Reality and Realism: An Unorthodox Reading of Anand's "Untouchable"

Author(s): P. Rajendra Karmarkar

Source: Journal of South Asian Literature, Vol. 31/32, No. 1/2 (1996/1997), pp. 113-128
Published by: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23234202
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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31. Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

Reality and Realism:

An Unorthodox Reading of
Anand's Untouchable

P. Rqjendra Karma rkar

ntouchables, occupying the vantage point at the bas

u cliff of the Indian social structure, see through the gr
Hindu society lacking Platonic love. They will be the
India to demand the abolition of the caste system and
social, physical, and spiritual integration into contemporary India
they pose a number of important questions about themselves:

• Can they develop the sense of belonging in an India which

has excluded them, declared them outcastes, and has
denied them the right to live with honor and without alien
ation?

Can they enjoy the same aroma of the same flowi

same way caste Hindus do?

Can they pray to gods who are the creations

Brahminical hegemony?

• Can they accept Gandhi as Mahatma, or Great Soul, even

though he never denounced the caste system itself?

The Dalits (meaning oppressed, the contemporary, politically cor

rect name for untouchables), while carrying the burden of responsible citizen

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

ship in present-day India, continue to suffer oppression even after more than
fifty years of independence. Many of them, including women and children,
are struck down in the prime of their youth, or regularly massacred in broad
daylight somewhere in India. Yet, in 1949, Article 17 of the Constitution of
India declared that untouchability was abolished and its practice in any form
forbidden. Any disability arising out of "untouchability" would be considered
an offence against this law. Today's newspapers report that untouchability is
being practiced in various forms in almost every major state of India. One
such practice has made headlines recently: businesses and public institutions
which maintain separate drinking glasses for Dalits. The chief minister of
Tamil Nadu announced in the state assembly that "it was a regrettable fact
that at least in about fifty-eight thousand villages in the state, tea shops
practised discrimination against Dalits. Shop owners had been clearly told
that this was an offence" (The Hindu, 18 Oct. 1997). These kinds of practices are
brazenly observed in rural areas, but are covert and psychological in towns
and cities, where caste Hindus take cognisance of the law, but not out of
honor towards what Gandhi had declared a "sin."

Mulk Raj Anand's novel Untouchable, originally published in 1935,

is an out-of-date, if valid, account of the life of an untouchable boy named
Bakha during the British period. When Anand described the living condi
tions of untouchables in segregated localities from caste Hindus, untouch
ability was widespread and taken for granted as a time-honored custom. Un
touchables accepted the situation as they bowed to the traditional Hindu doc
trine of karma as an eternal, universal moral law which determines human
destiny. Accordingly, birth and death are cyclic. The actions in the present
life of people determine their status in the next life. If a person is born as an
untouchable, it must be concluded that (s)he must have committed a great sin
against caste Hindus in a past life. In order to propitiate the gods and to
liberate onself from this untouchable status in the next life, the untouchable
must serve and appease the privileged castes in this one.

When Bakha asks his father, Lakha, the jamadar, or head, of all the
sweepers in the town and cantonment, about these privileged castes, the old
man responds that '"they are our superiors. One word of theirs is sufficient
against all that we might say before the police. They are our masters. We

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

must respect them and do as they tell us. Some of them are kind." Anand
notes that, in this exchange with his son, Lakha "had never, throughout his
narrative, renounced his deep-rooted sense of inferiority and the docile ac
ceptance of the laws of fate" (113).

In 1950 the Indian Constitution, with a view of uplifting untouch

ables, reserved 15% of all seats in educational institutions and government
jobs for what were to be euphemistically called "scheduled" castes. This
action has produced revolutionary change in the life of Dalits. Today un
touchables are found at every level of Indian society, from scavenger to
President of India. One of them has yet to become prime minister. Signi
ficantly, Dr. B. R Ambedkar (1891-1956), himself an untouchable and the
champion of Dalits, was instrumental in creating these reservation facilities
as the chair of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution.

Dalits have learned to function m the world, to comprehend the mean

ing of life, and to relish power through education, their only weapon with
which to fight oppression. They battle uncompromisingly to maintain their
dignity. Ezhilmali, a prominent Dalit politician in Tamil Nadu, quoted in
Time magazine, states, "The Dalit would rather die than live without self
respect. And, when he[/she] prefers to die for honour, what is there to care
for?"2 The article goes on to note:

A Dalit also can be considered too uppity and risks a beating, if he

wears a wrist watch or trousers instead of a traditional 'dhoti'

loincloth. In some places in the South, Dalits aren't allowed to use

an umbrella. Some roadside tea stalls refuse to serve them out of

ordinary cups, and often Dalit children are warned not to try shar
ing classrooms with upper-Caste kids. In some villages like Vem
bakkatai, in Tamil Nadu, the Dalits are forced to live on the lee
ward side to prevent the wind that touches their bodies from
defiling the upper-Castes. (20)

The Time article notes that Dalits, who run out of patience at the per
secution of their kind, have become "much more aggressive" (22) "though not
provocative" (23). Affirming themselves, many have demanded justice and
refuse to submit to conditions they consider intolerable and untenable.

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 &2(1997)

Others, in order to keep their dignity and to provide security for themselves
and others, have joined with extremist groups waging guerrilla warfare
against caste feudal landlords or state governments which, for the most part,
are run by caste Hindus:

In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Caste

conflict is rife, and it has spread to other states such as Madhya
Pradesh, and Maharastra. Many Dalits, along with forest-dwelling
tribals, have signed up with armed leftist groups like the Maoist
Communist Centre, and People's War Group, who go around
shooting or slitting the throats of feudal upper-caste landowners
and policemen. (21)

For many Dalits, God is dead, and the universe empty and uncaring.
Rejecting the idea of God, such Dalits often favor atheism. Their actions are
oriented to a casteless society. The pressing finality of their lives is not death,
but, as the Time magazine article indicates, the outright destruction of the
"2,500 year old Juggernaut of the Hindu Caste system" (19).

Mulk Raj Anand is often referred to as the Indian Charles Dickens be

cause his novels, like Dickens', "belong decidedly to the class of purpose or
problem novels."3 Untouchable is not only a problem novel but also one of
protest, attacking the social evil of untouchability. As Anand critic K. N.
Sinha notes, its author has "waged constant struggle over the years to give ex
pression to his passion or compassion for the people—the victims of so many
wrongs and of so much misunderstanding."4 Anand has taken the subject for
his work from the society in which he lives and has delineated it "with
western ideological and literary influences" (23).

In 1932 Anand returned from London and settled m Gandhi's

Sabarmati ashram near Ahmedabad, thereby joining India's struggle for

dependence. When he told Gandhi that he wanted to write a novels about
touchables, the mahatma advised the young author to visit their colonies a
to experience their life. Anand already had an incident in mind from his o
childhood involving an untouchable. When he was very young Anan
suffered an injury. A sweeper boy carried him home to Anand's mother, who,
rather than expressing gratitude for this kindness, harangued the sweeper for

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

having polluted her son. Moreover, Anand's mother busied herself with
bathing her "polluted" son rather than tending to the injury. This incident
emerges, transformed, as a pivotal, and poignant, event in Untouchable.

This work, set in Bulandshahr, Punjab, where "nights are as cold as

the days are hot" (15), is a documentary of a single day's experience in the life
of Bakha, the untouchable, who, at eighteen, is "strong and able-bodied" but
sensitive, humble, open-minded, contemplative and diligent. Having worked
in the barracks of a British regiment on a trial basis for a number of years
under the tutelage of an uncle, he has now been "caught by the glamour of the
white man's life" (15). Today he appears tired of his long hours and hard
work, and begins to ruminate about his life as a latrine cleaner. It is also a
day in which he is exposed to extreme suffering and realization. Into this
novel Anand has infused deeply felt experiences, a social vision and a "'pro
phecy' for a better society."5

Bakha is one of those who wants to put an end to the untouchables'

traditional occupation. On that fateful day, the first experience to make him
hate his birth occurs when, broom and basket in tow, he is enjoying the rich
taste of jalebis, an inexpensive Indian sweet. Enraptured by the sensation of
this simple treat, he runs into Lalla, probably from the Vaishya, or mercantile
(Hinduism's third) caste, who heaps unbridled invective upon the young
man:

. . . keep to the side of the road, ohe low-caste vermin. W

you call, you swine, and announce your approach! Do you
you have touched me and defiled me, cock-eyed son o
legged scorpion: Now, I will have to go and take a bath to
myself. And it was a new dhoti [loose-fitting pants] and sh
on this morning! (64-65)

Even though Bakha is apologetic, Lalla slaps him, sen

jalebis and the boy's turban into the dust as others look o
Bakha's eyes; his vision blurs. As he gradually recovers fro
humiliation of the encounter, he feels a sense of outrage and a
inside him. A Muslim tonga-driver, who is considered ano

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

touchable by orthodox Brahmins, comes to Bakha's rescue and "share[sj the

outcaste's resentment to a certain degree" (70).

Untouchables have no right to draw water from village wells them

selves. They have to wait in line for a caste Hindu who, if sympathetic, may
draw and pour the water into their pitchers. Even today, Time reporter Tim
McGirk observes, "In many villages, untouchables still live in poverty and
subjugation. They are forbidden from entering temples or drinking from the
same wells as upper-Castes" (20).

Sohini, Bakha's beautiful sister, goes to the local well, standing last
in line. Kalinath, the Brahmin priest of the temple, passes by to relieve him
self. He ogles her and deigns to pour water into her pitcher. He orders her
to come and clean the temple courtyard. Not suspecting his motives, she
obeys, and he grabs her breasts as he tries to molest her. As people arrive
after hearing her cries of distress, he shouts "Polluted, polluted," a mantra in
such circumstances which implies that he has been wronged. Bakha, who is
working nearby, rushes to aid his sister and immediately realizes what
Kalinath has done. Bakha "felt he could kill them all. He looked ruthless,
deadly pale and livid with rage" (86). The courtyard quickly empties as he ex
claims to his sister, "Brahmin dog ... I will go and kill him," and as he tries
to rush off to do so, his sister, understanding their options better than he,
begs, "No, no, come back. Let's go away" (87). Though enraged, Bakha does
not act on his feelings. Yet "His eyes flared wild and red and his tooth
ground" (86).

This incident in Untouchable, a social novel which seeks to reform

Indian society, itself a work in progress, underscores Anand's attack on the
Indian social structure, which firmly rests on an unjust principle: the caste
system, at the apex of which are the Brahmins. In its unorthodox tone, the
novel rails against Brahmanism and unmasks mean-spiritedness and hypo

crisy of Brahmins and other caste Hindus towards untouchables. Anand

scholar Margaret Berry notes:

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

[Along with untouchability,] Brahminism is a major target of

Anand's attack on the Indian social order. Every Brahmin of lowly
occupation—waterboys, cooks, other menials-are typically por
trayed as grasping, hypocritical, lascivious bullies distinguished
only by circumstances and crudeness from temple priests and
family chaplains.6

With regard to sex between caste Hindus and untouchables, two kinds
of morality seem to obtain. These are shown in two famous novels. In U. R.
Ananthamurthy's magisterial Samskara (1965), for example, the Brahmin
protagonist, Praneshacharya, has sex with a low-caste woman, but is not
ostracized by his community for having done so. Yet in Arundhati Roy's
mesmerizing, Booker-Prize winning bestseller, The God of Small Things
(1997), Velutha, an untouchable, whose name, ironically, means "white" in
Malayalam, has sex with Ammu, a Christian married to a Hindu, and is
tortured and killed for his pre-sumption by caste Hindus. In the first instance,
caste Hindus seem to consider untouchability insignificant; in the latter, they
overreact to it.

Untouchables can be adept at many things, as Roy's Velutha is. She

notes:

Apart from his carpentry skills, Velutha had a way with machines.
[It was] often said that if only he hadn't been a Paravan (untouch
able), he might have become an engineer. He mended radios,
locks, water-pumps. He looked after the plumbing and all the
electrical gadgets in the house.7

The question one is prompted to ask here is: what would Velutha—
Bakha, or any untouchable—become, if give opportunities? What talents
abilities, not to mention dreams and aspirations, is society losing throu
such strictures?

But as it is now, there is little joy m the life of untouchables. T

simplest act, a wink or a smile, for example, can bring disastrous effe
They have to remind themselves constantly that their life is sorrow. T
must be realistic as they continually watch their backs. Thus, Bakha is f

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

aware of the nature of his surroundings, in which nearly everything is over

whelmingly foul:" [H]e couldn't help being swept away by the sensations that
crowded in on him from every side [S]o many unpleasant things, drams,
grains, fresh and decaying vegetables, spices, men and women and as
afoetida" (60). Yet he dares to reach, to dream, of seizing the day. Passing the
confectioner's shop where, instead of garbage and refuse, he smells jalebis,
he challenges the notion of karma: "I have only one life to live; let me taste
of the sweets; who knows, tomorrow I may be no more" (62). He gives in to
this urge and spends his last bit of money on jalebis, which he savors as he
walks euphorically on the road, and bumps into Lalla, with the dire results
narrated above.

In the afternoon the Sikh Havildar (petty officer) Charat Singh

generously lends Bakha a hockey stick to play against the havildar and his
friends on the 38th Dogra team. The athletic Bakha immediately scores a
goal for his team, the 31st Punjabis, which angers the Dogras' goalkeeper,
who then maliciously strikes the untouchable on the legs. A non
sportsmanlike brawl of "fighting, scratching, hitting, kicking, yelling" (156)
ensues, which then degenerates into stone-throwing. A flying rock hits a
nearby child on the head, and he falls unconscious. Bakha picks the injured
boy up in his arms and rushes him to his mother. Instead of being grateful,
she abuses Bakha for polluting her son through touch. She shouts, '"Vay,
eaters of your masters, vay dirty sweeper. What have you done to my son'"
(158). As Bakha tries to explain, she yells, '"Give him to me. Give me my
child. You have defiled by house, besides wounding my son'" (158). The
event traumatizes Bakha and shatters the brief moment ofpleasure he enjoyed
from the kindly loan of a hockey stick.

Bakha returns home only to face his father's invective about wasting
the whole afternoon roaming around doing nothing. Pained at his father's
fierce censure, Bakha leaves the house. On the road he meets Colonel
Hutchinson, the chief of the local Salvation Army, who, with little pro
vocation or justification, tries to convert Bakha to Christianity. Hutchinson,
we learn, is always ready to prowl in the outcastes' colony. His irreligious
wife, Mary, ridicules him saying that his proselytizing in India for the past

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

twenty years is a failure, for he has converted only "five people who are
mainly from among the dirty black untouchables" (165).

Caste-created disharmony, the hallmark of Indian society, comes as

a boon to such foreign and indigenous Christian missionaries, who preach the
Gospel among such groups. While it seems selfless, even commendable, for
such evangelists to "catch"-to use their Indian-English idiom—as many souls
at possible, they are motivated by a fundamental selfishness: the more 'hea
then' souls they win for Jesus, the more grace they reap from God. Citing the
doctrine of original sin, these ambassadors of anew life herald the imminent
arrival of Christ and deliver harangues at those who do not accept his way to
redemption. Calling it the will of God, they remain discreetly silent about the
elemental causes of the caste system and the human atrocities it produces.

Finding the young man melancholic and seeking answers to his prob
lems, Hutchinson ask him to come to Jesus, who accepts all without dis
tinction. Bakha asks who Yessuh Messiah is, and why did he die for Bakha
and everyone else. Hutchinson answers that "Jesus is God and Son of God
and He died that we might be forgiven," that "He died for us sinners" (177).
Bakha is unable to understand who Christ is. Moreover, he is not convinced
when Hutchinson says that we are all sinner for whom Christ died. Bakha
asks himself what sin had he committed. Recalling none, he answers that he
is neither a sinner nor lawbreaker. Even though he only understands Hindu
ism rudimentarily, he does not want to leave it; he fears the notion of such
change. Nor did he like being called a sinner. "He had committed no sin that
he could remember. How could he confess his sins? Odd" (177).

Eluding Hutchinson, Bakha moves on to a large crowd gathering at

the sports ground. He learns that Gandhi, a "[s]aint, an avatar of the Gods
Vishnu and Krishna" (187), a "Shakti [power] to change the whole world"
(188), has come to speak about untouchables, whom he calls Harijans, or
Harizens (children of Hari, i.e., God). Filled with wonder, and reverence,
Bakha naively listens to Gandhi's words. Gandhi says that, by cleaning la
trines, they are cleansing Hindu society. Bakha, though elated, becomes con
fused at Gandhi's ambiguous statement. Perhaps he senses the apparent con

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

tradiction between the generally uplifting message in what Gandhi preaches

and in what Gandhi has to say about caste.

The Mahatma, it must be noted, never advocated the eradication of

Hinduism's varnashama dharma structure, that is, the caste system. Instead,
he wanted to humanize it by bringing about social change within its structure,
a dream that persists in India even today. Gandhi treats caste as God-given,
revealed by Lord Krishna to Atjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, and accepts it as
religious truth. So he glorifies scavenging, which he believes is designed by
God, who has deemed untouchables the cleansing agency of Hindu society.
Moreover, he regards the caste system as an integral part of Hindu society,
and each division contributes to the harmonious existence of the whole. Dr.

Ambedkar quotes Gandhi, "I believe that if Hindu society has been able to
stand, it is because it is founded on the Caste system. Different Castes are
like different sections of military divisions. Each division is working for the
whole."8

Untouchables do not think, or even dream, that if another birth awaits

them, they would be born an untouchable again. Nor can any caste Hindus
restrain themselves from looking at the status of untouchables with contempt.
A simple story illustrates this point: By sheer perseverance and strenuous ef
fort, an untouchable achieves an August position in Indian society. He be
comes one of the biggest celebrities the country has ever produced. His for
tune reverses when he falls in love with an upper-caste woman, whose father
rejects the celebrity's proposal and marries the daughter off to another man
of their caste.

Untouchables' lives are endangered if they dare to love a caste Hindu.

Even today lowly Shudras, members of Hinduism's fourth caste, society's
workers, feel themselves superior in social status to the untouchables and try
to identify with the upper castes. Under these circumstances, can untouch
ables foster love and honor towards their country? In his speech in Anand's
novel Gandhi declares:

But if I have to be reborn I should wish to be reborn as an un

touchable, so that I may share their sorrows, sufferings and the af

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

fronts levelled at them, in order that I may endeavour to free my

self and them from their miserable condition. Therefore, I prayed
that, if I should be born again, I should be so, not as Brahmin,
Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra, but as an outcaste, as an untouchable.
(200)

This all sounds very good, of course. And the guileless Bakha, listen
ing to Gandhi and not fully understanding him, is filled with awe and
reverence. He repeats Gandhi's words: "the Mahatma should want to be born
as an outcaste" (201). To a person on the cusp of the twenty-first century,
Gandhi's attitude is retrograde, his words chicanery, however construed.
Calling scavengers the detergent agents of Hindu society, he asserts, "If there
are any untouchables here, they should realize that the are cleansing the
Hindu society" (201). He continues, "In order to emancipate themselves they
have to purify themselves. They have to rid themselves of evil habits, like
drinking liquor and eating carrion" (201). In this context, Dr. Ambedkar has
questioned Gandhi's probity and debunks his remarks as merely sententious:

Is not Mr. Gandhi working to uplift the untouchables. Is he? Does

he prepare the untouchables to win their freedom from their Hindu
masters, to make them their social and political equals? Mr.
Gandhi had never had any such object before him and he never
wants to do this, and I say that he cannot do this. This is the task
of democrat and revolutionary. Mr. Gandhi is neither. He is a
Tory by birth as well as by faith. The work of the Harizen Sevak
Sangh [the Harijan/Harizen self-help organization founded by
Gandhi] is not to raise the untouchables. His main object, as every
self-respecting untouchable knows, is to make India safe for
Hindus and Hinduism. (431)

Leaving the sports ground, Bakha overhears two friends, both

educated in England, Iqbal Nath Sarashar, a poet, and Bashir, a barrister-at
law, discussing what they have just heard. Iqbal seems to be the voice of the
author in this dialogue, which is a critical phase in this novel. Nattily dressed
in western clothing, both men are, significantly, Muslims, whose religion
espouses universal brotherhood and equality of all people, as does Chris
tianity and Buddhism. Their educational and social status are in marked con

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

trast to the poor but sympathetic Muslim tonga-dnver Bakha met earlier m
the day. Because they are Muslim, it would be hard to imagine either of them
defending the caste system. While their exchange, in the final analysis, is
rather muddled, Iqbal deals a severe blow to Gandhi's obscurantist theory.
Briefly, he believes that the caste system, which should be destroyed, will
succumb to modern technology in the form of the flush toilet, which will free
untouchables from the stigma they now bear.

Bashir starts with a diatribe in which he underscores the contradiction

in Gandhi's thinking:

"He is a hypocrite. In one breath he says he wants to abolish un

touchabilty, in the other he asserts that he is an orthodox Hindu.
He is running counter to the spirit of our age, which is democracy.
He is in the fourth century B.C. with his swadeshi and his
spinning-wheel. We live in the twentieth." (204)

Iqbal retorts:

"It is very unfair of you to abuse the Mahatma. He is by far the

greatest liberating force of our age. He has his limits, of course,
. . . but he is fundamentally sound. He may be wrong in wanting
to shut India off from the rest of the world by preaching the revival
of the spinning wheel, because as things are, that cannot be done.
But even in that regard he is right. For it is not India's fault that it
is poor; it is the world's fault that the world is rich." (205-206)

He continues:

"In fact, it [India] has abundant natural resources. Only it has

chosen to remain agricultural and has suffered for not accepting the
Machine. We must, of course, remember that I hate the machine.
I loath it. But I shall go against Gandhi here and accept it. And I
am sure in time all will learn to love it. And we shall be our en
slavers [the British] at their own game." (206)
Hence, Iqbal basically agrees with Gandhi: "Let me tell you that with
regard to untouchability the Mahatma is more sound than he is in his politics"

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(209). And it precisely here that Iqbal's argument goes awry. He asserts that
even though all people are born equal, differences among them are real, and
quotes an old Indian adage to this effect:

"Some of us are born with big heads, some with small, some with
more potential physical strength, some with less. There is one
saint to a hundred million people. Perhaps one great man to a
whole lot of mediocrities. But, essentially, that is to say humanly,
all men are equal. 'Take a ploughman from the plough, wash off
his dirt, and he is fit to rule a kingdom.'" (209)

This argument, too, is ambiguous, disingenuous, and elusive. It im

plies a Brabminic arrogance while otherwise seeming to be democratic and
human. Like Gandhi, Iqbal, who, one must remember, is a poet, is caught in
a dilemma: on the one hand, he says that social inequalities should be re
jected, yet on the other, caste should be retained. Not seeing the con
tradiction in this position, he defends it with an example of a high-caste court
judge dining freely with an untouchable. "As it is," Iqbal states, "caste is an
intellectual aristocracy, and based on the conceit of the pundits, being other
wise wholly democratic. The high caste High Court judge eats freely with the
coolie of his caste. So can we destroy our inequalities easily" (210).

Iqbal continues to make his case. "The old, mechanical formulas of

our lives must go; the old stereotyped forms must give place to a new dy
namic. We Indians live so deeply in our contacts; we are aware ..." (210),
at which point Bashir, the realist barrister who seems to live in the real world,
interrupts and asserts with some irritation, "I can't understand what you mean.
You are confused" (210).

Or, to put the case more bluntly: Iqbal must be stupid only to be
honest. One is reminded of Ivan Karamazov's assessment of circular and in

conclusive talk about existential topics offered to his brother Alyosha in Do

stoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov: "Russian conversations on such sub
jects are always carried on stupidly. And secondly, the more stupid one is,
the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms
and hides itself."10

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

Iqbal further asserts—erroneously, and, to borrow Ivan Karamazov s

word, "stupidly"—that, through special electoral rights granted to untouch
ables in the 1930, the caste system has been abolished: "[T]he legal and social
basis of caste having been broken down by the British Indian penal code,
which recognises the rights of every citizen before a court, caste is now
mainly governed by profession"(210). The question then arises: is it possible
to lose one's caste or low-caste status even if an untouchable gives up his/her
heredity occupation and takes up a higher one? Iqbal avers, "When the
sweepers change their profession, they will no longer remain untouchables"
(210). Or does it mean that either the untouchable or the country as a whole
has achieved real freedom when the untouchable quits his/her inherited occu
pation and dares to achieve what Gandhi predicted in 1947: that India would
be truly free only when a Harijan/Harizen becomes president of the country.

Within two generations of freedom a Harijan/Hanzen has achieved

this office, but one must ask how significantly things have changed in this
period, or since the time when Untouchable was written in 1935. In his
address celebrating the golden jubilee of India's independence at midnight 14
15 August 1997, Mr. K. R. Narayanan, the first Dalit President of India, is
critical of Indian society's dubious record on human rights. He is brutally
frank about the casualness and frequency with which these rights are abused,
and calls upon every citizen of India to alter the situation. He asserts:

It seems that the people have to be in the forefront of the fight

against corruption, communalism, casteism and criminaliza
tion of politics and life in the country. . . . Violence has in
creased in the relationship between people, groups and par
ties. Social evils like the ill-treatment of women and weaker

sections like scheduled castes [untouchables] including

atrocities against them, are on the increase marring the fair
name of India in the world. (Full text of speech in The Hindu, 15
Aug. 1997)

As he walks home, Bakha is confused, evaluating the words of

Gandhi and Iqbal. Bakha recalls Gandhi's words, which he understands as
meaning that he should love being an untouchable. "Shall I never be able to

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

leave the latrines?" (212), he asks. After some thought, however, he chooses
to believe in Iqbal's "machine which clears dung without anyone having to
handle it—the flush system" (210). This is the wave of the future. Living in
the 1930s, Bakha has formed a modest hope that one day he could give up his
ancestral occupation because of the imminent arrival of the water closet. The
idea of such a machine causes ripples of new hope in his thinking. He be
lieves that his life will change significantly. However, "Then the last words
of the Mahatma's speech seemed to resound in his ears: 'May god give you
the strength to work out your soul's salvation to the end.' What did that
mean? Bakha asks himself. Mahatma's face appeared before him, enigmatic
ubiquitous" (212).

And the novel ends with these far-reaching, probing, and heretofore
unanswered, questions. It also ends with the setting of the sun as "the pale,
the purple, the mauve of the horizon blended into darkest blue" (213). In "the
brief Indian twilight which came and went" (213), Bakha heads home, moving
like A. K. Ramanujan's famous striding waterbug,11 dauntless on the rippled
skin of water, his mind—for better or worse—at ease.

P. RAJENDRA KARMARKAR holds a Ph.D. from Andhra Univer

sity, Visakhapatnam, where he wrote his dissertation on Alber
Camus. He is currently Assistant Professor of English at Andh
University's Malladi Satyalinga Naikar Post-Graduate Centre
Kakinda. He writes that he has "seen and experienced the life of th
Dalits (untouchables)," which has inspired/provoked this particu
reading of Anand's work. In addition to his work on Anand, he
engaged in research on the Native American writer Sherman Alexie

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 Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)

ENDNOTES

1. (193 5; New Delhi: Arnold Heineman, 1981), 109. Subsequent references

in parentheses in the text.

2. Quote by Tim McGirk, assisted by Karisakulam, "India's Angry Untouch

Back," Time (Hong Kong ed.), 150:16 (20 Oct. 1997), 21.

3. William J. Long, English Literature (New Delhi: Kalyani Publishers,

4. Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Kalyani Publishers, 1989), 23.

5. Hilda Pontes, "Anand's Untouchables: A Classic in Experimentation

Technique" Studies in Indian Fiction in English, ed. G. S. Balarama Gupta (G
Publications, 1987), 139.

6. Mulk Raj Anand: The Man and the Novelist ( Amsterdam: Orient Pr
1971), 45.

7. (New Delhi: India Ink Publications, 1997), 75.

8. What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, Vol. 9 (1945; Bombay:
Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1990), 275.

9. It is interesting to note what Gandhi wrote about interdining in his Gujarati journal
Nava Jivan (New Life) in 1921-22, translated here by Dr. Ambedkar: "I believe that inter
dining or intermarriage are not necessary for promoting national unity" (276).

10. Tr. Constance Garnett (1879-80; New York: New American Library, 1957), 218.

11. "The Striders," The Striders: Poems (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 1.

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