Human Rights in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable
R.
Rajee, W. Rosina Mary,
I
M.A English,
Sri
Ram Nallamani Yadhava College of Arts and Science,Tenkasi.
Cultural stories are political.
They register cultural phenomena and their relations with the world and society
in term of their existence, function, characteristics by using different
context. This paper will provide a new way rethinking which will help us to
rethink the relationship between fiction and politics.It discusses the theme of
human rights and it shows the relevance between art and politics by studying
the civil society through a literary framework.Reasons to establish a
relationship between fiction and politics are the relevant themes and universal
issues among the two disciplines. Both disciplines are sets of views and ideas
formulated by the human mind to explain political or cultural phenomenon. Other
reasons are the complexity and depth of the author’s vision, and the need to
explain the violations of human rights in a more active structure which can
relate to emotional and social existence.
Untouchable, among other novels, is a
novel written by Mulk Raj Anand in the nineteen thirties during which Indian
struggle for independence was at its peak. Anand’s hatred of imperialism and
hypocrisy of Indian rites with it’s castes,habits and customs where the
greatest motifs for his art. He wasaware of the immense suffering of people
from poverty and humiliation due to the political and social system of that time.
Anand’s major concern
revolves around humans and human rights. He believes that art and literature
are instruments of humanism [1].In Apology
for Humanisim,he states his position as a humanist:
The humanisim which I
prefer doesn’t rest on a Devine Sanction…… but puts its faith in the creative
imagination of man,in his capacity to transform himself, in the tireless mental
and physical energy with which he can, often in the face of great odds,raise
himself to tremendous heights of dignity and redeem the world from its misery
and pain….[2].
Untouchable
is Anand’s first novel. This novel suggests more to the human rights practices;
especially that this work was published thirteen years before the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The word ”Untouchable”refers
to an Indian cast system that includes the lowest of the lower working class of
India, and is justified by different ideas especially religious ones. The
untouchables in fact where slaughtered as a sacrifice to the gods,beaten, and
abused.it was also popular,back then, that they have polluted soles [3].
Anand’s purpose is to show that even a person belonging to the lowest social
class is a human being who has a dignity and suffers from the alienation forced
uponhim by caste society. The story depicts a day in the life of Bakha, a
sweeper boy, and reveals the effects on him of the events of that day. Bakha
belongs to the lowest fraction of the low social casts. Through this novel, it
is clear that the social structure is divided into many classes and the
political regime is corrupted and undergoes colonial power.
Reasons to establish a
relationship between fiction and politics are relevant themes and universal
issues among the two disciplines. Human rights during the nineteen thirties
were in conflict; therefore the author presents a fictitious frame work through
which he offers a Hindu political thought represented by Mahatma Gandhi and his
speech to combat human rights violations, which narrates most of the UDHR
articles.
In this work, human rights appeared
to be restricted to those who control the civil society based on religious
interpretations and the political regime.
The existence of
Untouchability has been justified within the context of Hindu religious thought as the ultimate and logical extensions
of Karma and rebirth. Indus believe
that persons are born Untouchables because of the accumulation of sins in previous lives.Texts
describe these people as foul and loathsome, and any physical contact with them was
regarded as polluting”[3].
Hinduism prevents the Hindus from
touching the sweepers or even touching anything a sweeper has touched. For
example, in Untouchable we see the
confectioner throws the “jalebis” to Bakha and his assistant splashes water on
the nickel coins Bakha has placed on the shoe-board. In addition, if a Hindu
mistakenly touches an Untouchable
“the shortest cut to purification after unholy touch, was to cancel it by
touching a Mussulman passing by”[4].Ironically, the Hindu man who accidentally
becomes defiled by the touch of the sweeper slaps Bakha which causes another
touches.
Furthermore,human
rights are denied and abused because of the social and religious structure in
India during that time.The high caste Hindus are given the authority to degrade
the lower- caste For example,the low caste are deprived from their simplest and
basic right which in water. ”The out castes were not allowed to mount the
platform surrounding the well, because if they were ever to draw water from
it.The Hindus of three upper castes would consider the water polluted “[4].They
are also not allowed to come near the streamfor the same
reasons.Additionally,they cannot afford the money to make themselves a private
well.So,they have to wait all day long for some caste Hindus,who would be kind
enough,to fill their pitchers with water.
As a result of this social and
religious philosophy,human rights are abused even among the low –caste consists
of hierarchal classes according to their hereditary professions.The working
class consist of many levels,the lowest,and most discriminated,is the
sweeper.The sweeper is a polluted object to the orthodox who must identifies
himself loudly in public streets ‘sweeper’s coming’.
The highest degree of the
caste among the low caste is washermen ,then leathermen, then andthen sweepers.
In Untouchable Gulbao thinks of
herself as superior to every outcaste,”she claimed a high place hierarchy of
the castes among low-caste”[4] which gives her the right to fill her pitcher
before Sohini, Bakha’s sister. In addition,Bakha and Chota there not to attend
Gulbao’s daughter wedding due to their social statues.Instead, they watch the
wedding party from a distance and wait for their friend Ram Charan to bring
them sweets.
Bakha suffers humiliationdue to the
neglect of human rights and reaches a state of mind where he accepts all
indignity and hates himself. He considers himself the meanest of mankind not
appropriate even to touch others. All this is because of the lack of awareness
of human rights principles and public ignorance which created this social
injustice.
In addition human rights in this
novel are in conflict because of they undergo the British colonial system.
Freedom is only enjoyed by colonial subjects.”Anand examines the depredations
is caused by colonization. By contact with the British, Bakha rejects his own
culture, seeing the colonizer as ‘superior people ‘,and guarding his new
English cloths from ‘all base taint of Indianess’.Any contact with the
colonizer distorts and renders the cultural aboriginal “[5].Bakha feels ashamed
of his father and uncle for which theadopt a spitting habit that the Tommies
would never do.
The reason Bakhapanics from the
mam-sahib’s verbal abuse hundred times more than the fear rouse from the
outburst of the touched man is because the anger of a white persons matters
more.”The mem-shahib was important to his slavish mind than the man who was
touched,he being one of many brown countrymen.To displease the mem-sahib was to
him a crime for which no punishment was bad enough.[4].Bakha is a harmless
kid.His crime is that his presence disturbs other due to his social status.
In an attempt of retrieving
dignity,Bakha considers conversion.He is astonished by the colonel’s speech
about Christianity and is almost into Christianity until colonel Hutchinson
introduces the idea of original sin.In Untouchable,Christianity
is not “a religion at all,but as some mysterious convention of the sahibs
whichwas observed on Sundays at which these priests officiated”[2].Anand finds
Christian padres like other English officers living the superior expensive life
of sahibs[6].The Christian priests are like the Hindus hypocrite and
cowered.They both contribute to the violation of human rights.
Anand’s project is to increase the
education of human rights and to improve human rights practices. His work
conducts a public awareness campaign. He offers a huge improvement in human
rights throughout fiction. Many human rights themes appear in this novel. Anand
depicts the importance of human interests, values and dignity dominant. The
most obvious theme is the theme of intolerance, racial and religious
discrimination.
Racial and religious profiling is
highly practiced. For instance, priests are above the law and a sweeper must
notify his presence by saying ‘posh keep a way, posh, sweeper coming, posh,
posh, sweeper coming, posh, posh, sweeper coming!’[4].
In addition, Anandgoes further
to encounter the UDHR. He stresses that “all human beings are born free and
equal in dignity and rights. They endowed with reason and conscience and should
act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”(UDHR: article 1.)This
article is spoken out through Gandhi’s speech, “as you know, while we are
asking for freedom from the grip of a foreign nation, we have ourselves, for
centuries , trampled underfoot millions of human beings without feeling the
slightest remorse for our inequality”[4].
In addition, Anand
insists that “No one shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment of punishment.”(UDHR: article 5.)In the novel, Bakha is blamed for
the child skull injury,the mother does not listen to her eldest son’s story but
keeps blaming and shouting at Bakha; and the man who slaps Bakhablames him for
not warning people of his presence. All these examples are to show the abuse of
human dignity and the emotional and psychological struggle an out-caste
suffers.
Moreover, the author
expresses the right to education(UDHR: article26) throughout Bakha’s impulse
for paying a boy an anna per lesson because he always wished to learn how to
read and write.The cast system would prevent him from sitting side by side with
children of the high-cast. Furthermore, teachers wouldn’t teach the outcasts
for fear that their fingers would touch the outcasts the outcasts’ books while
guiding them across a text and then be polluted.
In conclusion, Anand
concludes his project by implying that “everyone has the right to work, to free
choice of employment…”(UDHR: article 23.) Bakha hears a poet’s proper remark
about a proper drainage system which simply would eliminate the whole problem
of untouchability. The poet, Iqbal Sarshar, suggestion is a way out for the
untouchables from the practice of untouchability. This novel creates a link
between fiction and politics through its promotion of human rights. It speaks
to the intellectual before the common man’s mind to tell these minds that
salvation of mankind depends on human rights adoption and actual practices.
Anand’s project was the first step to human rights universal declaration.
REFERENCES:
Anand, Mulk Raj. Untouchable. London: Penguin Books,1940
Print.
General Assembly of the United
Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. www.un.org/en/documents/udhr.
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