?Untouchable? By Mulk Raj Anand Essay, Research Paper

“In their struggle to come to terms with their world, what did one or two characters in one of the texts [listed above] discover about themselves and others?”

“Untouchable”, a novel by Mulk Raj Anand, is a fictional story depicting the real life struggles that are experienced by the victims of the caste system in India – the outcastes of society. Bakha is one of these unfortunate people; born into the lowest segregation of the lowest caste, he desperately attempts to seek refuge from his inevitable destiny as a sweeper, only to discover throughout a series of revelations that he cannot escape his organised victimisation.

The book begins with an almost too detailed and too accurate a description of the squalid living conditions in which the Untouchables are forced to reside in. Most have come to accept such an unpleasant and unhygienic location as their abode; but Bakha, a pioneer in his own right, is apparently the first individual to see his home, unobstructed by the veil which covers the sight of the majority of those of the exterior castes – a veil created and maintained by those of the upper castes, so that the outcastes actually believe that they are the lowest of society, and therefore sustaining the positions of the higher caste members – , and he feels repulsed by what he observes. He perceives the “brook … soiled by the dirt and filth of the public latrines”; “the odour of the hides and skins of dead carcases”; “the dung [of various animals] heaped up to be made into fuel cakes”; “the biting, choking pungent fumes”. As there is no drainage system in their area, this combined with the rains of passing seasons “made of the quarter a marsh”, emanating from it “the most offensive stink”; and in conjunction with “the ramparts of human and animal refuse that lay on the outskirts of this little colony, and the ugliness, the squalor and the misery which lay within it, made it an ‘uncongenial’ place to live in.” This powerful first paragraph of the novel sets the scene for the most part of the story and gives the reader an immensely thorough image of what those who are considered Untouchables have to tolerate on a daily basis. And yet, much akin to their ancestors who led identical lives as them, they were brought up persuaded that the way they live is their appointed fate, and have grown to be content with it.

However, Bakha is far from satisfied with his position in life. After encountering the “glamour of the ‘white man’s’ life”, through several years of working among them in the barracks of a British regiment, he has become quite discontent. He imitates the “Tommies”, wearing the soldiers’ western dress, that with which he would willingly sacrifice his comfort for, in a pathetic attempt to derive even the smallest amount of dignity and identity. His overwhelming desire to mimic the British soldiers had arisen from being told that “they were the sahibs, superior people”, and that to appear and behave like them would mean that he too was a sahib. His naivety was simply a way in which he disguised from his conscious mind that he was and always would be an Untouchable. Returning from his temporary stay in thegone during the day, but hopeful and enthusiastic about what he had heard and the possibility of not having to clean the latrines ever again. He proceeded home to tell his father about Gandhi’s speech and the poet’s discussion with the westernised Muhammadan.

I think that Bakha had accepted his position in life as an Untouchable, and realised that as an individual he could do but nothing to change this. With more people like Gandhi and the poet, however, things could change dramatically for the good, and the oppression and exploitation suffered by the underprivileged Untouchables will no longer occur.