Of all the social
evils that beset India of his times perhaps none moved Gandhi quite
as much as untouchability. He saw it as one of the principal obstructions in
reforming and uniting Hindus and by extension the whole of the Indian nation.
He realized the whole moral basis for asking for freedom from the colonial
masters would be rendered void and hollow if Indians continued to condone and
acquiesce in the practice of untouchability. Hence Gandhi focused on removal of
untouchability with an energy and zeal that was unprecedented in the history of
Indian social and political movements.
Writing in 1920 he somewhat defensively
wrote:
‘Man, being a social being, has to
devise some method of social organization. We in India have evolved
caste; they inEurope have organised class. Neither has the solidarity and
naturalness of a family, which, perhaps, is a God-ordained institution. If
caste has produced certain evils, class has not been productive of anything
less.’ (Source:
Young India, December 29, 1920)
But then he was also quick to argue:
‘The beauty of the caste system is that it does not base itself upon
distinctions of wealth possessions……..Caste is but an extension of the
principle of the family. Both are governed by blood and
heredity’. (Source: Young India, December 29, 1920) Also:
‘The spirit behind caste is not one of
arrogant superiority; it is the classification of different systems of
self-culture. It is the best possible adjustment of social stability and
progress.’
‘Caste does not connote superiority or
inferiority. It simply recognises different outlooks and corresponding modes of
life. But it is no use denying the fact that a sort of hierarchy has been
evolved in the caste system.’ (Source: Young India, December 29, 1920)
Gandhi realised
that for the cause of forging a national identity and a national spirit the
leadership will have to eliminate or dilute social divisions. And one of the
worst divisions unique to India was the caste divide with
untouchability as its ugliest manifestation. Thus as a matter of political
strategy for the cause of the freedom struggle it was an urgency to fight the
caste divide and eliminate untouchability. Also as a social reformer who
believed the key to national regeneration was a rebuilding of the national character,
particularly the Hindu character, he saw it as a vital imperative to eliminate
the evils of caste and untouchability. Also as somebody who had it as one of
his goals the spiritual revival of the Hindu religion, he came to see it vital
and most urgent that untouchability be eliminated and the caste rigidities
diluted. But as has been explained above, as a follower of the Hindu sanatan dharma he never for
one moment would have thought that some kind of caste system or
varnashram can not exist or that can not be devised that would be good and for
the benefit of society. He also probably in all likelihood thought it’s true
meaning may have been lost by Hindus over thousands of years of abuse and
social degradation. He attempted to draw the contours of what would be an
acceptable system to him. He commented in 1926 for instance: ‘I do not believe
in caste as it is at present constituted, but I do believe in the four
fundamental divisions regulated according to the four principal occupations.
The existing innumerable divisions, with the attendant artificial restrictions
and elaborate ceremonial, are harmful to the growth of a religious spirit, as
also to the social well-being of the Hindus and, therefore, also their
neighbours.’ (Source: Young India, Feb 25, 1926)
Bhikhu Parekh has commented on how
Gandhi’s attempt to reorient the practice of Hinduism as follows:
‘In these and other ways Gandhi
profoundly redefined Hinduism and gave it a radically novel orientation. Not
God, not Man, but men were made its centre, and self-purification and their
active service in the spirit of love constituted its content. Gandhi thus
rationalised Hinduism and reduced it to a set of such basic moral principles as
love, truth,ahimsa, and social service. He marginalised the sastras and deprived them of their
religious and moral authority. He rarely referred to them to support his views,
poured contempt on the endless debates about the meanings of their isolated
passages and interpreted them as he thought proper. He thereby undermined the
traditional religious basis of Brahmanic authority and liberated Hinduism from
their stranglehold. The Brahmins had stressed the authority of the sastras; Gandhi argued that they, including
even the Vedas, were subject to the test of reason and
conscience. They had insisted on the eternal validity of the revealed
knowledge; Gandhi contended that every yuga had
is own unique dharma and periodically needed to reinterpret the eternal moral
principles. They had concentrated on the ritual and ceremonial aspect of
religion; Gandhi made social service its basis. The Brahmins glorified the
intellectual and spiritual and condemned manual activities; Gandhi insisted
that the latter were an integral part of the cosmicyajna and that whoever avoided them was a ‘thief’ and a
‘parasite’. They regarded certain activities and the people engaged in them as
polluted; Gandhi rejoined that only those engaged in the ‘lowly’ activities
truly served their fellow men and made the untouchables, not the Brahmins, the privileged
‘children of God’. Gandhi turned Hinduism upside down in a way no-one had done
before, and did it with such consummate skill and authority that the Brahmins
were thoroughly outsmarted.’ (Source: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi’s
PoliticalPhilosophy)
Gandhi in his
national propaganda against untouchability had carried out three fasts or
hunger strikes to highlight the issue out of his total seventeen fasts for
various causes. Sometimes he had to deal with the most interesting questions
and objections. For instance he would be asked if untouchables are treated
differently who will do the sanitary work. He had replied once to such a
question: ‘When untouchability has disappeared altogether, it is not feared
that Bhangis will refuse to do sanitary work, if they are properly paid
and well treated. Sanitary work is done well enough, if not better, in other
parts of the world. But assuming that the Bhangis, on the bar
sinister being removed, refuse to do or scavenging, we must be prepared to do
it ourselves. The removal of untouchability implies that there is no sin or
shame in cleaning for other people, even as it is no sin for a mother to clean
her baby or for a paid nurse to clean her or his patient.’ (Source: Collected
Works of MK Gandhi, Vol. 20, pp.261-62) Similarly he was asked in
response to his suggestion of education for untouchables, ‘who will then do
their work?’. His angry but patient and careful response was: ‘This question
itself shows the frightfulness of untouchability as we understand it today.
There is nothing but scorn of untouchables in our everyday behaviour towards
them. I think the very notion that education would make them give up being
sweepers is wrong. The reason for it, however, lies in ourselves. We look down
on the profession of a Bhangi, but, in fact, it is sacred work as it is concerned with
cleanliness. A mother is regarded with all the greater feeling of sanctity
because she removes the faeces of the child. We respect a woman who nurses the
sick and is engaged in removing things which smell most offensively. Should we
not worship the person who always cleans our lavatories and thereby helps us to
remain free from disease?. By treating such persons as low, we have sunk low
ourselves. Anyone pushing another into a well himself falls into it along with
others We have no right, thus, to look down on the Bhangis and others
like them as belonging to low castes.
‘Swaraj is a meaningless term if we
desire to keep a fifth of India under perpetual subjugation, and
deliberately deny to the most deserving among His creatures the rights of
humanity. Inhuman ourselves, we may not plead before the (British) Throne for
deliverance from the inhumanity of others.’ (Source: Young India, May 25, 1921,
Collected Works of MK Gandhi, Vol. 20, p. 136) He also genuinely believed something
would definitely go wrong in the nationalist build up if our national unity had
terrible fault lines and fissures in it like untouchability. He had commented:
‘It is easy to decide whether or not a particular issue should be taken up in
the national struggle. There is no choice but to solve a problem which, if left
unsolved, would block our progress. I am positively of the view that, had
I not taken up the problem of untouchability, our struggle would have made no
headway. We simply could not mount the heaven-bound plane, leaving behind those
six crores of people whom, in our profound ignorance, we regard as untouchables
and exploit to the utmost. They would cling to the plane and, as they are
buried in the ground, it could not take off at all. I would not have taken up
this question (of untouchability) had I felt that they could have been carried
along somehow, hanging on to the plane.’ (Source: Collected Works of MK
Gandhi, Vol. 20, p. 507-8)
Professor Judith Brown has summed up
well the Gandhian involvement with the problem of untouchability:
‘His primary social concern…was the
problem of untouchability, the rejection of a whole group of the poorest and
the most menial in society as a result of Hindu ideas of hierarchy, and purity
and pollution. Now, as he travelled widely, he saw in harsh practice the power
of this social division, and the poverty and degradation it caused, though he
had rejected the whole idea far earlier and inveighed and worked against it
even in South Africa. Once home in India, having tested the temper of public
opinion, he was aware of the strength of Hindu orthodoxy and he took care not
to equate his campaign against untouchability with the question of caste as a
whole for fear of holding back the work on what he saw as the most vital and
urgent reform. Rather, he argued, his was a campaign to purify and strengthen
caste by abolishing this pernicious custom. For Gandhi untouchability was
primarily a religious problem. He believed that there was no warrant for it in
the scriptures: it was a late and evil accretion which actually harmed and
threatened the Hindu tradition he so treasured, and its observance was
positively sinful. If it continued he feared that Hinduism would not survive.
However, he was also clear that its observance impeded India’s journey to
swaraj at an obvious level, for such a profound fissure in Hindu society might
well generate violent rebellion among untouchables against the higher castes,
and would give leverage to any imperial authority wishing to maintain Indian
divisions in order to rule’.
Problem of
untouchabilty is still prevalent in the society and Mulk Raj Anand through his
novel Untouchable brings to light the sorrows and sufferings that high caste
Hindus inflicted on the untouchables. Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable, is more
compact than his other novels. The novel Untouchable, published in 1935, centres
around a sweeper boy, Bakha. The eighteen year boy Bakha, son of Lakha, the
jamadar of sweepers is a child of the twentieth century, and the impact of new
influences reverberates within him.
Mulk Raj Anand's commitment to reveal the deep-rooted
social malice in the Indian society made him to create Bakha. He wanted to show
the youth's unique sensitiveness as against the people of the upper caste who
thought merely touching him is degradation. He meant symbolically to show that
such small tenderness among people in private life or the catharsis of human
existence. E. M. Foster in the preface of Untouchable observes that: Bakha is a
real individual, lovable, thwarted, sometimes grand, sometime weak, and
thoroughly Indian. Even his physique is distinctive, we can recognize broad
intelligent face, graceful torso ... as he does it nasty job or stumps out in
artillery boots, in the hope of a pleasant walk through the city with a paper
of cheap sweets in his hands. Anand with his remarkable skill portrays Bakha's
helpless, frustration, anxiety and agony to the degree that he has become
embodiment of his own creation or in other words the creator and the creator
co-mingle at one point. Through the character Bakha in Untouchable, Anand
highlight the condition of inhumanity faced by them in the society. The
untouchable covers the event of a single day in the life of the low caste boy
Bakha, in the town of Bulashah. Anand describes Bakha's morning round duties
with a pain staking particularity, bringing out both the efficiency with which
the boy does this essential service and callousness with which the
beneficiaries receive it.
In the end of the novel Mulk Raj Aanand is successful
in showing that problem of untouchable can be removed. When the dusk approaches
he find three solution's to his problems. He may become Christian with the help
of Hutchinson, the salvation army missionary. He has been happy to hear from
Hutchinson that Christ receives all men and Jessuh Messih makes no difference
between the Brahmin and the Bhangi. But thy missionary's talking of 'sin' and
'confession' and his failure to clearly tell who his Christ is, confuses the
mind of Bakha. He has respect for his person as well as for his nation. Perhaps
he knows the difference International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences
Vol. 30 49 between the two kinds of servitude, and prefers the native to the
alien. The second solution is that he may take comfort in Gandhiji's
chastisment of the caste Hindus and wait till the social conscience of people
is roused. Hard upon this comes the third solution. He may put his faith in the
water- closet about which the positivist poet had talked: It is prosaic,
straightforward, and considered in the light of what has gone before in the
book, it is convincing. No god is needed to rescue the untouchables no vows of
self-sacrifice and a bugation on the part of more fortunate Indians but simply
and solely – the flush system. Introduce water-closets and main drainage
throughout India and all this wicked rubbish about untouchability will
disappear.
Untouchable
is Anand‟s first novel, and his most artistically satisfying work. He depicts
suffering
and anguish of the untouchables as a result of oppression and exploitation.
a story of protest against the set norms of casteism in Hindu society. He has tried to hard the deeply rooted castism in Indian society in his famous work „Untouchable.‟ Untouchability which are predominant evils in our Indian society isolates the sweepers and the scavengers from the main stream of the society. Anand is the first Indian novelist to have depicted in the novel from the stigma of this evil which isolates a man from his own society. (Jha 59) The use of machine or the flush system is not only the solution of Untouchability; as untouchability is deeply rooted in our Indian psyche, we have to change our outlook towards them. The ending of the novel ask a basic question to the readers, how to alleviate the oppression of the untouchables? In the preface to the book “Untouchable”, E.M. Forester wrote: “The book seems to me indescribably clean…. It has gone straight to the heart of its subject and purified it” (9) C.D. Narasimhaiah rightly remarks that Bakha seems to be a typical representative untouchable exemplifying the plight of not only the so-called Hindu untouchables. Anand succeeds in exposing the oppression, injustice, exploitation of the outcastes in India. Towards the end of the novel, the author suggests three solutions to overcome the vice of untouchability-Christ, Gandhi and the flush system. M. K. Naik writes about the concluding part of the novel :-“In the end it suggests three alternative solutions to his problem:-a missionary tries to persuade him to embrace Christianity; he listens to Gandhiji who advocates social reform; and he also hears of mechanized sanitation, as the only answer possible.” Anand believes that casteism is a crime against humanity and every one who believes in human dignity should actively try to eliminate it. The novel aims at wiping away social barriers and orthodoxy and casteism from society, and established human value.
Mulk Raj Anand’s “Untouchable” conveys 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 chracterise 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.
Untouchable is a novel by Mulk Raj Anand published in
1935. The novel established Anand as one of India's leading English authors.The book was
inspired by his aunt's experience when she had a meal with a Muslim woman and
was treated as an outcast by her family.The plot of this book,
Anand's first, revolves around the argument for eradicating the caste system. It depicts a day
in the life of Bakha, a young "sweeper", who is
"untouchable"
Set in the fictional Indian town of
Bulandshahr, Untouchable is a day in the life of a young Indian sweeper named
Bakha. The son of Lakha, head of all of Bulashah’s sweepers, Bakha is
intelligent but naïve, humble yet vain. Over the course of Bakha’s day various
major and minor tragedies occur, causing him to mature and turn his gaze
inward. By the end of the novel Mulk Raj Anand, the author, has made a
compelling case for the end of untouchability on the grounds that it is an
inhumane, unjust system of oppression. He uses Bakha and the people populating
the young man’s world to craft his argument.
Bakha’s day starts with his father
yelling at him to get out of bed and clean the latrines. The relationship
between the father and son is strained, in part due to Bakha’s obsession with
the British, in part because of Lakha’s laziness. Bakha ignores his father but
eventually gets up to answer the demands of a high-caste man that wants to use
the bathroom. This man is Charat Singh, a famous hockey player. At first Singh
also yells at Bakha for neglecting his cleaning duties. The man has a
changeable personality however. It isn’t long before he instructs Bakha to come
see him later in the day so he can gift the young sweeper with a prized hockey
stick. An overjoyed Bakha agrees.
High on his good fortune he quickly
finishes his morning shift and hurries home, dying of thirst. Unfortunately
there is no water in the house. His sister Sohini offers to go fill the water
bucket. At the well Sohini must wait behind several other outcastes also queued
up. Also waiting for water is Gulabo, mother of one of Bakha’s friends and a
jealous woman. She hates Sohini and is just barely stopped from striking the
young woman. A priest from the town temple named Pundit Kali Nath comes along
and helps Sohini get water. He instructs her to come clean the temple later in
the day. Sohini agrees and hurries home with the water.
Back at home Lakha fakes an illness and
instructs Bakha to clean the town square and the temple courtyard in his stead.
Bakha is wise to the wily ways of his father but cannot protest. He takes up
his cleaning supplies and goes into town. His sweeping duties usually keep him
too busy to go into town, and so he takes advantage of the situation by buying
cigarettes and candies.
As Bakha eats his candies, a high-caste
man brushes up against him. The touched man did not see Bakha because the
sweeper forgot to give the untouchable’s call. The man is furious. His yelling
attracts a large crowd that joins in on Bakha’s public shaming. A traveling
Muslim vendor in a horse and buggy comes along and disperses the crowd. Before
the touched man leaves he slaps Bakha across the face for his impudence, and
scurries away. A shocked Bakha cries in the streets before gathering his things
and hurrying off to the temple. This time, he does not forget the untouchable’s
call.
At the temple, a service is in full
swing. It intrigues Bakha, who eventually musters up the courage to climb up
the stairs to the temple door and peer inside. He’s only standing there for a
few moments before a loud commotion comes from behind him. It’s Sohini and
Pundit Kali Nath, who is accusing Sohini of polluting him. As a crowd gathers around,
Bakha pulls his sister away. Crying, she tells him that the priest sexually
assaulted her. A furious Bakha tries to go back to confront the priest, but an
embarrassed and ashamed Sohini forces him to leave. Bakha sends his sister
home, saying he will take over her duties in town for the rest of the day.
Distraught over the day’s events, Bakha
wanders listlessly before going to a set of homes to beg for his family’s daily
bread. No one is home, so he curls up in front of a house and falls asleep. A sadhu
also begging for food comes and wakes him. The owner of the house Bakha slept
in front of comes out with food for the sadhu. Seeing Bakha, she screams at him
and at first refuses to give him food. She finally agrees to give him some
bread in exchange for him sweeping the area in front of her house. As Bakha
sweeps, the woman tells her young son to relieve himself in the gutter where
Bakha is cleaning so he can sweep that up too. A disgusted Bakha throws down
the broom and leaves for his house in the outcastes' colony.
Back at home, it’s only Lakha and
Sohini. Rakha, Bakha’s younger brother, is still out collecting food. Bakha
tells his father that a high-caste man slapped him in the streets. Sensing his
son’s anger, Lakha tells him a story about the kindness of a high-caste doctor
that once saved Bakha’s life. Bakha is deeply moved by the story but remains
upset. Soon after story time, Rakha comes back with food. A ravenous Bakha
starts to eat, but then is disgusted by the idea of eating the leavings of the
high-caste people. He jumps up and says he’s going to the wedding of his friend
Ram Charan’s sister.
At Ram Charan’s house, Bakha sees his
other friend, Chota. The two boys wait for Ram Charan to see them through the
thicket of wedding revelers. Ram Charan eventually sees his friends and runs
off with them despite his mother’s protestations. Alone, Chota and Ram Charan
sense something is wrong with their friend. They coax Bakha to tell them what’s
wrong. Bakha breaks down and tells them about the slap and Sohini’s assault.
Ram Charan is quiet and embarrassed by Bakha’s tale, but Chota is indignant. He
asks Bakha if he wants to get revenge. Bakha does but realizes revenge would be
a dangerous and futile endeavor. A melancholic atmosphere falls over the group.
Chota attempts to cheer Bakha up by reminding him of the hockey game they will
play later in the day. This reminds Bakha that he must go and get his gift from
Charat Singh.
Bakha goes to Charat Singh’s house in
the barracks, but cannot tell if the man is home. Reluctant to disturb him or
the other inhabitants, Bakha settles under a tree to wait. Before long, Singh
comes outside. He invites Bakha to drink tea with him and allows the
untouchable to handle his personal items. Singh’s disregard for Bakha’s
supposed polluting presence thrills Bakha’s heart. Thus he is overjoyed when
Singh gives him a brand-new hockey stick.
Ecstatic about this upswing to his
terrible day, Bakha goes into the hockey game on fire. He scores the first
goal. The goalie of the opposite team is angry over Bakha’s success and hits
him. This starts an all-out brawl between the two teams that ends when a
player’s younger brother gets hurt. Bakha picks up the young boy and rushes him
home, only to have the boy’s mother accuse him of killing her son. Good mood
completely destroyed, Bakha trudges home, where his father screams at him for
being gone all afternoon. He banishes Bakha from home, saying his son must
never return.
Bakha runs away and takes shelter under
a tree far from home. The chief of the local Salvation Army, a British man
named Colonel Hutchinson, comes up to him. He sees Bakha’s distress and
convinces the sweeper to follow him to the church. Flattered by the white man’s
attention, Bakha agrees, but the Colonel’s constant hymn singing quickly bores
him. Before the two can enter the church the Colonel’s wife comes to find him.
Disgusted at the sight of her husband with another “blackie,” she begins to
scream and shout. Bakha feels her anger acutely and runs off again.
This time Bakha runs towards town and
ends up at the train station. He overhears some people discussing the
appearance of Mahatma Gandhi in Bulashah. He joins the tide of people rushing
to hear the Mahatma speak. Just as Bakha settles in to listen, Gandhi arrives
and begins his speech. He talks about the plight of the untouchable and how it
is his life’s mission to see them emancipated. He ends his speech by beseeching
those present to spread his message of ending untouchability. After the Mahatma
departs a pair of educated Indian men have a lively discussion about the
content of the speech. One man, a lawyer named Bashir, soundly critiques most
of Gandhi’s opinions and ideas. The other, a poet named Sarshar, defends the
Mahatma passionately and convincingly. Much of what they say goes above Bakha’s
head, so elevated are their vocabulary and ideas. However, he does understand
when Sarshar mentions the imminent arrival of the flushing toilet in India, a
machine that eradicates the need for humans to handle refuse. This machine
could mean the end of untouchability. With this piece of hope Bakha hurries
home to share news of the Mahatma’s speech with his father.
References
Anand, Mulk Raj. Untouchable. New Delhi: O.U.P., 8th
edition. Reprint 2002.
Iyenger,
K.R.S. Indian Writing in English. Delhi: Sterling Publication, 2005.
Premila Paul: The Novels of
Mulk Raj Anand: A Thematic Study (New Delhi, Sterling Publishers, Pvt. Ltd.,
1983), p. 10
Singh, P.K.: Major
Indo-English Novelists & Novels, Sublime Publication, Jaipur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untouchable_(novel)
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My Research Paper presented in a seminar @ Vasanta College for Women, Rajghat
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