DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
INTERNAL ASSESSMENT ASSIGNMENT
COVER SHEET
SEMESTER I

NAME OF THE STUDENT: LAVISHA TANEJA

COLLEGE: SRI VENKATESWARA COLLEGE DELHI UNIVERSITY

EXAM ROLL NO: 2121002

PAPER CODE: 120351103

PAPER NAME: POST INDEPENDENCE INDIAN LITERATURE

TITLE OF PAPER: The state of education in Changamal Intermediate College

in Raag Darbari.

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 26TH MARCH 2022

DECLARATION: I certify that this is my own unaided work, and does not contain
unreferenced material copied from any other source. I understand that plagiarism is a
serious offence and may result in a drastic reduction of marks awarded for the term
paper. This assignment has not been submitted, or any part of it, in connection with
any other assessment.
Yoshita Singh in her book Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari: Satire in Indian Literature,
A Critical Analysis, rightly notes that: "Infrastructure development, road connectivity,
mobile penetration and a level of economic prosperity have undoubtedly altered the
landscape of rural India in the seven decades since Independence but strains of social
ills of corruption, poverty and illiteracy continue to impact a common man's life in the
21st century as they did in Shukla’s rendition of life in post-Independence India”.

The novel describes explicitly the declining values and decadence of village
life in post-independent India, exposing the powerlessness and plight of a common
man in the face of manipulative and corrupt environment. The inherent tendency to
illustrate and emphasise the romanticised and idyllic nature of village rural life as a
place where one can escape from ugliness of hollow city values is being debunked by
Srilal Shukla. In contrast to those past idealisations, Raag Darbari portraits the socio-
political and economic condition of India through a small village, Shivpalganj where
in its gruesome and filthy physical environment wherein ‘pigs, dogs and men co-exist’
(Wright). The corruption in Shivapalganj represents the microcosm of the macrocosm
India and it is implicated at the end of the novel that this dreary dystopian plight is
inescapable and unchangeable.

“Raag Darbari represents the utter failings of the ideals of nationalist state in
their post-colonial implementation and more drastically, in their post-Nehruvian
disintegration” (Anjaria) (1). The construction of a sustainable framework of a largely
independent and democratic nation was aided by Nehru's five-year plan. During this
time, the state stabilised and took on new tasks, such as abolishing untouchability,
establishing higher education institutions, and propagating culture. The mid 1960’s
was a significant year with respect to the status of education in post independent India
as the Education Commission was appointed with its main agenda being
modernisation, precisely ridiculed by Shukla. Education is envisaged as the driver of
growth to inspire the youthful citizens of nation with great ideas but the education
system depicted in Shivalganj is a farce. “The present education system is like a
pariah bitch lying on the road which anyone can kick” (Wright). He is sharply critical
of the education system is village in depiction of Changamal Vidyalaya Intermediate
college as a “den of louts and layabouts” where nobody seems to be interested in
proper education but rather factionalism, corruption and usurpation has acquired more
importance.

Vaidyaji’s instrumental role in all the local social institutions including the
village college shows that the whole education system is questionable and impractical.
His profession and name are ironical because despite being an ayurvedic doctor and
an active politician, he is unable to cure the diseases of corruption and filth of
discrimination from his village instead he is one of the perpetrators. He treats the
college management committee, the cooperative union and village panchayat as his
personal fiefdom through which Shukla ridicules post- Independent India’s
democratic administrative culture exposing it as a facade.

In chapter 3, the architecture and degraded infrastructure of buildings is being

blatantly mocked, as students are oblivious of electricity, tap water, pucca non-mud
floor or sanitary fitting. This also aims at uninhibitedly narrating the failure of
Nehruvian ideals of modernised states in his five year plan that encouraged
industrialisation and modernisation of each district in India. If education is the way
forward and road to desired modernity, it remains ironically the most deprived.The
Changamal Vidyalaya Intermediate College tries its level best to impart ‘quality’
education to its students who have the impression that they are learning in the Indian
tradition and are very close to nature with a freedom to “pee on tree trunks” and an
aversion to “relieve” in “enclosed spaces”. The teacher is fond of giving a local
flavour to his language in order to emphasize his point and wonders how a student can
learn “saala (bloody) science without English” (2). The English education as a
significant contribution by British is considered to be a prominent contribution to the
cultural and social aspects of the country, transforming India from an archaic state to
modern nation. Srilal Shukla portrays and ridicules the influence of English education
through Master Motiram’s remark who is far more interested in his flour mill that the
whole system is degenerated and regraded with contempt and the futility of acquiring
such university education and high ideals are proved to be futile.

The college established for nominal national interest is infested with the idea of
factionalism associating it with their cultural heritage and Vedanta where students are
more enthralled with fights carried out for personal reasons, hooliganism and
individual self-interest. Vaidyaji and Ramadin’s respective factions vying for power
in the matters of college administration have managed to split the college crowd,
employees as well as students into two groups and they are consistently involved with
these ludicrous trivial matters, disregarding the importance of education.

The principal of the college, a flatterer of the highest degree manipulates the
power and uses Vaidyaji’s influence to leverage indirect control over the institution.
Ruppan Babu, the younger son of Vaidyaji is a student leader and revels in the glory
of his own power zone that he has constructed in conjunction with the authority of his
father. The bleak picture of Indian rural education system continues when it is said
that Ruppan is studying in 10th class for ten years, just to preserve his rule over the
students' fraternity. Shukla believed that government’s performance since
independence had been quite dismal as evidenced in the rigged elections Vaidyaji
contests facing a stiff challenge to his dominance in college from a group of dissident
teachers. Vaidyji nonetheless wins a landslide victory for the position of manager as
elections are conducted in an unfair manner where the opposition members are barred
from entering the college and threatened at gunpoint. This incident ridicules the whole
procedure of elections at micro level thereby inviting retrospection and possibilities of
such corruption at macro level as well. Khanna Master, Malaviya and later Ruppan
Babu, who rebels against his own father, and even Rangnath, who has put his
expectations only on Khanna's group for the development of college administration,
are among those who oppose Vaidyaji's dictatorship and atrocious regime.

The novel ends in Rangnath’s growing yearning to escape from

Shivpalganj, a strong statement on how education and textbook learning
ironically places the educated elite at the greatest distance from national
concerns. His longing for calm, serenity, and tranquillity in rural life gradually
disintegrates and he realises that the notion of village life being more pure than
city life has been destroyed by the infusion of petty politics, turf feuds, and
dubious morality into rural life.

WORKS CITED:

(1)Satire, Literary Realism and the Indian State: Six Acres and a Third and Raag
Darbari
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4418923

(2)Delineation of Indian Reality in Raag Darbari and The White Tiger

https://www.galaxyimrj.com/V4/n2/Sarfaraz.pdf

(3)Raag Darbari Srilal Shukla, translated by Gillian Wright