MEG7 Block2 Untouchable : Mulk Raj Anand
MEG7 Block2
Untouchable : Mulk Raj Anand
UNIT 1 - A SHORT HISTORY OF THE INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL
THE FIRST INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL : the famous Bengali novelist, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya (1838-94), wrote his first novel in English was Rajmohan’s Wife.
The second Indian English novel of note is also by a Bengali. Lal Behi Bay published Govinda Samanta, or, the History of a Bengal Raivat irl 1874.
TORI Dutt (1856-77) is the first woman novelist in Indian English, and perhaps the first Indian- novelist in French. Her unfinished English novel, Bianca or The Young Spanish Maiden, was published in Calcutta in 1878 .
Mulk Raj anand (b. 1905) is a prolific writer. He went to England in 1924 to do research In philosophy and! came back a committed socialist. He even took part in the Spanish Civil War. Mulk Raj Anand returned to India for good in 1945 and didn't write for some time because of a nervous breakdown. Seven Summers (195 l), his next book.The problem as he puts it is "to convey in a language not one's own the spirit that is one's om " So while the language is foreign, the experience is local. His Agenda - Don't write like the English, and don't write what can be easily written in the Indian language of your region.
Works -untouchable (1935), Coolie(1936) and Two Leaves and a Bud (1937), The Village (1939), Across Black Waters ( 1940) and The Sword and the Sickle (1942) Seven Summers(1951), Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953),The Old Woman and the Cow (1 960), s The Road (1 963), The Death of Hero (1964), Morning Face (1970 - won the Sahitya Akademi Award), and Confessions of a Lover (1976),Confession ofa Lover (1 976), Bubble (1984), Little Plays ofMahatma Gandhi (1 990) and Nine Moods of Bharata ( 1999). The Lost Child and Other Stories (1934), The Barber's Trade Union and Other Stories (1944). Corn Goddess and Other Stories (1947), ReJections on the Golden Bed and Other Stones (1953), The Power of Darkness and Other Stones (1959), Lajwanti and Other Stones (1966) and Between Tears and Laughter (1973). In addition, he has retold older Indian tales in two collections: Indian Fairy Tales (1946) and More Indian Fairy Tales (1961).
POST-INDEPENDENCE - NOVELS AND NOVELISTS TILL 1980
The Trinity - Raja Rao, Mulk Raj and R.K. Narayan.
UNIT 2 LIFE AND WORK OF MULK RAJ ANAND
Anand's life may be divided into three periods, according to the place of his residence and activity:
(a) the early years in India until his departure for England 1905- 1925;
(b) the years in Europe, 1925-1945; and
(c) the later years in India, 1945-2004
Mulk Raj Anand was born in a Hindu family of Kshatriyas on 12 December 1905 in Peshawar. He was the third of five sons of La1 Chand, a silversmith turned sepoy. Anand's father belonged to the Thathiar caste. People of Thathera caste were workers of copper and silver. Lal Chand left his hereditary occupation to attend school. He learnt English, took a British military examination.
Anand's mother came from a devout Sikh peasant family of Sialkot. a part of Central Punjab. She was a religious woman who had a great faith in orthodox beliefs.
The first twenty years of Anand's life seem to have been spent in the Punjab area After passing his matriculation in 1920, Anand entered Khalsa College, Amritsar. He joined a non-violent struggle against the British government and courted arrest. In 1925. He graduated from Punjab University with Honours in English. In- 1928, he was awarded a Ph D degree by London University. He then associated with T.S. Eliot's literary periodical The Criterion.
AWARDS -
International Peace Prize of the World Peace Council-1952
Padma Bhushan-1967
E.M. Forster award-1978
THE THIRTIES MOVEMENT -
First World War
the General strike of 1926 in Great Britain. It made people conscious of the class war between haves and ha-re-nots in modem civilization.
Rise of Fascism in Italy under Mussolini and the Nazi power in Germany in 1933.
Some Indian students studying in England assembled in London a few months after the Paris Conference and formed the Progressive Writers Association. They formed a manifesto of the Association, which was finalized, amongst others by Mulk Raj Anand and Sajjad Zaheer. The progressive writers believed that the principal function of literature was to reflect and express the aspirations and fundamental problems of the toiling masses and ultimately help in the formation of a socialist society.
"That truth alone should matter to a writer," says Anand in his essay "Why I Write?," "that this truth should become imaginative truth without losing sincerity. The novel should interpret the truth of life, from felt experience, and not from books.
The Thirties movement defined in specific terms the position of the artists and the functions of his art. The Thirties movement proved to be a watershed in the literary sensibility in Europe. It shook the writers from age-old slumber and awakened them to the realization of new possibilities, which had so far eluded them.
THE WRITING AND PUBLICATION OF UNTOUCHABLE
Untouchable was written over a long weekend in 1930. Mulk Raj Anand tells us that it poured out like hot lava from the volcano of his imagination, and that during its composition he hardly slept for more than six hours in three days.
In the early twenties in Dublin, he started writing the first draft of the novel, then called Bakha. A little later, he came across a poignant story about a sweeper-boy Uka, written with utmost simplicity by Mahatma Gandhi in Young India. Anand wrote to the Mahatma and was allowed to meet him in three months' time. In April 1929, he went to see Gandhiji in the Sabarmati Ashram in the boiling heat of Gujarat. He showed Gandhiji the novel he had written. d Gandhiji was opposed to the writing of a novel depicting the love-affair of a boy and girl. Anand explained to him that it was about Bakha, a sweeper-boy, an untouchable. Gandhiji suggested that he should write a straightforward pamphlet about Harijans. Anand defended himself by saying that he wanted to tell the story just as Gandhiji had narrated his story about the sweeper Uka. Anand was allowed to stay in the Ashram provided he promised not to drink, not to think of his English girlfriend and clean latrines once a week. The three-month stay in the ashram rejuvenated Anand. The austerities that he practised there awakened his conscience and converted him to a life of sincerity, simplicity and truth.
Anand read some portions of the novel to Gandhiji who suggested that he should cut down more than a hundred pages, especially those passages in which Bakha seemed to be thinking and dreaming like a Bloomsbury intellectual. Following Gandhi's advice, Anand revised the entire novel during his three month stay in the ashram. Out of two hundred and fifty pages, only one hundred and fifty pages were left. He read the revised version to Gandhiji who gave his approval to it. However, the book failed to draw the attention of the publishers for more than two years. Anand felt quite disheartened by the fact that no publisher found the book worth publishing.
Anand revised the novel several times. For example, he tones down the opening pages of the novel. Forster wrote to Anand a letter on 5 May 1934: "I found it extremely interesting.. . . . . ..you make your sweeper sympathetic yet avoid making him a hero or a martyr, and, by the appearance of Gandhi and conversation about machinery at the end, you give the whole book a coherence ad shape which it would otherwise have lacked." By September 1934, the novel had been rejected by as many as nineteen publishers. . Anand felt so disheartened that he contemplated suicide. At that juncture, a young British poet Oswell Blakeston took the manuscript to Wishart Books. The publisher accepted to publish it on the condition that the eminent English novelist E.M.Forster should write a Preface to protect it against being called 'dirty'. Forster not only quickly supplied the Prehce but also insisted that Anand should accept the fee received for writing the Preface. He wrote the Preface as a matter of conviction. "It will be a great pleasure to me," he said, "if I should be of any help in introducing such an interesting and original piece of work to readers in this country." The book was published on 1 May 1935. It received a mixed response to begin with. but soon it established for itself a popularity that remains unrivalled for a work of . fiction by an Indian author.
The novel has been translated into thirty-six languages of the world.
UNIT 3 UNTOUCHABLE: TITLE, THEME, PLOT & CHARACTERISATION
TITLE
The novel was originally titled 'Bakha’ and was almost double its present length. Mulk Raj Anand finally published the riovcl in 1935 with its present title untouchable.
The absence of the definite article 'the' before the title makes the novel a symbolic saga of the miserable lives of the millions of untouchables in India who are at the lowest rung of the caste-ridden Hindu society in India and are victims of social injustice.
THE THEME OF UNTOUCHABILITY
Don’t discriminate- Mohammedans, Christians and the men in the armed forces.
Few solutions in novel-
CHristian missionary
Following Gandhi’s philosophy and making everyone equal
the introduction of the automatic flush
PLOT AND STRUCTURE OF THE NOVEL
Untouchable has no story interest; it is just an impassioned plea for a social cause. And it is this singleness of purpose i.e. exposing the evil of untouchability and dying its various aspects-social, moral, psychological, religion-based, etc.-that provides structural unity to the plot.
Bakha’s day starts with his father, Lakha yelling at him.
Charat singh shouts at Bkaha too but later asks him to get a hockey stick from him
Bakha goes to the city, buys Jalebis and touches a man. Gets slapped from him.
Curiosity takes him to the temple and he hears screams of polluted2. HIs sister, Sohini was molested by the priest.
Goes to collect food but the woman throws the food on the street near the sewer and he has to pick it up.
Bakha is heartbroken and tells his father about all these incidents. His father consoles him by telling him the story when Bakha was young and about to die and so the Hakim came to their home and gave medicines.
His brother Rakha comes with leftovers from the barrack.
Bakha goes to his friend Ram charan’s sister’s wedding. He wanted to marry her but her mother sold her for 200rs. Also Washermen were superior to Scavengers.
On learning about unhappy and disgusting experiences of the morning, both Chota and Ram Charan express sympathy with him and wonder if they could catch hold of the swine-like pundit to kill him on the spot. However, they realise that this will be impossible and futile
Charat singh gives him a new hockey stick and even lets him drink tea with him.
When he was playing hockey, the younger son got hurt and was carried by Bakha when he was still bleeding profusely. Babu's wife is surprised to see her injured son and accuses Bakha of defiling her house by coming there.
Bakha is ill-treated by both his father and younger brother for wasting his time and is asked to leave his home.
He is sad and sitting under the tree when Colonel Hutchinson, Chief of the Salvation Army in the region approaches him and tries to convert him to a christian but Bakha doesn’t like this idea.
He follows the crowd going to see mahatma Gandhi speak. - The story of Uka.
He also hears a dissident voice that says that Gandhi is a humbug, a fool and a hypocrite.
Iqbal Nath ~kashar, a young poet, and his friend R.N. Bashir, a Barrister-at-Law, now discusses how the Indian society can be rid of its bane of untouchability. They talk of introducing the flush system for sewage disposal and recognising equal rights, privileges and opportunities for everyone as was the case with the legal system.
The conflict in his mind makes him more miserable and he makes up his mind to go home and seek some solace by relating the story about Gandhi's visit and his speech to his father.
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
Mulk Raj hand has admitted that he was amply influenced by the technique of James Joyce - A portrait of an Artist as a young man.
The pity for Bakha is aroused not so much from 'sympathy' but from 'understanding' of the degradation of outcastes, from sharing their pains, humiliations and inner aspirations. By maintaining 'distance' and 'objectivity', he was able to make his passion turn into compassion.
He was averse to creating a tragic character, for the life of Bakha would then be a tragedy. He therefore created Bakha as one of the first tragi-comic heroes of Indian fiction.
The stream-of-consciousness of the hero BaWla in Untouchable runs throughout the novel, with the undercurrents of reminiscence, reverie and intuition indicated in certain phrases, symbolic words and truncated thoughts.
CHARACTERISATION
Bakha has not been idealized or glorified by Mulk Raj Anand. Bakha is a real individual, lovable, thwarted, sometimes grand, sometimes weak, and thoroughly Indian. Even his physique is distinctive: we can recognize his broad intelligent face, graceful torso, and heavy buttocks, as does his nasty jobs, or steps out in artillery boots in hopes of a pleasant walk through the city with a paper of cheap sweets in his hand.
Lakha - is an egoist who likes to be addressed as 'Jemadar' and is proud of his
'izzat.' Though he bullies his children, yet the tenderness of his heart as a father is
evident when he relates the story of Bakha's illness in his childhood
Rakha - has no element of intuitive protest in his character and lacks Bakha's love for cleanliness. He also does not attend to the work of sweeping and cleaning in the same efficient and natural manner as does Bakha
Sohini - Is beautiful and mainly introduced in the novel to expose the hypocrisy of the Upper casts. Bakha is proud of her beauty but is humiliated when she is defiled. She has maternal instincts too as a woman.
Pandit KaliNath - Selfish man who gives water to the lower castes not out of compassion but in order to exercise as he has gastric problems. He favours Sohini because of her beauty and later tries to molest her.
Charath Singh - a generous-minded caste Hindu. He is above caste prejudices and is free from the 'pollution' complex. He not only gives Bakha the promised hockey stick but also offers him a cup of tea
Colonel Hutchinson, like his nagging wife, is one of the two English characters in the novel. He has been drawn in the comic spirit of caricature.
Iqbal Nath Sarashar, - the poet, is a young man. He is a revolutionary social reformer who has a progressive outlook and seems to be a sort of the mouthpiece of the novelist. He is the representative of those who consider modern technology to be the saviour of mankind. He is in favour of an organic change in society to the Marxian ideology.
UNIT 4 THE PICTURE OF A FRAGMENTED NATION IN ANAND'S UNTOUCHABLE
Anand focuses on the three given religions-
Hinduism,
Islam, and
Christianity.
the fourth-preached by Gandhi-the religion of humanity.
Bakha's situation is peculiar since he not only belongs to the lower class-but within the lower caste he belongs to the lowest category.
Hinduism-
"most of the Hindu children touched him willingly at hockey and wouldn't mind having him in school with them." (U, p.42) The betel-leaf seller and the sweet-shop owner take his money, even cheat him, but not before they have thrown water on the coins and thereby purified them
Islam -
While the Hindu Beetel seller flings a packet of cigarettes at Bakha "as a butcher might throw a bone to rsn insistent dog sniffing. the Musliin barber asks him to bend down and light his cigarette from his hookah. The tonga walla also pacisfies Bakha after he was abused on the street.
Christinity-
" occasioned by hi.: employment in the barracks of a British regiment, offers him an avenue to see himself as something other than an untouchable. we are told: "The Tommies treated him as a human being and he had learnt to think of himself as superior to his fellow outcastes,"
Colonel Hutchinson and his wife and the salvation army.
the Colonel's wife's outburst, "I can't keep waiting for you all day, while you go messing about with all dwse dirty bhangis and chams," (U, p. 145) shows social snobbery would leave no scope for Chrisnan tolerance and his dignity as a human being would suffer despite the act of conversion.
THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY -
By calling the outcastes "Harijan"-the children of God-Gandhiji was striving to unite a sundered limb of Indian society to its body for achieving more effective social and political ends
Introduction to machines. Story of Uka. Gandhi did fast for equal rights for the Untouchables.
Unit 5 - THE GANDHIAN INFLUENCE
"Gandhian Age": "the period between the two Wars and comprising them both.Life could ;lor be the same as before, -politics, economics, education, religion, social life, language and literature acquired more or less a Gandhian Hue.
After the third world War I, the Indian writing underwent a sea change. It became more
Realistic and less idealized. Literature became a useful vehicle to convey the change and revolutionary cause.
"Gandhi was very keen on uplifting the HArijans. It Had been rumoured that Gandhi had been fasting for the sake of bhangis and chamars. Of course, Bakha cannot quite understand what fasting has to do with helping the people of the low castes. Probably Gandhi thinks that by not eating food for a few days. he can save it for the poor.
Gandhi arrived on the scene with his wife and follower Miraben. he regarded untouchability as "the greatest blot on Hinduism.
If he were to be reborn, he would wish to be reborn as an untouchable so that he may share their sorrows, sufferings and the affronts levelled at them, in order that he may endeavour to free himself and them from their miserable condition.
In his ashram, eighteen year-old Brahmin is doing a scavenger's work in order to teach the lesson of cleanliness to ashram sweepers. This Brahmin lad. says Gmdhiji: is a regular reader of the Gita, and he regularly says his prayers; but this lad feels that his achievement would be incomplete until he has become a perfect scavenger.
Those amcng than who are addicted to the habits of drinking alcohol, gambling and eating meat, nyst get rid of such habits. At this point, BaWa feels that the Mahatma is not fair because he is blaming the untouchables by referring to their habits of eating meat and drinking. He fears that the Mahatma is drifting from the main issue.
Gandhiji further urges the sweepers to stop accepting left-overs of the meals of
high-caste Hindus. The sweepers should accept only sound and wholesome grains
and not the rotten grains. These words of the Mahatma are liked by Bakha who wants
to tell the Mahatma that on that very day he had felt compelled to pick up a loaf of
bread from near the gutter and that brother had found it necessary to accept leavings of food From the plates of the sepoys.
He wants to open schools for everyone.
UNIT 6 - STYLE
Anand's style of writing and his use of imagery.
Anand's writings are peppered with the use of Indian words which fall into three categories:
(a) Untranslated Hindi or Punjabi words, e.g., girja ghar, jalebis, harijan, babu, etc.,
(b) Proverbs and swear words which are translated into English, e.g., son of a pig, cockeyed of a bow-legged scorpion, rape-mother, rape-sister etc., and,
(c) English words which have become a part of Indian vocabulary by subsequently adapting themselves to Indian pronunciations, e.g., injan, gentreman, etc.
Mode of narration - Untouchable include the stream of consciousness technique, interior monologue, and descriptive narration.
Imagery - the term Imagery refers to the use of language to represent descriptively things, actions, or even abstract ideas. We find two images which recur periodically in Untouchable: The sun and the river. The sun is a creative and regenerative force in the novel, indicating the upsurge of life. The River It is symbolic ofthe . discontent and anguish of the hero. The image stands for the flow of existence and temporality.
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