Mulk Raj Anand, as a social reformer, with special

reference to “The Untouchable”.

To be dubbed the “Charles Dickens” of anywhere is quite the achievement in
and of itself, let alone in as grand, multi-cultural and ethnically diverse a
country as India. However, superficially glorious as the title is, I believe it does
justice to neither Dickens nor the awardee. The difference between the
Victorian literary popstar and India’s first truly seminal English novelist is
manifold and significant enough to set them apart.
Anand, for one thing, did not deal in caricatures, at least nowhere near as
frequently or with as much relish as Mr. Dickens. Bakha is not a caricature. He
is a living, breathing, suffering human being, who is simultaneously unique,
through the vigour of his personality, as well as a type of the typical,
downtrodden, “invisible” untouchable. There is also, for better or worse, none
of Dickens’ abundant humour or eccentricity in Anand’s works. They are
stripped down to the bare bones in their utterly realistic, unapologetic, and
uncomfortably accurate portrayal of the lowest echelons of North-Indian
society. In fact, the almost rebellious insistence to depict the filthiest, most
provocative truths of the lower castes, with no filter and omission – the
attempted molestation of Sohini by a priest, the collective and overwhelming
rally of insults dished out at Bakha – initially proved too hot for the posh,
“educated”, Englishmen-aping, Indian babus to handle and the Govt. of India
banned the first 3 of Anand’s novels after their publication.
Unlike with Dickens, there is no layer of humour, entertainment or satire to
sedate ruffled readers. Anand’s works are vigorous in their humanitarian zeal.
In fact, to the so-called “posh” readers of the time, the work often seemed too
dirty, vulgar - E.M. Forster quotes, in his own Preface to the work, the remarks
of an “indignant Colonel”, who felt Anand had “a dirty mind”. The only reason
Anand wrote a dirty, filthy, stinky work, if it is at all so, which I severely doubt,
it is because the society he wrote of was dirty, stinky and filthy and needed a
thorough cleansing.
Dickens is without a doubt the better novelist and artist. In fact, comparing the
two does Dickens injustice. However, in terms of the sheer strength and
directness of purpose, in terms of an unequivocal devotion to social welfare,
Anand reigns supreme, his, are the fiercer works.
The seeds of this ferocity and of a sense of social justice and compassion for the
fellow human were sowed in Anand long before he wrote “The Untouchable”
and were years in the making. The young, Peshawar-born Anand had played
with the same kids he wrote of in his novels - sweepers, washermen and
“pariahs”. He had pierced the caste-fabric of society as a kid, gone to the
“untouchable” side and felt their humanity, no different from his. That was the
beginning of Anand, the social reformer.
Years later, as a doctorate in Philosophy and a resident in England, Anand had
not lost touch with his roots. So, when that eventful decade of the 30s, with the
Gandhian movements, the Socialist sirens and the Round Table Conferences
struck, Anand too felt he had to respond, in his own way, to the turbulent times
of upheaval in his homeland. Out came 5 novels in rapid succession over a
course of 5 years, the first, the shortest and the most compact of which, was
“The Untouchable”.
In a Preface to the second edition of his 1951 novel, “Two Leaves and a Bud”,
Anand wrote of his intention behind the 5 novels. His desire was to write of that
sect of society, that unmentionable, invisible sect, that all major Indian writers
had avoided thus far. As stated by Srinivasa Iyengar, in his iconic opus, “Indian
Writing in English”,
“… for all their nationalistic fervour, Bankim Chandra’s novels were but romances…
Tagore was chiefly interested in the upper and middle classes… Sarat Chandra in the
lower middle classes and Munshi Premchand… the peasantry and humble folk…none
of them cared to produce realistic or naturalistic fiction after the manner of a Balzac
or a Zola. It was Anand’s aim to stray lower still than even Sarat Chanda or
Premchand.”
The singular, bold approach of Anand feels all the more commendable when put
alongside that of his contemporary from the South, the creator of Malgudi, R.K.
Narayan. Narayan’s delightful, grounded, genial stories are a treat for any
reader. However, they lack Anand’s “ruthless realism” and almost “militant
humanism”, as M.K. Naik puts it. When concerning sheer devotion to the cause
of social reform, few in India have had an impact to parallel that of Anand.
The only area, where this gentleman from Punjab is found wanting, is perhaps
at the very end of his novel. Anand’s philosophical digressions are more of an
unwelcome intrusion, more along the lines of a sub-plot in Jacobean drama
shoved in by a Webster or a Marston, just for the sake of it, or the Goldstein
treatise that stands out like a sore thumb in the middle of Orwell’s “1984”.
Simply put, his philosophical digressions are not integrated into the work
organically. They do not find their objective correlative.
The portrayal of the salvationist is dull and artificial. The lyrics seem forced and
the argument on the salvationist’s part, in truth, coming out of Anand’s pen,
hardly does justice to that compelling sect which brought about millions of
Christian conversions all over the country at the time, especially in the South.
Anand is no George Eliot and unlike her, his philosophical ideas stay separate
from his work. For a truly great Indian novelist, who also excelled at
philosophical integration, we would need to look instead at Raja Rao.
It is, perhaps, for this reason that Anand, for all his continuous indictment of
various systems of society, failed to propose potential solutions in his novels
(the 3 at the end of “The Untouchable” are ready-made, inserted and do not
count as true solutions. The novel could’ve been just as complete without them.)
Anand’s acute observation and graphical portrayal of social phenomena is his
greatest strength. The scene, with all the hustle-bustle and rumour-mongering
before the arrival of Gandhi is excellent, to say the least. It gives a 21 st century
reader an accurate, awestruck idea of the fanatic phenomena that Gandhi was at
the time – an incarnation of Vishnu, according to some.
The occasional, uneasy, somewhat incestuous feelings of Bakha toward Sohini,
the vulgar slangs from the Babus that Anand translates literally and repeats
again and again, throughout the Novel, the initial preference to Sohini by Kali
Nath, out of sexual attraction for the youth, while drawing water from the well,
these are Anand’s unabashed, honest renderings of the social fabric at the time.
It’s as if Anand took up a Gita and swore, before he wrote his novel, that he
shall speak “the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth” and that, in itself,
is the greatest gift a writer can impart to mankind – revelation of the truth.

References & Bibliography:

“Indian Writing in English”, KR Srinivasa Iyengar.
“A History of Indian English Literature”, M.K. Naik.
“The Untouchable”, Mulk Raj Anand.
“A Critical History of English Literature”, David Daiches.
- Arnab Mukherjee, B.A. 6th Sem; Exam Roll: 18214ENG036; Class Roll: 126; Enrol No.
– 405091.