Social Resistance in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable

Abstract

Mulk Raj Anand was a revolutionary writer of the twentieth century India who changed the mode of writing and thinking in the field of Indian fiction writing. The novelists before him, who had written fiction, wrote the fictional side of life which were ideal and romantic in nature. There were a smaller number of issues of the society. Mulk Raj Anand’s writing brought revolutionary change in the field of fiction writing. He wrote the novels for the sake of untouchables and the poor. He raised the issues of casteism, capitalism, feudalism, colonialism and imperialism through his novels. In Untouchable, he has attacked one of the worst social evils of the Indian society which was ignored by the previous writers and that is blot on Indian society, culture and tradition that has colonized eighty five percent people of Indian society. This sensibility has ruined creativity of Indian people. Casteism and untouchability are the blots on the face of humanity. Anand seems fighting for the liberty, equality and justice of the untouchables and the poor. He appealed for the basic human rights and needs in the newly emerging civil structure of colonial and post-independence India. He had the opinion among all the fundamental rights that human dignity is the highest. Bakha, the leading character, had the resistance in the mind but he could not express it due to the fear of his caste. Bakha is a metaphor for all the untouchables of India.