater, owing to Hindu religion and
tradition, and the strictures of a hide bound society” (Cowasjee)
Anand, undoubtedly, is a true, faithful and selfless spokesperson of the unvoiced. He is a
powerful critic of contemporary society. As an artist and humanitarian, he advocates for the
amelioration of those who have suffered at the hands of their fellow beings for no fault save
they are born in the depressed class. M. Berry writes that for Anand literature was “a weapon
for attacking social, political and economic institutions injurious to human freedom and equal
opportunity.” (27) Anand writes to Iyengar: “I am doing some village social work in order to
integrate my love for the poor with actual work for them….I never realised, as intensely as I
do now, the reasons why both Tolstoy and Gandhi chose the peasantry for their devotion.
After writing for many years about pains of these people, I now feel that, for their sake, it
may not all have been in vain.” (Iyengar 357) The above discussion of some of his short
stories reveals Anand’s compassion and concern for the down trodden and helpless people
along with women. We also note his voices of protest as in our society poor people like Old
Bapu, Dhanu, Lajwanti and Phalini are constantly subjected to pains, sufferings and
humiliations. In his another story “Savitri”, he depicts how widows are forced to be burnt on
the pyre with her dead husband. Savitri, in this story, is the victim of infamous practice of
Sati System. The stories discussed above are sharp realistic studies of men and women
crushed by overwhelming forces of our society. Anand declares, “I am conscious of the need
to raise untouchables, peasants, the serfs, coolies and other suppressed members of society, to
human dignity and self-awareness in view of abjectness, apathy and despair to which they
have been condemned.
This paper discusses about a story of the sufferers in Indian society of Mulk Raj Anand’s
novel Untouchable and Short story The Barber’s Trade Union. It describes the class
distinction between the wealthy and the needy person. The upper- class people abused to
lower class people humiliated them for minor faults and sometimes without any reason. It
also explains the significant condition, bitter and miserable life of Chandu and Bakha, a
young boy of the village . The novel portrays the Indian society where social interactions of
accomplishment and scarcity determine the life of Chandu and Bakha, key person of the
story. Botha are like the hero of John Galsworthy, English novelist and is the universal figure
who represents the discomfort and measurable life of the poor and down-trodden.
The novelist has described an image of a sweeper boy, who is untouchable. The protagonist
of the novel is the representative of all oppressed society in pre independence of India. The
protagonist, Bakha is the figure of agony just because of his caste. There are other characters
 31

who also suffer because of their lower caste. They live in a huddled colony in their mud-
walled cottages. The theme of the novel - untouchability itself is very practical. Untouchable
is a practical novel of socially and generally crushed protagonist Bakha. It is a slice from a
life without any transform or alteration. The novel starts with a realistic image of the
outcastes’ colony. Bakha represents the exploitation and subjugation which has been the
destiny of untouchables like him. The untouchable belongs to the scavenger caste, commonly
identified as ‘bhangi’ in various Indian languages. The work of this caste was to clean latrines
and streets for the upper castes. The living circumstances of the untouchables were
tremendously squalid and they were enforced to live in mud-walled and single-roomed
cottages. There was foul smell all over the place and there was not appropriate system of
drainage. Almost each page of the novel is saturated in Bakha’s invisible tears who patiently
tolerate the most embarrassing and disheartening days of his young life in this story. From
morning to evening he is forced to deal with detestation, discrimination and insincerity. There
is no question that Mulk Raj Anand has created with Untouchable, a novel that articulates the
maltreatments of an exploited class. He is certainly the ‘Burning Voice’ of those people who
form the untouchable caste, and fulfils the objective of the novelist to change words into
forecast. The novel describes a day in the life of Bakha, a Sweeper-boy, and brings out the
effect on him of the several events which take place, by providing us his ‘flow of awareness’,
in the manner of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. Bakha, the protagonist is 18 years old son
of Lakha, who is Jamadar and gets a pair of breeches from an English soldier. But as the day
starts, his work of toilet cleaning also starts. He is honest and competent in his work. Bakha’s
sister Sohini goes to village-well to bring water; Kalinath, the village pastor of the temple out
of the special Social Images of Sexual Exploitation and Human Suffering In Mulk Raj Anand
Coolie and Untouchable favor draws water to fill Sohini bucket, and feels attracted to her
beauty, and driving others recommends her to go to his home later in the day to clean the
courtyard. And, when Sohini goes to his residence, he makes indecent suggestions to her. She
begins screaming. This duality and double standards is vibrantly depicted by Mulk Raj Anand
in the novel. Thus, untouchable deals with dissimilar kinds of exploitations such as social,
political, economic and sexual exploitation, as exploitation and suffering are its major theme
but social exploitation is at the origin of all other exploitations. It refers to the class
discrimination on the birth basis, which gives some castes unnecessary benefit over other
castes. It is an internal disagreement of a human being who is caught in the trap of a
traditional caste system. Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie is epical in sweep up and views in
purview, images of the effects that the enveloping evil of class-system has a poor hill-boy,
 32

Munoo. Mulk Raj Anand makes it very clear, that such exploitation and rejection of life and
gladness is the lot of the poor all over the place in India, whether in village like Billaspur or
small town like Sham Nagar or big cities like Bombay and Daulatpur. Mulk Raj Anand
focuses crisis of these innocents in a very sensitive way critically. This article focuses on
discrimination and exploitation faced by labour.
 33

Works Cited
1. Anand, Mulk Raj. Apology for Heroism. New Delhi: Arnold-Heineman, 1986.
[Link]. 1935. London: Penguin, 1985.
3. Berry, M. Mulk Raj Anand: The Man and the Novelist. Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1971.
4. Cowasjee, Saros, editor. Mulk Raj Anand: Selected Short Stories. New Delhi: Penguin
Books India, 2006
5. Iyengar, K. R. S. Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 18th reprint,
2007.
6. Naik, M. K. A History of Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, Reprint,
2006.
[Link], Mulk, Raj. Untouchable, Pune: Mehta Publishing House, New Delhi, Print. 2003. --
---. Coolie, Penguin Books India, Noida, Print. (1980). -----.
8. Across the Black Waters, Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi, Print. “Untouchable and Coolie:
The Soul of Social Realism”.
9. International Journal of Advance Research and Innovation, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 280-
284. B. Balaji, Reddy and M., M. Gopi, (2013).
10. “The Immitigable Hardships and Physical and Mental Agonies of the Untouchables in
Mulk Raj Anand’s: Untouchable” International Journal of Scientific and Research
Publications, Volume 3, Issue 3, March. Saros, Cowasjee, (1963).
 34

CHAPTER 4:
Economical challenge and Poverty
 35

Mulk Raj Anand novels fall into two categories namely social and autobiographical novels.
He focused his attention on the sufferings of economical level, caste discrimination, social
status and wretchedness of the poor as a result of the exploitation of the downtrodden class of
the Indian society. His themes are mainly focused poverty and the place of woman in the
society; superstitions, hunger and exploitation are his common themes. The novel describes a
single day in the life of the protagonist Bakha and he is a scavenger boy. The entire action
takes place within a period of less than twenty four hours. Though the scene of the novel
belongs to a small interior town of the Punjab and the happenings are pan Indian in character.
In his novel most of the action of the novel takes place at an outcaste colony and in the streets
of the small town. Bakha starts his day by his father and is forced to clean the latrines with a
brush and a basket. His sister Sohini goes to fetch water from the caste well where she is
compelled to wait for a caste Hindu to draw water which is again a routine for her life. Pundit
Kali Nath fills her pitcher with water and summons her with an ill intention to clean the
temple courtyard. Ambedkar says and explains, ―Dr. Ambedkar had described in his
―Untouchables‖, that they were adherents of Buddha, the founder of revolutionary Thought
against Vedism, Brahmanism, religious, social and economic status quo. Dr. Ambedkar also
conferred higher social status on the Shundras in his book ―Who were the Shundras‖. He
made the Indian women conscious of the cause of their fall and inspired them to rise in social
ladder in Hindu system by their own efforts and self- consciousness in his brochure ―The
Rise and Fall of Hindu Women. Bakha shows the request of his father rushes to the town to
clean the roads. On his way he meets his friends and they plan a hockey match in the
afternoon. While walking through the streets of the town, a caste Hindu gets defiled by his
touch to which he tries to apologize. The peoples are around the scene and abuse Bakha and
he pleads but no one feels pity for him. The rich man gives a slap on Bakha‘s face and leaves
the place. For the first time in his life Bakha is made aware of his status as an untouchable.
He feels and rushes to the courtyard of the temple announcing his arrival aloud. While
roaming outside the temple he curiously looks into the temple. A Brahmin sees Bakha on the
steps and shouts at him for polluting the temple. While climbing down the steps he finds his
sister Sohini standing in the courtyard frightened and speechless. She tells Bakha about the
priest‘s attempt to molest her while she was cleaning his latrine. She further tells him that she
screamed out of fear and the priest came out shouting that he had been defiled by an
untouchable girl. An enraged Bhaka decides to look for the priest but Sohini stops him. As
both of them realize their helplessness due to the limitations of their caste and they decide to
give up. Bakha sends Sohini home and goes to an alley nearby to beg for food. He starts
 36

shouting for food but nobody responds and he tired of the schedule he sleeps on the wooden
platform in front of a caste Hindu‘s house. She shouts at Bakha for polluting her house and
she asks him to clean the drain to get a piece of bread. Meanwhile a woman from a
neighbouring house gives him a chapatti. He returns home and tells his father Lakha about his
insult and Sohini‘s molestation by the Pandit. Bakha narrates him an experience of his own
life and it brings Bakha back to his senses and he leaves the house to meet his friends and
after spending some time with his friends he goes to Havaldar Charat Singh to collect a
hockey stick. Bakha gets excited with his kind treatment and goes to the playground to play a
hockey match. The son of a high caste Hindu is hurt in the quarrel that takes place after the
match. Colonel Hutchinson is a a priest from the church and finds him lonely and takes him
to the church where he asks Bakha to confess his sin so that he can be converted to the
Christain religion.
In the railway station he hears the news of Mahatma Gandhi‘s arrival in the town and he
rushes to Golbagh to hear Gandhi‘s speech. With the sight of Gandhi he forgets all the
miseries of the whole day. In his long speech Gandhi expresses his wish to be reborn as an
untouchable. He calls them ‗Harijan‘ and the cleaners of Hindu religion and he also warns
them against their bad habits and asks them to stop accepting the cooked food for their work.
Through the conversation between Gandhi groups, Bakha comes to know that the only
solution toeradicate untouchability is the use of machine or the flush system. Bakha‘s
character is modeled after one of Anand‘s childhood friends who was humiliate by his own
mother for being a sweeper boy but whom Anand adored as a hero. Anand can never forget
that sweeper boy and the insult and humiliation that he received by Anand‘s family. He gave
voice to his views against the exploitation of a sweeper-boy through the character of Bakha in
his very first novel Untouchable. The theme of exploitation is best expressed through the
character of Sohini, Bakha‘s sister. She is not only exemplifies caste exploitation but also
problem of caste and economical exploitation. Gulabo is a washer woman and a caste
superior to all other outcastes exploits Sohini. She is being of the low caste among the
outcastes would naturally be looked down upon by Gulabo. (34) She is not only abuses the
sweeper girl but also rushes to hit her. Sohini behaves unlike any other outcaste woman.
When other women make servile appeal and show their abject humility to the passerby high
caste Hindus to draw the water from the well and she sits patiently away from them. She
becomes the victim of sexual exploitation due to her caste and poverty. She is very beautiful
but she has not enough clothes to protect her beauty from the hungry eyes of the [Link]
cannot do that. They are our superiors. One word of theirs is sufficient against all that we
 37

might say before the police. They are our masters. We must respect them and do as they tell
us. Some of them are kind. Bakha‘s thoughts against the established system become
significant when we compare it with the passive submission of Lakha to it. Pundit Kali Nath
is the priest of the temple in the town. His moral weakness is exposed when he tries to seduce
a sweeper girl. When he fails in his sexual assault he accuses her for defiling him. Through
the character of Kali Nath, Anand brings out the underlying hypocrisy of the high caste
advocates of the morality and culture. Those who firmly believe that the touch of the outcaste
defile them and do not get defiled when they sleep with the untouchable women. Colonel
Hutchinson, the chief of the local Salvation Army and a Christian missionary is a symbol of
the Christian assault on the Hindu religion. As exploitation is the major theme of
Untouchable and it deals with different types of exploitations such as social, economic,
political, religious and sexual exploitation.
Anand wants to analyze the predicament of the untouchables and effects of social
discrimination on them through Bakha‘s reflections. Denial of education to the outcastes is a
part of social exploitation. Bakha aspires after education and wishes to go to school when he
was a child. ―But then his father had told him that the schools were meant for the babus, not
for bhangis. He hadn‘t understood the reason for that then. Mulk Raj Anand‘s affinity and
association with the children of the sweepers attached to an Indian regiment is conspicuous
throughout the characterization of Bakha. The delineation of the character of Bakha an
untouchable and abhorred by the high caste during pre- Independence, was the need of the
hour and that is the reason why Mulk Raj Anand is called a historical writer. Anand exposes
the high caste shop keepers even and they accept the money paid by the outcaste by splashing
water on it and throw at them the things they buy. The superiority and the inferiority complex
are both deeply rooted in the high caste and the low caste respectively. The high caste
Brahmin feels that to praise the low caste is below his prestige. When the low caste praises
him and he accepts the praise with reservation. Anand expresses his anger, agony and despair
of the exploitation of the outcastes in the name of religion and through the miserable plight of
untouchables he wants to make the reader aware of the horrors of the poverty and sufferings.
He makes sensitive to the heartlessness of a few who promising life of the helpless young low
caste.
It is also noticeable that those who alienate Chandu are arrogant and appear to be rooted to a
value system (caste system) that Chandu himself does not believe in adhering to. Chandu sees
nothing wrong with trying to better himself. However due to the rigid values of those in the
town Chandu ends up losing business. Though it is interesting that Chandu knows that he can
 38

outwit those who have alienated him. All he has to do is to be patient and wait for each
individual’s hair to grow. This too may be important as it suggests that Chandu is using his
ingenuity. He will not be beaten by a system that will not include him. Purely because he is of
a lower caste. If anything Chandu knows that those in the village who are alienating him are
reliant on him and his services. The narrator’s relationship with Chandu is also interesting as
he not only respects Chandu but he is full of admiration for him. In many ways the narrator
envies the freedom that Chandu has when it comes to him being able to go into town.
Unfortunately, others do not respect or admire Chandu. Something that is clear to the reader
by the fact that Bijay Chand throws Chandu out of his home because he believes that Chandu
has no right to dress as he is doing so. What is interesting about Bijay Chand and others is
that they do not appear to realise that they need Chandu more than he needs them. He may be
of a lower caste and attempting (in their eyes) to dress above his class but he is the only
barber in the village. Chandu has a monopoly. Something he himself is very much aware of.
Chandu can also go into town and earn money and not be judged for wearing the clothes he is
wearing. If anything the fact that Chandu can earn a rupee for a haircut yet only two piece in
the village suggests that not only is Chandu not being judged by his caste but his efforts are
also respected by those in the town. It may also be important that Chandu buys the bicycle as
symbolically this may suggest he is independent of those in the village. He has his own
means to get into town and earn money. He is not reliant on the business of the men who
alienated him because of his choice of clothing. The end of the story is also interesting as
Anand appears to be exploring the theme of control. Chandu by setting up a barber’s union
and forcing those in the village to come to him rather than having him travel to them. Has
taken control of the situation he finds himself in. Where many might have done as instructed
by the elders in the village. Chandu does not. He not only continues to dress as he wants to
but he also forces the men in the village to adhere to his rules rather than Chandu having to
do as he has been told by Bijay Chand and others. Similarly Chandu’s mother is able to
ignore the instructions of those in the village now that she has money (coming from Chandu).
If anything Chandu and his mother have freed themselves from the preconceived societal
norms that have been accepted for so long in the village. It might also be worth noting that
Chandu’s actions have benefited other barbers in the neighbouring villages. They too have
taken control of their situation thanks to Chandu’s ingenuity and his resilience. In reality
Chandu started off as an underdog fighting against the caste system and managed to turn
things around in his favour. It is easy for the reader to see as to why the narrator respects and
admires Chandu.
 39

The Barber's Trade Union, the story of a young dynamic barber, is a satisfying diversion from
the grave novels- Untouchable, Coolie . It depicts the conflict between a barber boy and the
traditional society. A recurrent theme- the exploitation of the poor, the downtrodden and the
oppressed 1s given a deft touch of humour. The plot is a dialectical rubric of various
opposites namely: upper caste orthodox society versus individual, speech versus silence,
myth versus reality, power of authority versus powerlessness of socially, economically and
politically marginalised. As a proletarian humanist Anand has full faith in human dignity and
potentiality of man. This paper locates its argument in the very act of reclaiming this dignity
denied to the protagonist by the high-caste Hindus. “The Barber’s Trade Union”, the tale of
dynamic barber boy, is a satisfying diversion from the serious novels that preceded it, namely
Coolie, Untouchable, The Lalu Trilogy. It explicated the conflict between a barber and the
traditional society. The exploitation of the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed a
recurring theme in Anand’s major fiction is handled here with a deft touch of comedy. As a
proletarian humanist, Anand has full faith in the dignity and potentiality of man. In this story,
he retrieves this “dignity” denied to the protagonist by the high caste Hindus. The problem of
caste distinctions is not merely lime lighted, but a happy solution is indicated at the end.
Anand’s aim here, like Jonson’s and Dickens‟ is not merely to instruct but to “mix profit with
pleasure.” The setting of the story is a typically North Indian village; the focus is clearly
determined. The anonymous narrator, like Conrad’s Marlow, is a character in the story and
the events are filtered through his consciousness. And, like Marlow again, the narrator is
sympathetic towards the protagonist. The events in the story are an outgrowth of its central
character named Chandu. He is introduced by the story writer, as if in a mock-heroic fashion,
lending him heroic heights: “Among the makers of modem India, Chandu, the barber boy of
our village, has a place which will be denied him unless I press for the recognition of his
contribution to history.” This humorous description in the opening lines promises the reader
an interesting narrative. Chandu is both an individual and a type. Unconsciously though, he
embarks on an exploit which ultimately bingos about his emancipation. Chandu, we are told,
is natively egotistical like most great men of India, but unlike them he nourishes no
exaggerated opinion of himself. Here, Anand’s good humoured dig at the self-professed
leaders of the nation is more than obvious. Chandu’s portraiture as the underprivileged lad of
the village is highly realistic. While at school he is weak in Mathematics because, at the
instance of his father, he has to seek apprenticeship to the hereditary profession of the
barber’s caste. He is sent out for hair cutting in the village and this keeps the young boy too
occupied to devote time to his studies. Like Anand’s other heroes, he is a victim of society.
 40

The narrator’s mother constantly dissuades him from playing with Chandu saying that he is a
low caste barber’s son and that he (the narrator) ought to keep up the status of his caste and
class. After his father’s death Chandu has but to quit studies. At this tender age, he embraces
his profession wholeheartedly and, as routine, makes the rounds of the high caste notables
every morning for shaving and hair cutting. All goes well until, one day; Chandu decides
impishly to dress up like the city doctor Kaplan Khan in a white turban, a white rubber coat,
with a leather bag in hand. The doctor’s dress represents a happy change from the ossified
order and the stagnant condition of life to which Chandu was born. The lack of barber’s
services unleashes a spate of problems. The landlord’s face is dirtied by the white scum of his
unshaved beard; the Sahukar looks like a leper with the brown tinge of tobacco on his walrus
moustache. The village elders become ludicrous figures and the town urchins drive malicious
pleasure, shouting loose remarks at them. The jokes about the unkempt beards of the elders of
the village become current in every home. The repercussions of the strike are far reaching and
Anand as a comic writer is at his best when he glibly remarks: “And it was said that at least
the landlord’s wife threatened to run away with somebody, because, being younger than her
husband by twenty years, she had borne with him as long as he kept himself in trim, but was
now disgusted with him beyond the limits of reconciliation
While Chandu flourishes in the town, the village elders smart under the new situation. They
fail to get a barber from the neighboring village of Verka even on a double payment. Chandu
summons his cousin and other barbers within a range of seven miles from his village to a
special congregation of his craft and convinces them that it was time the elders of the village
came to them to be shaved rather than their dancing attendance upon these so called lords.
Seeing reason in his argument, the fellow barbers organize themselves and launch „Rajkot
District Barber Brothers‟ Hair Dressing and Shaving Saloon, thus heralding the birth of a
new era. In the writing of the story, Anand has both a literary as well as a moral aim. In the
portraiture of Chandu, he draws attention to the social problems which in the thirties and
forties were accentuated by the glaring contrast between the material comforts of the rich and
the destitution of thousands of poor people. As a skilled story teller, Anand gives a clarion
call to the nation to rouse from the slumber of dead habits and age old traditions. A strain for
social awareness is indeed central to the story. But the rendering of it by Anand casts such a
spell on the reader that he is least conscious of it. The highly absorbing narrative constantly
arouses the reader’s curiosity and imagination and the reading of it proves to be an
illuminating. Mulk Raj is against the feudalism, tyranny, superstations, social injustice, evil
practices of the social society. He is strong critic of the 19th century India with its evil
 41

practices, He is for modernization, democracy and spirits of love, freedom and justice. It is a
fact that a true artist eschews normally the conscious adoption of a specific creed or
philosophy. But the demands of the society in the early decades of the twentieth century were
such that only the lesser writers could escape these. The rise fascism and the shock of the
Great Depression of the late twenties throughout the world led to a search for a better
understanding of democratic principles and respect for humanistic values. The repetitive
themes in the short stories bring the ideas that Anand was much ahead of his contemporaries
in ideas and ideologies. The themes in his short stories dealt with issues that were progressive
and helped in shaping public opinion and laying the foundation stone for a more egalitarian
society.
 42

Works Cited
[Link] , Mulk Raj. Selected Short Stories, Edited with an Introduction by M. K. Naik,
ArnoldHeinemann, 1977.
[Link], Jurgen. “Modernity Versus Postmodernity” New German Critique, No. 22,
Special Issue on Modernism (Winter, 1981), pp. 3-14. Walsh, William.
3. Indian Literature in English (Longman Literature in English Series). Longman, 1990.
4. Dr Saros Cowasjee : Anand’s Two Leaves and a Bud. Published in the Indian
Literature (Q). Vol. XVI, No. 3 and 4, July, Dec. ’73.
[Link] in Modern Indian Fiction in English.
References to the texts are from the Kutub Popular (Bombay) editions unless otherwise
specified.
[Link] Anand, Mulk. Untouchable,New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1935. Print. [2] Massey,
James. Dalits in India. New Delhi: Manohar publishers and Distributors, 1995. Print
 43

CHAPTER 5:
Socio and Political Condition
 44

Under Gandhiji’s moral-cum-spiritual leadership, the freedom movement percolated, for the
first time, to the very grass-roots of Indian society. Parallel to the struggle for political
freedom started another struggle for freedom on the social plane. That was a fight against
superstition, the caste system and untouchability, poverty, illiteracy, the erosion of religious
belief–that were sapping the very vitality of our society.

The aim of this study is to see how these political and social concerns are reflected in the first
three significant works of Mulk Raj Anand. Paradoxical as it may sound, the dynamics of
Gandhian thought helped open the way for the influx of Marxism in the literary field in India.
But at deeper level there is no paradox as the basic attraction of both the Gandhian and
Marxian appeals was their idealism despite the wide difference in their ideological
framework and the terminology employed. Gandhiji’s lifelong crusade against colonial
exploitation of the weaker nations by the stronger, his no less vehement condemnation of any
form of economic exploitation, his insistence that what is not shared with the dispossessed is
stolen from them, and his passionate confession to talk of God to a people whose bellies were
crying for bread–these rather than his exaltation of prayer and fast, of spinning and celibacy,
of non-violence in thought, word and deed, had impressed the Indian intelligentsia. Between
this aspect of Gandhian crusade and the almost parallel faith of Marxism the only difference
was that Marxian dogma appeared to be more consistent in its ideology and more realistic in
its interpretation of history. This explains the phenomenon of the thirties when many Indian
writers and intellectuals who were first inspired by Gandhi later veered towards socialist or
Marxist ideologies. Anand himself makes it clear in his preface to the second edition of
the Two Leaves and a Bud: “In so far, however, as my work broke new ground and
represented a departure from the tradition of previous Indian fiction, where the pariahs and
the bottom-dogs had not been allowed to enter 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 only knew Omar Khayam, and Tagore but very little or nothing about the
sordid or colourful lives of the millions of Asia.”

Anand, “a son of a copper-smith turned soldier, and of a peasant mother,” knew, saw and felt
fully and intimately the rural life of the Punjab, the villagers, groaning under abject poverty,
the village-life being sucked dry by the parasites and religious priests. He found himself
propelled towards them and decided to write about those people who suffered continual
indignation and despise at the hands of the white sahibs, the zamindars, the money- lenders,
the priests, the landlords and the big business bugs. Thus, the sweeper, the peasant, the
 45

plantation labourer, the city drudge, the soldier, in spite of their thwarted purposings, became
the heroes of his first two trilogies. In the same preface Anand claims:

All these heroes, as the other men and women who had emerged in my novels and short
stories, 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 debt of gratitude lowed them
for much of the inspiration they had given me to mature into manhood, when I began to
interpret their lives in my writing. 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 an artist’s soul. And I was doing no more than what a writer does when he seeks to
interpret the truth friend. Bakha is a prototype of millions of untouchables in India, because
he represents the agony and anguish, the misery and frustration of the innumerable low-caste
people. “The problem of caste and poverty, squalor and wardness, ignorance and superstition,
admits of no easy solution”. Almost forty years after Anand’s novel was written (1933), and
twenty-seven years after the attainment of independence, the problem still defies a firm and
final solution. Despite the fact that the Indian Constitution has made it a crime to practise
Untouchability, we still witness Anand’s Sohinis and Golabos, waiting at the village-well for
a long time–some standing up, bending and joining their palms in beggary, others twisting
their lips in various attitudes of servile appeal and abject humility as they remain seated. We
still have the residential areas of the high-caste Hindus through which untouchables are
forbidden to take their marriage processions, hotels where the “low-caste people” are not
allowed the touch and use of utensils meant for other common customers. We still witness the
shameful and ghastly scenes of the untouchables being shot dead by villagers for daring to
grow their moustaches upwards (local tradition demands that they grow their moustaches
downwards because of their low status in the caste hierarchy). 5 Solution is there, but it needs
a planned and concerted action on behalf of the Government, the social workers and the
under-privileged. First they are to be educated properly, their standard of living is to be
raised, their miserable economic conditions are to be improved and then they are to come out
in a defiant mood to break loose the chains of age-old traditions by breaking the ban on the
use of public wells, schools, roads and public temples. Only then some semblance of hope
can be visible.

Anand does not seem to be satisfied with an understanding of the society in its exterior
aspects, its institutions, its problems. He seems to be possessed by a desire, although vague,
to seize and express the deeper spiritual reality beneath the flux of bourgeois living. He,
 46

therefore, criticises social maladies, human hypocrisies, and individual In Coolie Anand
shows his concern for the savagely neglected, despised and maltreated poor with an angry
lack of resignation. Munoo, a poor orphan hill-boy, verdant and innocent, underfed and ill-
treated by his aunt leaves the native village to find work and see the world. The very first
encounter with reality shatters his dreams. Employed in the house of a bank clerk, Munoo
with his inborn naive gaiety amuses and entertains the employer’s daughter by dancing like a
monkey for her, but is interfered by he shrewish and vindictive housewife who ruthlessly
destroys his happiness by making him realize his position in the world: “He had no right to
join the laughter of his superiors. He was to be a slave, a servant who should do the work, all
the odd jobs, someone to be abused, even beaten...”

Constant abuses and frenzied rage from his frightening and frowning mistress makes him flee
to work in a primitive pickle factory in Daulatpur where the dispute between the two partners
leaves him desolate, unshielded and helpless. Exasperated with the frantic competition and
cunningness among the fellow-coolies, he finds himself an utter failure in the job of a market
porter. The satire here becomes more general, directed not at one or two examples of vice and
folly but at man’s inhumanity to man. There are only two kinds of people in the world: the
rich and the poor and between the two there is no connection. The rich and the powerful, the
magnificent and the glorious, whose opulence is built on robbery and theft and open war-fare,
are honoured and admired by the whole world and by themselves. You, the poor and the
humble, you the meek and the gentle, wretched that you are swindled out of your rights, and
broken in body and soul. You are respected by no one and you do not respect yourselves.
Anand in his novels, attacking social snobbery and prejudice, urges for a larger outlook, more
tolerance, more intimate and benevolent understanding and more self-sacrifice. He seems to
stress one thing to be sure–that intolerance and egoistic feelings are at the root of all our
social and personal troubles. Through his pleadings for an unquenchable and unshakable faith
in the elemental goodness of man and power of love, a faith which has had all falsity and
sentimentality purged of by the fires of intense suffering, what Anand wanted to achieve has
been achieved. And that in itself is a unique contribution to the Indian novel in [Link]
world of Mulk Raj Anand is the world of humanism. It is the chief characteristic of his fiction
the key to the understanding of his art. He has written novels and short stories of the welfare
of mankind in the hope that life will be improved and there will be less suffering and pain.
His well defined characters such as Bakha and Chandu, conceived in terms of the most
persistent attitude of our time, that is humanism, give concrete form to his theoretical
 47

intellectualism, revealing their creator’s piercing insight and humane understanding of human
existence in social terms. Being a minute observer of human situation in the realistic tradition
of fiction, Anand exposes social hypocrisy and taboos, class exploitation and class struggle,
social and economic injustice and the atrocities committed on the oppressed disheveled lot.
He depicts human beings who are enmeshed in poverty and injustice, struggling to come out
but shackled by the coils of evil. The village money lenders, priests, tea-planters and caste
Hindus treat them as beasts. The novelist favours the degraded people- the peasant, the
barber, the sweeper, the city drudge, the sepoy, the labourer- the miserable human being.

India is a birth place of many religious: Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism are contributions of
our land. India is also a host of Jewism, Chistianity and Islam. These religions have
transformed our history and will continue to last till the end of our history. Majority of our
countrymen are too serious about our religions. They were prepared to noisily argue for it;
write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live it. This has caused immense problems to
the unity and solidarity of our country. The frequent quarrels in the name of one religion or
the other that abruptly floods our streets with blood, is a contempt of true religion. Very often
these quarrels are the machinations of certain Machiavellians who have no interest in any
religion. Anand’s exposition of this fact is skillful in coolie. His humanism considers any
quarrel in the name of religion as nonsensical. He wants to lead the Indian society from the
darkness of religious fanaticism and nationalism based on it, to the light of secularism

Anand is angered by the Hindu society’s acceptance of Casteism and Karma as the
fundamental truth of its religion. He protests against the Christian theories of revelation, pre
destination, original sin and human depravity as they are impediments to human progress. He
ridicules the hopeless practices of Islam. He attacks impartially the awkwardness that has
intruded into every religion. He wants people to practice the true religion which is nothing
but humanism. He disapproves the way religion is reduced to mere rituals and dead customs.

“Untouchable” is thus a forthright condemnation of a system which has, for ages, killed
human dignity and warped the man, the hideous monster called caste that has seized Indian
life in its strangling grasp and we have come to accept the snobbery, the hypocrisy, insularity
and stratification of society based on ideas of high and low, thus making a mockery of the
great teachings of our holy scriptures that we chant on all auspicious occasions. Anand in his
novels, attacking social snobbery and prejudice, urges for a larger outlook, more tolerance,
more intimate and benevolent understanding and more self-sacrifice. He seems to stress one
 48

thing to be sure–that intolerance and egoistic feelings are at the root of all our social and
personal troubles.
Literature develops out of life and records our fantasies and thoughts, expectations and
yearnings, disappointments and frustrations, intentions and interests, and encounters and
perceptions. Throughout the years, literature has mirrored the common social issues in
numerous famous works of literature under the shadow of authenticity. In Realism, social the
truth is one part of the picture yet it can't be secluded just as it were an entity without
anyone else. It can't be removed from the setting of the general cultural example of a
period. Indeed, even there have been straightforward endeavors to recreate 117
occurrences from extraordinary literatures of the past ages. It is again because of a specific
vulgarization on an alternate level. With all their colossal resources of visual presentation, the
creators of our spirit of workmanship. However that reality has been passed on for many years
by the workmanship players of Bengal's field who work without a stage or picturesque
impacts, practically with no sort of hardware, depending completely on the least difficult
emotional gadgets. They pass on truth, reality of feeling, which is a definitive of authenticity
This part of authenticity is inadequate in progress of a portion of the essayists. Authenticity as
it ought to be honest and legit picture of society. It ought to be genuine endeavor to
concentrate on reality with the worry to make it unreality world .

It is additionally essential to note here at this intersection that the quick progress of the
modern age with its new innovation is joined by a long shot achieving changes in cultural
orientation. Regardless of the possibility that world peace is kept up at the edge of the pit,
the financial part of living is totally refashioned in view of the new states of modern
efficiency. The progressions achieve more remote than those that stamp the flood of the time
of capitalism over the root of the primitive request. Henceforth it is suitable to take note of
how that new age responds to the literature of its yesterday and that is the reason Realism is
only the response of the previous, a genuine picture of life against the ruddy picture of
Romanticists. Pragmatist has a moral reason. He may reprimand bad form and persecution; he
may request opportunity for his kin, he may argue for the all inclusive fraternity of man. In
every single such case he is called one-sided. The inventive author can well stand to wear that
mark. The stern pragmatist is dependent on beliefs. He needs to improve life. He longs for an
extraordinary predetermination for mankind, and not of its dishonorable end under atomic
parting. In any case, the humankind is at center of lt. The most heroic character must have his
feet on normal earth as Mulk Raj Anand's Bakha, Chandu have.
 49

The realism of Anand is an innovation in the technique of Indian novel as well, for it
progresses the Indian novel from where Premchand left it. The most punctual pioneer of
the Indian novel, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, composed historical sentiments after the style
of Walter Scott. In his social books which are characterized by sentimental realism, he
double-crosses the absence of masterful separation and regularly recolors his adjusted
judgments by his socio-religious preferences. Rabindranath Tagore devises a dramatic
representation of human relationships yet the treats essentially privileged life in his books and
being a dilettante examinations human lead and motivations focusing on the all inclusive
estimations of truth, goodness and magnificence and for the most part, disregarding socio-
economic clashes of the age. Saratchandra Chatterjee recognizes the wrongs contaminating the
Indian white collar class society definitely and investigations them
imaginatively. His characters are, in any case, unfit to locate any modern answers for their
age-old social issues and subsequently generally stay unimportant inactive observers to their
tragedies as opposed to transform into radical
 50

Work Cited
[Link] M. K. Naik’s essay on Gandhiji and the Indian Writing in English. Banasthali
Patrika, special issue on Mahatma Gandhi. July1970. p. 55.
[Link]. H. M. Williams: Studies in Modern Indian Novel in English. Writers
Workshop, Calcutta. 1973. Vol. I, p. 31.
[Link] M. Asnani: Untouchable and Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable. Published in
the Banasthali [Link]. ’71.
[Link] K. R. S. Iyengar: Indian Writing in English. Asia Pub. House, Bombay (1973). p.
338.
[Link] Times of India, December 26, 1976, reports that according to the Chairman of
the Untouchability Committee appointed by the Union Government, three
untouchables in a village in Madhya Pradesh were shot dead.
6 Studies in Modern Indian Novel in English.
7 Prof. K. Kurmanadham: The Novels of Dr M. R. Anand. Triveni (Machilipatnam),
Oct. ’67.
[Link] in Modern Indian Fiction in English.
[Link] Saros Cowasjee : Anand’s Two Leaves and a Bud. Published in the Indian
Literature (Q). Vol. XVI, No. 3 and 4, July, Dec. ’73.
10. Studies in Modern Indian Fiction in English.
[Link] Editorial Board, Dictionary of Literary Terms (New Delhi: Rama Brothers
Educational Publishers, 2001),
12. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘Why I Write?’, Indian Writing in English, ed. [Link] (New
Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1979),
13. Quoted by Lilian R. Furst, Realism (London and New York: Longman, 1992),
p.37. 14. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘Why I Write?’, Indian Writing in English, ed. [Link]
(New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1979).
 51

CHAPTER 6:
General Conclusion
 52

As an artist of fiction, the remarkable brands of Anand are the vitality and the acute sense of
the actuality. Anand is authentic to describe the inequalities and peculiarities in the current
human situation with sincerity and precision. It may be said that Anand's early novels come
fresh from contact with the flesh and blood of everyday existence. He has no psychological or
ideological preoccupations, and is content to leave his characters with a lively curiosity and
deep compassion. Some of his English characters, no doubt, are nothing more than
caricatures, but there are others whose words seem true and whose actions seem natural.

This development took place through the historical understanding of social reality and its
artistic expression in novels, not by a creative modernist antihistory vision, which has faith in
the meaning of the form of the novel and short story. ‘Untouchable’ and ‘The Barber’s Trade
Union’. Anand’s work attacks the social configuration; “Untouchable and The Barber’s
Trade Union” focuses on the social ills that stem from an uneven economic system that
Anand presented realistically. In the realistic treatment of Anand’s subjects, he can be
compared to the masters of realism; Balzac and Zola, through their realistic representation of
the characters and a real and audacious representation of the problems of Indian society. He
has direct experience of the lives of the poor and of the lower social class. He is truly the
novelist pioneer because of his realism, his humanism and his social protest.
From the discussion in Mulk Raj Anand’s novels, it can be said that his main concern is
social justice. All his key persons are victims of the age-old customs and traditions in Indian
society. Sympathy which compels us to think for a change in society and at the same time
guarantee justice to all the sections of people living in this society is generated for their
passive suffering persons which is the hearts of the reader. Thus, the idea of Anand fully
served when his key person compels readers to think for their social justice. With special
attention, the present study of Anand’s works to the various themes on which his novels are
based has given us to certain conclusion. Of all creative writers working in English, probably,
Anand is the most concerned with the minute observation of society and literature. His ideas
are spread over many prose and articles in the related subjects. The main mission of his life
has become to find out the truth of human [Link] a social realist, critic, and advocate for
the unfortunate and untouchable, Mulk Raj Anand has raised his voice against injustice. He
had sympathy for victims of repression of all types, especially those whose lives were
hampered by it. Anand chooses the most innocent and virtuous members of society's
underclass and infuses them with his own vitality. The protagonists of his stories are often
 53

morally upright people who suffer at the hands of evil outsiders. Anand paints a stark image
of how society's lower classes regard the underprivileged via ‘Untouchable’.
Mulk Raj Anand’s “Untouchable” coveys the message of justice and social importance of the
Untouchables. They need no sympathy but their true respect in the society. Because the man
made caste-system has thrown them out from the main stream of the society. They have
become isolated from the main stream of the society. The exploitation of the underdog- hero,
the Untouchable fires the novelist’s imagination which reveals in the novel realistic way.
Objectivity, balance and realism characterise Anand’s treatment of the theme of exploitation
and injustice to the Untouchables. The novel in Anand’s hand becomes an instrument of
humanism, which conveys the message of justice and social respect. The work is mainly
based on secondary source of information, such as published documents, books, review,
autobiography, journal, critiques etc. To fulfill the objectives of the study, tried to find out the
roots and evils of untouchability in the Hindu society, which Mulk Raj Anand nakedly
portrayed in his first novel “Untouchable”. In this present study, an attempt has been made to
analyse and interpret the social position of the Untouchables and the respect they can expect
from us. Anand possesses the art of telling the story extremely well. With his styling
techniques and sentence he engages the attention of the reader and holds them till end. He
creates on a grand scale and covers a huge range of characters and incidents. Above all he
possesses the interest of the reader to a great degree extent, one of the essential qualities of
the artist-creative imagination of a writer. His skill and craftsmanship make the stories
effective and cause the reader to experience the undisclosed reality of the society through his
characters. Anand has articulated the real Indian society through his writing. As a result, the
novel presents an authentic picture of brutal reality. The novel's overt call for abolition is
unmistakable. Mulk Raj Anand has created a narrative that expresses the exploitation of an
exploited class via sympathy in the conventional form of the realism novel. Anand is a well
known writer who has been likened to Charles Dickens in this regard. There is a glimmer of
optimism that India will be read of prejudice, callousness, and unfair discrimination. The
timeless beauty of equality and unity may soon reign in our land. This paper depicts the
perspective of Mulk Raj Anand through his novels towards casteism and the negative attitude
of the rich toward the poor, their behavior, and the development of negativity among
them. This paper has made it clear that Mulk Raj Anand’s contribution to English
Literature and his society was remarkable and authenticated.
The decayed aspects of Indian tradition gave rise to a social critic like Mulk Raj Anand to
expose the evils in society. His attention is focused on caste, problems of the poor, the village
 54

folk and the peasants. His social criticism created awareness in the minds of the rulers, who
have recognized his concern for the weaker section of society by introducing various welfare
measures and awarding him with the Sahitya Academy Fellow-ship.
The major characters in the novels Untouchable and Coolie experience of suffering and pains,
and these social, moral and personal afflictions make them understand the meaning of life,
and achieve a consummation of human existence. Their sufferings assume a meaning and
realization which dawn on them at the end. Mulk Raj Anand’s treatment of poverty, social,
and moral conflicts in his novels create a powerful impact on the minds of readers. It is due to
the mass appeal of his novels that Mulk Raj Anand occupies a prominent place in the Indian
English fictional world with writers like R.K. Narayan, Bhattacharya, and Raja Rao. His
popularity becomes clear from the fact that his novels have been translated into a number of
languages. Indeed, his novels provide guidelines for the future novelists. Anand is social
reformist and scientific humanistic so in the novel he projects real theme, real problem and
real solution. He has concern with downtrodden so he has raised the issues, realize the reader
to have pity and compassion and finally Anand provides solution to remove untouchability.
Anand is a social reformist. He has concern for untouchables so he avoids all sorts of overt
propaganda and sees that the novel develops along with the character in action His strict
fidelity to the facts of life and a variety of the social mores makes the novel at once a
significant social documents well a symbolic projection of the whole saga of human
suffering. Bakha is put to a complex congeries of social realities, and the three incidents in
which he finds himself unwittingly implicated, are keyed up to bring out the poignancy in the
life of his protagonist. Certainly Anand’s novel untouchable is a masterly work because it
evinces a hoppy harmony by between his silica preoccupations and artistic gifts. Thus, Anand
has exposed social evil in its myriad manifestations and has evocatively presented different
layers of human experience in the fiction. He enables to view humanity at large in a proper
perspective. His close association with the underdogs and his passionate recordation of their
woes has given his novel a rare cogency and an intimate quality of felt life. In Untouchable
and The Barber’s Trade Union, bakha and Chandu are epic heroes of suffering. The other
characters in these novels face pathetic and miserable conditions because of their social
background and economic dependence. The female characters in both the novels make a
highly piteous reading. The novels of Anand present a fictional world peopled by a striking
variety of characters, covering a wide area of Indian social and political science. dialectical
work centered on as exploration of the possibilities of achieving systhesis or spiritual
restoration. Thus in Untouchable, Mulk Raj Anand's handling the problem of untouchability
 55

through Bakha shows that he hopes to have a casteless Indian society in which untouchability
has no. The novel with a note of faith and idealism. The idea of Anand is fully served when
his hero compels readers to think for social justice. The present study of Anand’s works with
special attention to the various themes on which his novels are based has brought us to certain
conclusion. Of all Indian creative writers writing in English, Anand is perhaps the most
concerned with the minute observation of society and literature. His views on the subject are
spread over many essays and articles. To find out the truth of human relations has become the
mission of his life. It strives to make itself heard above the noise of an agreement that has
various manifestations religion, the caste system, colonization and wealth and in doing so,
produces a variety of speakers. These speakers generally occupy subordinate spaces in
society, but nevertheless feel burning with them in subordination. social realism in the real
novels of Mulk Raj Anand in light of his contribution to sharpening the first class Indian
society to the sufferings of the low caste poor masses caused by in human however instilled
religious, social foundations in our custom – bound nation which gave social realism. Mulk
Raj Anand is the author of the general population and for the general population, which is the
reason his fiction manages distinctive parts of social substances. Anand tests profound into the
different realities and aspects of human life through his system of characters-it is a particular
investigation of his social ethos which has been deceived by the underhanded outline of
society. Mulk Raj Anand's novels summed up with such huge numbers of certainties as this
ace of literature has dynamic order over language, which he has utilized as a part of the
presentation of the realistic picture of the early decades of twentieth century in India to
uncover the social foundation with the eye of social reformer. The last actuality got from this
investigation is the conclusion that these novels of Mulk Raj Anand featured by the shade of
various shades of life yet social realism has been kept at the focal position. These fictions are
the genuine depiction of Indian masses. Anand is the genuine illustrative of his age and had an
unequivocal social reason in composing his novels. His works uncover that he is not only
awesome spectator but rather infiltrating analyst on life.
Bakha is a spokesperson of all Dalit communities whose identities are constantly in flux since
people like him suffer from social inferiority and identity dilemma as a result of double
domination. The identity confusion leads him to a vulnerable condition and he always tries to
find a way to get out of it. Anand has successfully portrayed the traumatised child psyche
originating from the heinous caste system, racial hatred, elite hierarchy, and white
supremacism. Bakha wants to be content with his religion, race, class, social position, and
job, but the entrenched social divide does not allow him to be so. It constantly reminds him of
 56

so-called untouchability, the source of agony and identity crisis for Bakha in particular, and
the Dalits in general. In this transient life, it is important that we have compassion and
tolerance for fellow human beings. Unfortunately, those in power use their authority to
manipulate others and stall positive changes in society. It is the hypocrisy of the vested
interests that engenders and sustains racism, hatred, and class disparity in society to exploit
the deprived. The untouchables are still excluded and isolated beings who are yet to receive
equal human dignity and rights, as unjust racial binaries and restrictions spoil social harmony
and tear down the psychological stability of the oppressed class. We all need to work to
transform this planet into an inclusive place where equity and freedom will prevail. We share
one planet and the Dalits are not aliens here. The caste system and blind rituals deprive them
of all facilities and compel them to live in deplorable conditions, which is the cause of their
mental suffering. This world could have been free from binaries and boundaries since nature
treats everyone equally

Mulk Raj Anand as a social realist, critic, and raised his voice against a injustice in society
and speaks for unlucky, untouchable. He felt for various kinds of suppression which created
problems in people’s lives. Anand selects from the lower section of the society those with
pureness and innocence and gives full life and blood to them. His novels mostly portray the
tragedy of those free from moral wrongs under external and wicked forces. Through his
works, Anand clearly portrays a picture of society how the poor treated by their sub humans.
It brings out their miserable and pathetic life full of pains, sorrow and agonies; struggles for
existence in life which is controlled by rich people. He is against a social structure that
divides the people between the poor and rich. Bakha and Chandu’s journey of life starts with
suffering and ends with suffering. Anand’s humanistic concern for the underdogs of the
society through sweepers and barbers his belief in the dictum of arts for life’s sake.
The end of the story is also interesting as Anand appears to be exploring the theme of control.
Chandu by setting up a barber’s union and forcing those in the village to come to him rather
than having him travel to them. Has taken control of the situation he finds himself in. Where
many might have done as instructed by the elders in the village. Chandu does not. He not
only continues to dress as he wants to but he also forces the men in the village to adhere to
his rules rather than Chandu having to do as he has been told by Bijay Chand and others.
Similarly Chandu’s mother is able to ignore the instructions of those in the village now that
she has money (coming from Chandu). If anything Chandu and his mother have freed
themselves from the preconceived societal norms that have been accepted for so long in the
 57

village. It might also be worth noting that Chandu’s actions have benefited other barbers in
the neighbouring villages. They too have taken control of their situation thanks to Chandu’s
ingenuity and his resilience. In reality Chandu started off as an underdog fighting against the
caste system and managed to turn things around in his favour. It is easy for the reader to see
as to why the narrator respects and admires Chandu.
The Indianness of Indian society is that “The individual, to a very large extent, is
subordinated to the group. His functions and duties are determined by the caste to which he
belongs”. It seems its Anand’s conviction, as in many other stories, to show this Indianness of
Indian society and individual’s predicament in it. He attaches importance to the ordinary
unlettered Indian in the story. It has enjoyed enough popularity and has continued to provide
entertainment to the readers. But at the same time it seems that shorter fiction of M. R. Anand
needs still more critical attention, dexterous interpretation and revaluation than it has gained
at present. That would be the right way of honouring and recognizing the raconteur.
Chandu, according to Mulk Raj Anand, is employing his cleverness. Chandu firmly believed
that a system that excludes him will not be able to defeat him just because he belongs to a
lower caste. Those in the community who are isolating him, Chandu understands, are
dependent on him and his skills. The narrator’s connection with Chandu is especially
fascinating since he not only respects but also idolizes him. In many aspects, the narrator
envies Chandu’s independence when it comes to being able to go into town.
 58

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 59

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Company, 1993.
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1971.
 60

20. Cowasjee, Saros, editor. Mulk Raj Anand: Selected Short Stories. New Delhi:
Penguin Books India, 2006
21. Iyengar, K. R. S. Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 18th
reprint, 2007.
22. Naik, M. K. A History of Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
Reprint, 2006.
23. [Link] M. K. Naik’s essay on Gandhiji and the Indian Writing in English. Banasthali
Patrika, special issue on Mahatma Gandhi. July1970. p. 55.
[Link]. H. M. Williams: Studies in Modern Indian Novel in English. Writers
Workshop, Calcutta. 1973. Vol. I
24. Shyam M. Asnani: Untouchable and Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable. Published in
the Banasthali [Link].
25. Dr K. R. S. Iyengar: Indian Writing in English. Asia Pub. House, Bombay (1973). p.
338
26. .The Times of India, December 26, 1976, reports that according to the Chairman of the
Untouchability Committee appointed by the Union Government, three untouchables
in a village in Madhya Pradesh were shot dead.
27. Studies in Modern Indian Novel in English.
7 Prof. K. Kurmanadham: The Novels of Dr M. R. Anand. Triveni (Machilipatnam),
Oct. ’67.
28. .Studies in Modern Indian Fiction in English..