Link: http://www.academia.edu/1189691/The_Case_of_Bakha
Colonialism, Dressing and Status in Mulk Raj Anand’s
Untouchable: The Case of Bakha
Tasik Mumin
The
Indian Subcontinent, since European colonization began in 1502, encountered the
struggles across its vast lands not only in terms of military, economic and
political subjection but also in cultural and social contexts. Following
establishment of British rule in most parts of India
This
paper would focus on Anand’s novelette Untouchable,
particularly on Bakha’s character and his fantasies regarding British clothes
and how those imaginations shape his already marginalized status as a young
sweeper. The whole novel chronicles a single Joycean day in the life of Bakha. At times, it seems the novel is
drawing a frustrating image for the lowest caste Hindu youth, but the whole
context is a much bigger issue—how Bakha’s status should be determined under
the huge shadow of imperial rulers over all the strata of Indian society, where
Bakha belongs even outside the lowest of the lowest order. The traumas and
frustrations of his youthful self face an impasse throughout the day, as chronicled
in the novel, as he is repeatedly abused and tortured psychologically, socially
as well as culturally. There are no
escape route for his ‘disgraceful’ life rather he meets three
alternatives—conversion to Christianity, adherence to Gandhism and flush system
as prescribed by sympathetic Muslim poet Iqbal Nath Sarshar.
Bakha,
a sweeper boy
of 18, is “strong and able-bodied” and a descendent of an
outcaste family—the lowest order of Hindu social groupings—the cleaner of human
and animal excrements. He is constantly abused by everyone in Hindu society,
even his father Lakha, for his lowly birth. He lives in a colony with his
father, who is the jemadar (head of sweepers), sister Sohini and younger
brother Rakha. Their quarters are far away from the main settlement in the
nearby Bulashah town and regimental barracks alike. Describing the small
community’s accommodation, Anand writes:
“The
absence of drainage system had, through the rains of various seasons, made the
quarter a marsh which gave the most offensive stink. And altogether 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”. (Anand 1)
This sketch
is quite disturbing for the very existence of Bakha and other neighbours and
they are all forced to scramble within the immurement of the colony. Their
forced seclusion in the outskirts of the town projects a society that strictly
maintained class and caste consciousness under pressures from both inner and
outer hegemonic structure. Under British colonial administration, locals faced tremendous
pressures from within caste Hindu people and an enforced subjection from ruling
British commands over all levels of the society. The sweeper and other lower
castes Hindus and Muslims faced humiliating insults from the higher caste
Hindus. Bakha constantly questions the inequality within the society but never
reaches any conclusion. He
consciously wants to mimic the British officers as he wishes to dissociate himself
from the society he lives in. He attempts to dress like the imperialists, wants
to be educated, and becomes irked with his surroundings.
From the very first pages of the novel, Bakha is in search of his own identity within the very structure of a society that has consciously eliminated the possibility of him having one. The dilemma within Bakha is stroked repeatedly throughout the text. Bakha certainly has trouble accepting the identity allotted to him by birth. Therefore, he reacts to the contradictions in society although silently other than telling about his frustration to his friends, Chota and Ram Charan after the ‘touching’ episode in town. He also shares the same incident with his father who, though sympathetic, reminds Bakha that they are outcastes so they should be more cautious when they go out in public so that higher caste people do not get polluted. When his son shows his anger at their status as an outcaste, Lakha also suggests him not to be rebellious because there are some good higher caste Hindus just like the bad ones. Bakha, however, cannot acknowledge his father’s acceptance to their outcaste status.
From the very first pages of the novel, Bakha is in search of his own identity within the very structure of a society that has consciously eliminated the possibility of him having one. The dilemma within Bakha is stroked repeatedly throughout the text. Bakha certainly has trouble accepting the identity allotted to him by birth. Therefore, he reacts to the contradictions in society although silently other than telling about his frustration to his friends, Chota and Ram Charan after the ‘touching’ episode in town. He also shares the same incident with his father who, though sympathetic, reminds Bakha that they are outcastes so they should be more cautious when they go out in public so that higher caste people do not get polluted. When his son shows his anger at their status as an outcaste, Lakha also suggests him not to be rebellious because there are some good higher caste Hindus just like the bad ones. Bakha, however, cannot acknowledge his father’s acceptance to their outcaste status.
Even if Bakha is a “dexterous workman” (Anand 8) and quite intelligent young man who maintains worthy work ethics, he is
confined by caste to his ‘uncongenial’ profession. Passersby often wondered at
his skill saying he is, "a bit superior to his job, not the kind of man
who ought to be doing this [cleaning toilets]" (Anand 8). Despite Bakha's skill and work ethics, he has no
chance of moving up in his life through the social ladder. He is forever
imprisoned, by birth, just like his father and his ancestors, to his murky,
demeaning profession. Therefore, he becomes frustrated and, within his quixotic
world, he wants to become like an Englishman, and through this fantasy he wants
to elevate himself to a human being, not a sweeper boy.
Bakha’s intentions
to emulate the British officers are all though external signs of the
imperialists, mostly dresses and solar hats, buttons etc. The minute details
regarding his prized possessions are mostly British-standard worn-out clothes,
boots and puttees, either begged from the Tommies or as endowment from an
Indian sepoy; and he also bought “the jacket, the overcoat, the blanket he
slept under” [page 4] from the rag-seller’s shop with the bakhsish he received
from the British barracks.
“The
clear-cut European dress had impressed his naive mind. The stark simplicity had
furrowed his old Indian consciousness and cut deep new lines where all the
considerations which made India
The above
depiction clearly shows his obsessions regarding the fashun of colonial rulers.
He has an obsession to
be like the Tommies so that he could bypass all the social hierarchy and be
supreme, in his dreamlike world, over the others, which is otherwise impossible
for him even in his wildest dreams. He thinks that "the Tommies had
treated him as a human being and he had learnt to think of himself as superior
to his fellow-outcasts" (Anand 3). He
attempts to adopt the fashun of the British officers, and has become
"possessed with an overwhelming desire to live their life" (Anand
3). He naively hypothesizes that the mere
adoption of external signs of a sahib will earn him respect and supremacy. He
progresses through his day wearing the breeches of one of the Tommies, but this
accession of identity fails to materialize any desired outcome. Instead, Bakha
looks weird, a mere amusement for others, including his father, to hurl their
petty jokes and insults at him. Bakha's desire to copy the Tommies has
far-reaching importance because "[he] can preserve his identity only to
the extent that he can be conscious of his superiority". However,
Bakha's awareness of superiority is quickly dispelled when
he comes to realize that "except for the English clothing there was
nothing English in his life" (Anand 4). The novel offers a few incidents which help Bakha
map the growth of his self-consciousness as well as status as a person within
the Hindu caste system. These incidents make Bakha confused of his position in
the societal and cultural context in a cruel but straight-forward manner. He
stumbles upon to realize that his status as a part of the society is
hierarchically denied by the caste Hindus and colonizers alike. All these
incidents make him utterly frustrated, and traumatise him psychologically.
The novel begins early in the dawn when Lakha asks
his elder son to wake up from bed, calling him “you son of a pig” to attend the
latrines or the sepoys will be angry. “That was the beginning of his father’s
subsequent early-morning calls, which he had begun at first to resist with a
casual deafness, and which he now ignored irritatedly” (Anand 5). His father always abused him by calling names like
‘son of a swine’ and ‘you illegally begotten’. Lakha was “really good and kind
at heart, but who knew he was weak and infirm and so bullied his children, to
preserve his authority, lest he should be repudiated by them, refused and
rejected as the difficult old rubbish he was” (Anand 23). Likewise, other members of the society, both
higher and lower in caste, maintained such bullying attitude to Bakha due to
their own hypocrisies and unwillingness to carryout the ‘menial’ job of
cleaning their latrines or keeping their surroundings clean. The higher caste
Hindus are hypocrites because they want to remain clean but they do not allow
the sweepers to be clean. Out of generosity or in return of the services they
receive from the lower castes, the upper caste Hindus do not dig up any well
for the lower castes to collect water whereas they perform purification
services by water for themselves; but access to water, for the outcastes, is
all dependent on the pity and generosity of the higher castes. When Bakha is
caught by a priest to peep inside the temple to see the deity, the pundit says
he needs to purify the place with water before any other services can be
progressed. As the lower caste rely
solely on the caste wells, to be drawn by some kind-hearted upper caste Hindu,
so that their authority over the lower ones can be enforced, washermen,
leather-workers, sweepers and other low caste Hindus always have scarcity of
water. The lower castes are not allowed to use the nearby brook too because, if
they touch that water, the channel would be defiled for the top three castes of
Hindus. Therefore, most outcastes, oppressed in this way, could never bath or
wash their clothes to remain clean as the superior Hindus did.
Another way of suppressing the outcastes was denial
of their educational rights. Only the sons of higher caste Hindu went to
schools. Bakha shows his interest to be educated so that he is able to talk
with the sahibs, and therefore, by doing so, he believes, he would rise above his
caste. However, he has no chance for education as outcastes were not allowed in
schools because "the parents of the other children would not allow their
sons to be contaminated by the touch of the low-caste man's son" (Anand
30). Bakha's interest to be educated
like the sahibs was strong and he offered to pay a higher caste boy to teach
him to read. Though Bakha did not have much money due to his poverty and
non-payment for their jobs as sweepers, his offer to pay was indicative of his
desire for education. Education was denied to people like him, and through
education Bakha hoped to distance himself from the disgrace of his lowly caste
background.
Bakha’s
experiences, within his mere 18 years of existence, are totally different than
any other closer to his age or profile; and it had shaped his persona in a way
that is complex yet innocent and ever-inquisitive. His uneducated mind often
asks questions that should have been answered way before Hindu society
separated its populace according to their birth and profession. He often wanted
to study in schools just like caste Hindu boys.
“...but
he dreamed of becoming a sahib. Several times he had felt the impulse to study
on his own. Life at the Tommies barracks fired his imagination. And he often
sat in his spare time and tried to feel how it felt to read. Recently he had
actually gone and bought a first primer of English....” (Anand 31)
The above incidents points out to the hypocrisies of the higher caste
Hindus who are making outcastes do menial jobs to serve themselves but were
unwilling to pay or serve them in return. Bakha could only endure the
psychological trauma out of his inactions because the mental pressures are part
of his tortured self since his early life and he somehow
questions what his father
thinks about their fate. Lakha “had never...renounced his deep rooted sense of
inferiority and the docile acceptance of the laws of fate” (Anand 74). Bakha
could not do much to protest during the touching scene due to the bar the
society strictly maintained for hereditary subjection to the higher caste
Hindus.
Another horrible experience of the day is the insult
of his sister Sohini. Pandit Kalinath attempts to molest her in the temple yard
after he asked her to come to clean the temple premises instead of her father.
Oddly, the priest shouts he’s defiled by Sohini’s touch so that he could escape
the allegation of molesting the young girl. This is another example of the
hypocrisy of the other castes in their attitudes towards the untouchables. The
higher castes view them as ‘polluted’ and make them do all the impure labour,
still they are not unwilling to have sexual relations with them. Apparently,
the idea of impurity is only there when it suits the higher castes’ desires.
Hearing the story from her, Bakha is wild with anger. He felt he could kill
them all; he was rising like a tiger at bay, but in the highest moment of his
strength, the “slave in him arrested itself” (Anand 56). The plight of Bakha is he had been subjected to
the humiliations and abuses as structured by the Hindu social order, and even
after understanding the situations, he fails to take any action against caste
Hindus.
Later, he does not feel like collecting the charity
bread thrown into the gutter by a higher caste woman. The way she throws the
bread shows the social and cultural attitude towards the untouchables for
generations. Just because he fell asleep in the stairs of a higher caste’s
house, the woman cries out that he has defiled the place just as the temple
priest said. When Bakha helps a wounded boy from a hockey game that went
unruly, the child’s mother abuses him saying he polluted the child instead of
thanking Bakha for saving her boy from further wounds.
During
his childhood, Bakha wished to be a washerman as he was fascinated with the
trade. When he expressed that intention to his friend Ram Charan, his friend
said, rather reluctantly, “though he (Ram Charan) touched him and played with
him, he was a Hindu while Bakha was a mere sweeper” (Anand 80). Bakha felt a
chilling insult from this comment and wished to slap his comrade for saying
that. However, later he realized his friend was very right in his words. He
told to himself “But now he now knew that there were degrees of castes among
the low-caste, and that he was of the lowest” (Anand 80). This realization of
Bakha was more a social and cultural learning than an emotional or
psychological one. He was forced to submit to this understanding as the
cultural and social milieu shaped no other picture for his future.
Since early morning, Bakha has to endure a lot of
sufferings that psychologically make him weak and frustrated. When he buys a
cigarette and Jelabis, the shopkeeper does not receive the coin directly from
him rather the shopkeeper asks him to put the money on a shelf, and later
sprinkle water to purify it. This incident provides the realities Bakha has to
endure throughout the day. His first experience in the town is a shattering
experience to him. He accidentally touches a caste Hindu, forgetting to call
the warning words ‘posh, posh, sweeper coming’ because he was too absorbed in
watching the sceneries about the town. The ‘polluted’ Brahmin threatens him and
publicly humiliates him by slapping him in the face. “Bakha’s turban fell off
and the jelabis in the paper bag in his hand were scattered in the dust” (Anand
41) just as the sweeper lad was
crushed down to the harsh realities of the social injustice against his caste.
The insult hurled at him made Bakha ashamed of his self and infuriated him at
the same time. He reacts to the event with anger: "the
strength, the power of his giant body glistened with the desire for revenge in
his eyes, while horror, rage, indignation swept over his frame. In a moment he
lost all his humility, and he would have lost his temper too" (Anand
42), if it were not for the disappearance of the
man who struck him. He is depicted as having a "smoldering rage within his
soul," (Anand 42) and then resorts to self
questioning: "why was I so humble? I could have struck him" (Anand
43). At the end of the incident, he is shocked to realize his ‘menial’ identity
within the society and fumes in his anger “for them, I am a sweeper,
Untouchable, that is the word. I am an untouchable” (Anand 43). This ignominy brings out the disgrace associated
with his birth. Moreover, he recalls that the sentry inspector and the sahib
abused his father too.
All these incidents show how the whole society, from
the ruling Britsh inspectors to the lower castes, rejects the very existence of
the untouchables in a cruel manner where Bakha does not have any status as a
human being instead he is always considered as an outcaste. It also exposes
Bakha to a position where he continuously feels secluded from the mainstream of
the society and he often dreams to be a part of the society that accepts him as
a ‘respected’ person.
Now, the
colonizers dress codes and ways of life mesmerized Bakha ever since he went to
work at the British barracks with his uncle. He, later, peeped “longingly” at
the rag-seller’s shop in the town to see the “scarlet and khaki uniforms
discarded or pawned by the Tommies, pith solar topees, peak caps, knives,
forks, buttons, old books and other oddments of Anglo-Indian life” (Anand
3). It was not
an overenthusiastic gaze only rather “he had hungered for the touch of them” (Anand
3) as well. He
knew he could not buy them all yet his cravings for such items always stayed
high until meeting Mrs Hutchison. ‘I will look like a sahib,’ he had secretly
told himself. “And I will walk like them. Just as they do, in twos” (Anand
3). Bakha’s
overwhelming intentions to imitate the British earned him the “Pilpali sahib”
nickname from his friends Chota and Ram Charan. However, Chota, leather-worker’s
son, and Ram Charan, washerman’s son—seem to mimic the ‘fashun’ of colonizers
too, either by parting their hairs like the Englishmen in one side or wearing
shorts during hockey matches and smoking cigarettes like ‘them’. Bakha also
knew that his friends “knew that he was a devotee of ‘fashun’, a weakness they
shared with him and yet for which they ridiculed him” (Anand 26). On the way to
the town, Bakha was attracted to the woollen clothes “so glossy and nice! so
expensive looking!” (Anand 36). No other clothes caught his eyes that much
because “That was the kind of cloths of which sahib suits were made” (Anand
36)—the highest symbol of colonial clothing to his young eyes.
Later, at the barrack, when Bakha
goes to receive the gift from Charat Singh—the hockey stick, he is reminded of
the supreme authority in colonial India
“The consciousness of every child was full of a
desire to wear Western dress, and since most of the boys about the place were
the sons of babus, bandsman, sepoys, sweepers, washermen and shopkeepers, all
too poor to afford the luxury of a complete European outfit, they eagerly
stretched their hands to seize any particular article they could see anywhere,
feeling that the possession of something European was better than the
possession of nothing European. A hat with its curious distinction of shape and
form, with the peculiar quality of honour that it presents to the Indian eye
because it adorns the noblest part of the body, had a fascination such as no
other item of European dress prssessed.” (Anand 92)
Therefore, whenever Bakha had the chance to work at the barracks, he
regularly chose the quarter-guard side so that he could “steal glances at the
object he coveted, and plan various devices to win it” (Anand 92). He even had planned several schemes to steal the
headgear but never dared to do it just like the sepoys, havildars and others of
the community at large. It shows what purpose the hat served for everyone
alike—from the sepoys, havildars down to the outcastes and even the little
children—the supreme sign of colonial power that halted everyone to take the
hat and wear it or destroy it.
He
also imitated the Englishmen in sipping the tea without blowing “on the tea to
cool it” (Anand 24) whereas his uncle and father did so which seems to Bakha as
“natu habits” (Anand 24). To him, “the sahibs didn’t do that” (Anand 24) was
more important than slightly burning his tongue. He even had managed to have a
“broken cane chair, the only article of furniture of European design which he
had been able to acquire in pursuance of his ambition to live like an
Englishman” (Anand 14). Furthermore, Bakha and his friends smoked because they
thought smoking Red Lamp cigarettes made them look like the rich people and the
sahibs smoked too. After his sojourn at the barracks with his uncle, Bakha
detested his identity as a sweeper and his childlike imaginations became
obsessed with the English ways of life:
“The
vagaries of Bakha’s naive tastes can be both explained and excused. He didn’t
like his home, his street, his town, because he had been to work at the Tommies
barracks, and obtained glimpses of another world, strange and beautiful; he had
grown out of his native shoes into the ammunition boots that he had secured as
a gift. And with this strange and exotic items of dress he had built up a new
world, which was commendable, if for nothing else, because it represented a
change from the old ossified order and the stagnating conventions of the life
to which he was born.” (Anand 69)
It proves
that as Bakha’s plight is never ending due to lowly birth; and as the Tommies
treated him a little better than his own folk, he wants to associate himself
with their ways of life. Before meeting Charat Singh’s generosity, he has never
experienced any good behaviour from the Hindus so when the havildar allows him
to do some petty jobs for him and gifts the lad a hockey stick, Bakha feels
honoured that his lot witnessed never before.
Charat Singh’s request to supply the celebrated
hockey player with coals for lighting his hookah made Bakha feel uplifted a bit
as a Hindu man allowed him to touch his smoking pot without thinking his touch
would defile it. As Charat Singh pours him the tea, Bakha feels honoured and as
well as humbled—“a second he seemed to have dwarfed himself to the littlest
little being on earth” (Anand 99). After his benefactor gifted him the hockey stick, Bakha was “grateful,
grateful, haltingly grateful, falteringly grateful, stumblingly grateful, so
grateful that he didn’t know how he could walk the ten yards to the corner to
be out of the sight of his benevolence and generous host” (Anand
100). The sweeper lad is so overjoyed
because he had never seen any other caste Hindu behaving in such polite and
decent manner to an untouchable in his life before. In contrast, when Colonel
Hutchison forcibly walks him towards the church to convert him to Christianity,
Bakha feels rather lost at the thought of changing to a religion that fails to
understand the problems of his identity crisis. Though he “felt honoured that a
sahib had deigned to talk Hindustani to him” (Anand 113), Bakha does not understand why “are we all
sinners?” (Anand 120)—as
Christianity says and all his obsessions towards becoming a sahib was erased
when Mrs Hutchison was angry at the colonel for bringing Bakha to their house.
He also heard her say the words ‘bhangis and chamars’ which gave him the
impression that she was angered mainly due to his status as a sweeper.
Later when he recalled the incident, he was more
troubled than the touching incident in the morning at the bazaar. He thought:
“…the few words she had uttered carried a dread a
hundred times more terrible than the fear inspired by the whole tirade of abuse
by the touched man. It was probably that the episode of the morning was a
matter of history, removed in time and space from the more recent scene, also,
perhaps, because the anger of a white person mattered more. The mem-sahib was
more important to his slavish mind than the man who was touched, he being one
of his many brown countrymen. To displease the mem-sahib was to him a crime for
which no punishment was bad enough. And he thought he had got off comparatively
lightly. He dared not think unkind thoughts about her. So he unconsciously
transferred his protest against her anger to the sum of his reactions against
the insulting personages of the morning.” (Anand
124-125)
This incident changes his attitude towards the ruling white people.
Conversion to Christianity does not give him any solution to his untouchable
status as he learns, through Mrs Hutchinson, the white people’s attitude would
not change with adopting their religion. Later, he comes
to believe that the religion of his father is in no way inferior to
Christianity. Thus replacing one faith with another will not solve the problem
of untouchablity but will only further complicate the matter.
As Anand proposes, Bakha has three alternatives for fighting the social evil. First alternative is to change his religious faith. Christian missionary Colonel Hutchinson explains that Christianity does not make a distinction between the rich and the poor and even there is no outcastes in that belief. Bakha finds no difference in practice between a Christian and a Hindu woman. Secondly, seeing Gandhi, Bakha sides himself with the rest of humanity. He is impressed by Gandhi’s principles and practice, but he becomes sceptical when the Mahatma advised the harijans to purify their lives and take pride in clearing the Hindu society. He also hates the idea when Mahatma blames the untouchables for drinking and gambling. Obviously, Bakha does not understand Gandhi’s complex thinking. According to Andrew M. Stracuzzi, “Yet there is an inherent dichotomy in Gandhi's rhetoric because the existing system does not allow for the untouchables to become purified primarily because their fundamental existence is rooted in the profession of filth.” (Stracuzzi 13) It is just as Bakha says to his father, "they think we are mere dirt because we clean their dirt" (Anand 70). Lastly, Iqbal Nath Sharshar, Muslim poet and thinker strongly recommend the introduction of the flush system. He says: “when the sweepers change their professions, they will no longer remain untouchables” (Anand 146). His argument is that caste is governed by profession and when the sweepers change their profession, they will not be treated as untouchables. Bakha sees the practical values of the poet’s suggestion. However, all these solutions prove to be inadequate primarily because these fail to remove the option for untouchables to take action against their own oppression. Bakha does not find a plausible solution to his distresses. He emerges with a better understanding of social dynamics but the ‘slave’ image repeatedly drawn about his character never seem to disappear.
As Anand proposes, Bakha has three alternatives for fighting the social evil. First alternative is to change his religious faith. Christian missionary Colonel Hutchinson explains that Christianity does not make a distinction between the rich and the poor and even there is no outcastes in that belief. Bakha finds no difference in practice between a Christian and a Hindu woman. Secondly, seeing Gandhi, Bakha sides himself with the rest of humanity. He is impressed by Gandhi’s principles and practice, but he becomes sceptical when the Mahatma advised the harijans to purify their lives and take pride in clearing the Hindu society. He also hates the idea when Mahatma blames the untouchables for drinking and gambling. Obviously, Bakha does not understand Gandhi’s complex thinking. According to Andrew M. Stracuzzi, “Yet there is an inherent dichotomy in Gandhi's rhetoric because the existing system does not allow for the untouchables to become purified primarily because their fundamental existence is rooted in the profession of filth.” (Stracuzzi 13) It is just as Bakha says to his father, "they think we are mere dirt because we clean their dirt" (Anand 70). Lastly, Iqbal Nath Sharshar, Muslim poet and thinker strongly recommend the introduction of the flush system. He says: “when the sweepers change their professions, they will no longer remain untouchables” (Anand 146). His argument is that caste is governed by profession and when the sweepers change their profession, they will not be treated as untouchables. Bakha sees the practical values of the poet’s suggestion. However, all these solutions prove to be inadequate primarily because these fail to remove the option for untouchables to take action against their own oppression. Bakha does not find a plausible solution to his distresses. He emerges with a better understanding of social dynamics but the ‘slave’ image repeatedly drawn about his character never seem to disappear.
British
dress codes served as a hierarchical supremacy over the Indians, and Bakha
fancied to be like a sahib, wearing their left-out or cheap dresses and using
their worn-out furniture, and even sleeping with a thin blanket, only to soothe
the harsh realities of his status as a sweeper boy under oppression from both
colonial rulers as well as higher caste Hindus. Throughout most part of the
novelette, readers find him “caught by the glamour of ‘white man’s life’”,
fancying about being a sahib like the Tommies who “had treated him as human
being and he had learned to think of himself as superior to his
fellow-outcastes”. Such treatment from the Tommies actually further alienated
Bakha from other outcastes closer to his rank and file because he had seen the
manners and means of highest order of the imperial rulers as well as other
castes of Hindus. Ashcroft quotes Bhabha as he studies "the process
by which the colonized subject is reproduced as ‘almost the same, but not
quite’"(Ashcroft 140). Bakha shows this as he at once mimics, but does not
achieve, the effect of the clothing as worn by the Dogra and Sikh sepoys. As
Ashcroft et al observe, mimicry can result in a ‘blurred copy’ of the colonizer
(Thanuvalingam 13-15).
The
worst part is that prejudice, feelings of inferiority and superiority, are
immersed and shared by all Hindus, including the untouchables. This is evident
by Bakha's choices of the British clothes he wears, a sign of his own status,
exceedingly trying to distinguish himself from his peers, and always wanting to
copy the British Tommies. The Tommy way of life becomes an image of his desire.
Bhakha, as a boy is alternating between two worlds of suffocating reality where
there is no solid gratification or inner resolution gained by the
obstacles he is faced with during his day. He
is not treated as a human being throughout the novel, except on a few
occasions, so he visualizes a society which will not separate people in the
name of caste, creed nationality, or race after his overt-obsession for the
imperial life fails to meet the realities. But he cannot measure how that idea
of inequality can be materialized so he remains puzzled at the end of the
novel.
Works
Cited:
1. Anand, Mulk Raj. Untouchable. New Delhi : Penguin
Books India
2. Ashcroft, Bill et al. Post Colonial Studies:
The Key Concepts. London
3.
Stracuzzi, Andrew M.
The Indelible Problem: Mulk Raj Anand and the Plight of Untouchability. Web.
14 Nov. 2011. <http://www.postcolonialweb.org/india/anand/stracuzzi1.html>.
4.
Bhabha, Homi K. “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse.” The Location of Culture. London and New
York
References:
1. Agarwal, B.R. “Subaltern Concern in the Novels of Mulk Raj
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