Humanitarian Compassion of Mulk Raj Anand

T. Sai Lakshmi

This study is based on the problems of the outcaste, downtrodden, enslaved and untouchables and to make them suitable equivalent with others so that they can join in the mainstream of the socio-economic, cultural, modern and civilized society. In the first half of the 20th Century, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the whole nation fought to get Swaraj with non-violence. We fought and got freedom from the British Empire but we couldn’t fight unitedly against the evils at home. Social evils fully flowered during the time in the form of women’s exploitation, child marriage, infanticide, caste conflict and untouchables, with the result, we failed to achieve humanitarian compassion. Therefore, we have been discovering new ways to counter the various forms of oppression meted out to downtrodden section of the society. As Shyam M. Asnani has rightly stated: Mulk Raj Anand has been advocating the need for helping the untouchables, the peasants, the serfs, the coolies and the oppressed people, and trying to bring about a change in the lives.

In support of Anand’s concept of writing in terms of humanitarian compassion, M. K. Naik clearly and plainly stated: The writer must go straight to the heart of the problems of our time, the problem of human sensibility in the present context of the tragedy of the modem man.

The most significant event in the history of Indian English fiction in the nineteen thirties was the appearance on the scene of its major trio: Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao whose first novels were published in 1935, 1935 and 1938 respectively. It is the mark of their stature that they revealed, each in his own characteristic way, the various possibilities of Indian English fiction. Mulk Raj Anand, the eldest of the three, has also been the most prolific writer. He was born at Peshawar in 1905 (now in Pakistan) in a Hindu Coppersmith family. He was educated in Lahore, London and Cambridge. He earned a Doctorate in Philosophy and remained a full-time man of letters instead of joining the academic profession. His father was a coppersmith working in the Army and his mother was a pastoral and traditional women engaged in domestic duties. These autobiographical details echoed at several situations and contexts in his novels. Therefore, Anand’s characters are lifelike. They are almost free from the stigma of mere propaganda. He was more an artist than a propagandist. His portraiture of the Indian scenes is highly admirable.

The present study of the theme of humanitarian compassion is explored in the following major novels of Mulk Raj Anand: 1. Untouchable (1935) 2. Coolie (1936) 3. Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) 4. The Village (1939) 5. Across the Black Waters (1941) 6. The Sword and the Sickle (1942) 7. The Big Heart (1945)

The eminence of Anand’s fictional art lies in the realistic portrayal of the abject plight of the suffering masses. His writing covers essential human sympathy, humanistic compassion, search for identity, human desire to earmark a little space in this vast world and panoramic view of the rural life in India with all its merits and draws. His thorough knowledge of the masses and their plight gives him an added advantage in painting the peasant life with vividness of description. It is this photographic description and presentation which makes the present theme more appealing.

Anand’s first novel, Untouchable (1935), describes an eventful day in the life of Bakha, a young Sweeper living in the outcaste’s colony of a north Indian Cantonment town. The colony becomes the living symbol of the age-old practice of the sin of untouchability with pseudo-religious vigor. The life in the town and cantonment with all its colors and smells, the filth and cruelty is described with so accuracy Bakha is comparatively clean and he does his job efficiently. He develops a feeling of loathsomeness towards the caste Hindus when he is punished for accidentally touching a man in the street charging him that he polluted him. His sister also faces the same fate in the novel. Kalinath, the temple priest attempts to molest her and when she rejects, the priest accuses her of having polluted him.

A particular day suggests to him three alternative solutions to his problem: A missionary tries to persuade him to embrace Christianity; he listens to Gandhiji, who advocates social reforms; and he also hears about mechanized sanitation as the only answer possible. At the end of the novel, Bakha is found “Thinking of everything he has heard, though he could not understand it all.”

Anand’s treatment of this theme of humanitarian compassion is objective.

As Untouchable is a socially conscious novel, Coolie is a politically conscious novel. Anand’s humanism, his compassion for the bad treatment, his indignation at the exploitation by the forces of capitalism, industrialism, communalism and racism are presented in this novel. Coolie tells the story of the experiences of Munnoo, an orphaned village boy from the Kangra hills of Punjab who sets out in search of a livelihood. His several roles, including those of domestic servant, a coolie, a factory worker and a rickshaw puller, take him to various places from Punjab to Shimla. He dies there of consumption.

In Two Leaves and a Bud, Anand continued his series of socially conscious novels, which shared much with the people of low class novels published in Britain and United States during the 1940s. Anand’s humanistic stance, acquires greater momentum and stronger intensity in Two Leaves and a Bud. This novel is a faithful depiction of inhuman behaviour and the exploitation of the poor peasant. The locale here is a tea-plantation in Assam to which Gangu, a poor Punjabi peasant, is lured by many promises. Gangu was compelled to work in unhygienic conditions and starved. Gangu’s wife falls ill and dies. After his wife’s death, Gangu’s life centered around his daughter. When Reggie Hunt, the Assistant Manager of Tea Estate, tries to rape his daughter and when Gangu comes to her rescue, he is shot dead.

Anand’s famous trilogy: The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1941) and The Sword and the Sickle (1942) was also a strong protest against social injustices. The Protagonist of the trilogy is Lal Singh. He is an insider turned outsider as he is a rebel against all the village mores which he finally escapes by running away. These novels deal with Lal Singh’s struggle for survival. In The Village, a young rebel, Lal Singh is bubbling with energy and with dreams and he has decided to reject all prohibitions and prescriptions of the conservative Indian society. He symbolizes a determination to shape his destiny afresh. Across the Black Waters, shows Lal Singh joining Army as a Professional Soldier. He fights in Flanders in the First World War. During the war his heart bleeds at the sight of death and destruction. In The Sword and the Sickle, Lal Singh, returns home from German Prison. We find his quest for self realization and the self actualization that he finds in the village. His return here is presented not as a defeat but an emergence of self in him as an individual against the crippling climate of Indian society. But his individual will conflicts continuously with the social facts of Indian life. Thus, the fight between an individual and society which is conservative, is the need of the hour to develop humanistic compassion.

The Big Hearts (1945) was Anand’s last novel before independence. The fight between the individual and the society is again presented and projected in this novel. The protagonist of this novel experiences the severity of all kinds. There is a fight between social reality and fantasy in the novel. The Protagonist, Anant in The Big Heart symbolizes the new upsurge in opposition to the old orthodoxy. Anant is a big hearted revolutionary who stands for the redness of heart and not for blackness of hatred. The novel ends with Anant’s death but his death becomes a heroic act of resistance against the orthodoxy. Anant chooses to die to let others live hopefully and harmoniously.

The shackles of the social evils even after six decades of independence have not been broken. On paper we can remove the words untouchable, and untouchability but the centuries-old disgust is still practiced in the society. In order to remove all these shackles, Anand attempted to give a voice to the depressed in really salute-worthy way because he broke to the traditional literary trend under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi. Upto that time untouchables remained untouchables in the minds of the writers. On the humanitarian base, he has highlighted the lowest community and social evils to be eradicated. Anand’s fiction is steeped in humanism. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar states about the upliftment of untouchables:

It should be considered on the base of Human Rights,
Human Values and Human Dignity. When Dalits will
be socially and Culturally accepted as fellow citizens
of this Democratic India, our India will be great in the real sense.
But it is tough, not impossible, because; the touchables and
The rest cannot be held together by law...the only thing
that can hold them together is love.

Anand presents the loss of identity for his protagonists in all these novels but he prepares them to regain such identity though after a prolonged struggle. The inner world of the protagonist in each novel of Anand does not degenerate into evil. For the delight of man, according to Radha Krishnan, nothing is to be rejected and everything is to be raised. If there is a discard in life, it is only a stage and not the terminus. Life is a continuous pattern of despair and delight and it is not without dynamic thrust. The definition of the dynamic thrust of human personality as given by Radha Krishnan can be found in the novels of Anand:

To exist is to stand out of the crowd to be oneself,
to be an authentic person and remaking oneself.