Anand’s Untouchable

Objectives

1. Distinguish between caste, ethnicity, race, and religion.

2. Describe class/caste conflict using theories of decolonization.
3. Situate Anand’s Untouchable in its specific historical context.
4. Distinguish between Anand’s critique of colonialism and that of
Orwell and Durrell.

Reading Assignment

Anand, Mulk Raj. Untouchable. Penguin, 1990.

Morgensen, Scott Lauria. “Destabilizing the Settler Academy.” American

Quarterly, v. 64, no. 4, 2012, pp. 805–808.

Commentary

Please read the assigned readings first and then come to the Study
Guide, reading the section “Consciousness” once you reach the mid-
point of the novel and the section “Fashun”& Material History once
you have finished the novel. If you find Anand challenging, then read
across the Study Guide first and return to the primary text. Please read
the materials first and then turn to the “lectures,” but again, if you
need to, use the lectures to help you read across the primary texts. This
would not be unusual.

Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004)

Anand was born in Peshawar during the British Raj in what is

Pakistan today. He attended Khalsa College in Amritsar where he
became in-volved in non-violent resistance against British rule.
Based on his aca-demic performance when he graduated from the
Punjab University in 1924, he was given a scholarship to study in
Britain at University Col-lege London and then completed his PhD
at Cambridge University in Philosophy in 1929. For our context, his
doctoral dissertation was on the British philosophers John Locke,
George Berkeley, David Hume, and

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Bertrand Russell in relation to the British Miners’ Strike. Of these phi-
losophers, only Russell was alive at the time, and Anand moved in
the same social circle as Russell, which we call “Bloomsbury” after the
Lon-don neighborhood in which many of the “Bloomsbury set” lived.
As a brief example, for literary culture, the Bloomsbury set includes
E.M. For-ster (who wrote a Preface for Untouchable), Virginia Woolf,
and T.S. El-iot. Their social life (in particular Woolf’s) would include
close friend-ships with the likes of Russell, John Maynard Keynes (the
economist and a director of the Bank of England whose theories became
Keynesian Eco-nomics), and Lady Ottoline Morrell. This means that
Anand moved among the intellectual elite of British society, while
during his returns to India he would meet with Jawaharlal Nehru,
who would become the first Prime Minister of India, and Mahatma
Gandhi. However, he was also somewhat outside of these circles and
frequented the Fitzroy Tav-ern in Fitzrovia, a less “posh”
neighborhood. This was the same tavern frequented by both Durrell
and Orwell, both of whom Anand knew well. Anand’s Untouchable
and Durrell’s Pied Piper of Lovers were both published in 1935, both
books being about India and their author’s first novel.
The context of Anand’s doctoral dissertation is important. He
wrote on labor strikes using the philosophical work of Russell, which
carried a socially progressive perspective. He also relied on the same
materialist paradigms that inspired Albert Memmi’s critical work thirty
years later. We see the caste system in India depicted and understood,
therefore, in a way that makes particular sense through social class. Just
as Memmi understood racism in relation to class conflict and economic
forces, Anand was predisposed from his studies to think about caste (hi-
erarchical status, called “varna,” as well as tribe tied to employment,
called “jati”) through social class and class conflict. That is, Anand used
the same conflict-based theory of history as Memmi did.
Anand also met the English actress Kathleen Gelder in 1932.
They did not marry until 1939, but her Communism and activism
influenced his thoughts while writing Untouchable. This means that the
struggle of the Dalit caste (the titular Untouchables who are born into a
hereditary role as “sweepers,” meaning latrine or toilet emptiers and
cleaners) is presented in the novel in a manner much akin to a Marxist
understand-ing of class conflict. The novel was also written during the
conflicts be-tween Gandhi (Bania caste, or merchants) and B. R.
Ambedkar (Dalit, or untouchable) leading to the “Poona Pact” in 1932,
which also influences the novel’s work.
Untouchable was followed the next year by his novel Coolie (1936),
which carried similar themes. He also participated in the end of
the Spanish Civil War in 1939, volunteering for the Republicans (leftists)
but
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primarily doing journalistic work as the Nationalists (monarchists and
fascists) won the war. He and Gelder had a daughter in 1942 in London,
during World War II. Anand travelled between Britain and India until
1946, at which point he returned to India and made it his primary resi-
dence, just prior to Indian Independence in 1947. He and Gelder di-
vorced in 1948, and his major literary works after this point revolved
around his five-volume autobiography.

Consciousness
Notice how elements of self-consciousness are based on the material
conditions in which a character or figure finds himself or herself. For
example, in Memmi, the colonizer comes to think of himself as colonizer
because of the material experience of living as a European in a colony.
That is, the mental habits of thought are not intrinsic to the person or
self but rather are manifestations of the economic position he inhabits in
his society. We see the same issue for Bakha’s experience as a Dalit or
Untouchable in Anand’s novel. This is not an intrinsic part of his con-
sciousness. It is a product of his social position, yet it determines how
his mind and thoughts work.
This is based on a key element of Karl Marx’s social theory. We
find it implicit in his early activist writings like The Communist Manifesto
as well as his more theoretical analyses of social conflict such as Capital.
For example, in The Communist Manifesto, Marx asks

Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s

ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man’s con-
sciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of
his material existence, in his social relations and in his so-
cial life? (Marx, Communist 21)

The clearest articulation, however, is in his Preface to his more practical

work A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. For Marx,

The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once

reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can
be summarised as follows. In the social production of their
existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations,
which are independent of their will, namely relations of
production appropriate to a given stage in the develop-
ment of their material forces of production. The totality of
these relations of production constitutes the economic
structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a
legal and political superstructure and to which

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 correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The
mode of production of material life conditions the general
process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their existence, but
their social existence that determines their consciousness.
(Marx, “Preface” 107)

In context, “superstructure” here refers to the material composition of

society, such as its economic resources, the “means of production” (an-
ything from tools through to roadways or seaports, etc.). This is distinct
for Marx from “infrastructure,” which is ideological, such as courts, uni-
versities, and the belief systems of the people living in the society. The
crux, in this statement, is that those material and economic conditions
determine all ideology and consciousness.
This the moment of class consciousness, or the moment in which
a person recognizes the material conditions that have given rise to a
form of thought or that determine thought. Naturally, this is an uncom-
fortable moment, and the urge (according to Marx) is for a person who
benefits from this structure to prefer returning to a condition of uncon-
sciousness. When there is no direct economic or material pressure to
change, the consciousness itself reverts to its “determined” form. In con-
trast, for the colonized or for the exploited classes, this moment of self-
recognition is driven by the experience of exploitation and hence the ex-
perience of class-consciousness may drive an attempt at social change,
such as revolution or decolonization.
As you read through Anand, notice these moments of (and the
language of) consciousness and unconsciousness. Also recognize that in
Anand’s Bloomsbury set, the works of Sigmund Freud were widely
dis-cussed: Lytton Strachey’s brother was translating Freud’s work and
Vir-ginia and Leonard Woolf were publishing them. Anand is very
close to people who would have used this language in a very specific
way. We see Bakha daydreaming and unconscious as well as in
moments of self-recognition. These would have signaled a very
specific interpretive par-adigm for Anand’s readers in Bloomsbury.
For example, we see in Bakha the same patterns of consciousness
as Memmi describes in the colonized. After his experiences of inclusion,
even an exploitative sense of recognition creates in him not a resentment
at being exploited but rather loyalty:

Charat Sing’s generous promise had called forth that trait

of servility in Bakha which he had inherited from his fore-
fathers, the weakness of the down-trodden, the helpless-
ness of the poor and indigent, suddenly receiving help....

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 A soft smile lingered on his lips, the smile of a slave over-
joyed at the condescension of his master, more akin to
pride than to happiness. (Anand 17)

Likewise, the language of the “unconscious” appears around his reli-

gious experiences (60) and words such as “yawn” and “unconsciously”
occur around his experiences of being a sweeper who does not recognize
his position as debilitating and exploitative (66). This is in contrast to
Bakha’s occasional recognition that the tools of his oppression are pri-
marily ideological or psychological, such as groups that are “defiled” by
touching him but that bully him by not allowing him to pass (48) – the
reality that Bakha recognizes, momentarily, is that he is bigger and
stronger, and that they would suffer the consequences of touching him,
not the other way around (48). Of course, he immediately forgets this.
This leads to a culminating moment of self-consciousness for
Bakha in which the conflict created by his oppression coincides with his
consciousness of being oppressed. Unlike the colonizer, this moment
has a radical potential to drive to revolutionary change. Amidst his
dreaming of “becoming a sahib” in conflict with his “hereditary life” as
a sweeper (52), Bakha has his recognition:

Like a ray of light shooting through the darkness, the

recognition of his position, the significance of his lot
dawned upon him. It illuminated the inner chambers of
his mind. Everything that had happened to him traced its
course up to this light and got the answer.... It was all ex-
plicable now.... ‘I am an Untouchable!’ he said to himself,
‘an Untouchable!’... Then, aware of his position, he began
to shout... (Anand 52)

This shout does not actually lead Bakha into a revolutionary struggle for
freedom, but it is an indication for the reader of how to approach this
conflict. It also suggests how me approach the closing of the novel fol-
lowing on Bakha’s discovery of Gandhi’s non-violent resistance in the
satyagraha movement.

“Fashun” & Material History

A complication in Anand’s novel comes from the relationship between

the caste system and British imperialism. As we see in Bakha, the pri-
mary oppressors in his direct experience are his fellow Indians. While
we, the readers, may have a very different perspective, Bakha experi-
ences the British “Tommies” as a part of the community that is outside

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of the caste system and that therefore does not see him as untouchable.
This is deeply problematic since the struggle for Dalit rights was nego-
tiated during the writing of the novel between the British, Ambedkar,
and Gandhi, so British colonialism was directly a part of Bakha’s expe-
riences, even if it appears distant from his perspective in the novel.
Again, in a Marxist context, we could refer to this loosely as “false con-
sciousness.” As with the preceding discussion of consciousness in
Anand and Memmi, this concept relates to material conditions of op-
pression and the forms of thought these conditions give rise to. Specifi-
cally, it is the forms of thought that are amenable or helpful to a system
of oppression – for Bakha this is his feeling of inferiority and his admi-
ration for those who oppress him. As with Memmi, we might look to
examples in colonialism, such as how a colonized people might feel in-
ferior or might look to the colonizer with admiration and desire.
An example of the importance of British colonialism comes in
Bakha’s admiration for British “fashun” or clothing. This is a politicized
example in the novel, when we put it in its historical context. Textiles
(fabrics) have long been a classic case study for theories of colonialism
and exploitation. Marx and Rosa Luxemburg both rely on textile indus-
tries to give examples of colonial exploitation. Where this appears in
Untouchable is the production of cotton and indigo (an important fabric
dye) in India, which was then shipped to Britain (in particular Lanca-
shire) for textile production. Britain banned the import of fabric from
India, so India was only able to export raw materials for production in
British factories. The machinery for the industrial production of textiles
was also kept in Britain rather than in the colonies. Unsurprisingly, in-
digo was the origin of one of the first decolonization revolutions in In-
dia, and Gandhi used Indian-produced fabric as a key point of non-vio-
lent resistance against British rule. In the paradigm of false conscious-
ness, “good fabric” would mean British fabric, and good fashion would
be British rather than Indian, connoting higher social rank or station. In
this way, British rule was economically reinforced by the economic con-
sumption of British products by the colonized themselves.
For Bakha, this means that by aligning himself to British values
and fashions, he symbolically feels as if he has greater freedom, even
though we as readers see this as cementing his role as the colonized. It
also does nothing to actually resist the conditions of the caste system. It
is purely symbolic with regard to his benefits, but it is economically real
with regard to his condition as a colonized person. Notice, for example,
how we as readers briefly inhabit Bakha’s consciousness (even though
we are supposed to understand things that he cannot yet understand):

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 He felt amused as an Englishman might be amused, to see
a Hindu loosen his dhoti to pour some water first over his
navel and then down his back in a flurry of ecstatic hymn-
singing. And he watched with contemptuous displeasure
the indecent behaviour of a Mohammedan walking about
with his hands buried deep in his trousers. (19)

While Bakha is socially inferior to both of these people, by virtue of his

English “fashun,” he feels himself to be momentarily superior to them.
It is as if by consuming British goods and adopting British habits (while
abandoning his own culture), he hopes to become British himself, and
thereby the colonizer looking down on those within his own society
who dominate him. This is, of course, not going to happen for Bakha,
but by elevating British culture and consuming British products, he so-
lidifies British colonial rule. We should also note the inappropriate slur
“Mohammedan,” which the British might use but that Bakha himself
would not normally adopt.
Another simple example of this cultural transformation appears
in the tea ritual. Britain adopted tea from India and China, but we see
Bakha abandoning his own indigenous habits of tea drinking in order
to adopt those of the British.

His tongue was slightly burnt with the small sips because
he did not, as his father did, blow on the tea to cool it. This
was another of the things he had learnt at the British bar-
racks from the Tommies. His uncle had said that the goras
didn’t enjoy the full flavour of the tea because they did not
blow on it. But Bakha considered that both his uncle’s and
his father’s spattering spits were natu habits. (32)

In this very short scene, Bakha not only replaces his own authentic tea
drinking with the habits of a colonizer who had borrowed the ritual of
drinking tea, he also enjoys his tea less by doing so. Bakha burns his
tongue by attempting to emulate the British habits, so his elevation of
all things British leads directly to his diminished pleasure. His uncle, by
criticizing the British way of drinking tea as incorrect or less enjoyable,
is then criticized by Bakha in a way that makes him feel superior but
leaves him with a burnt tongue and small, less flavorful sips of tea. This
scene symbolically stands in for Indian consumption of British culture
and products in general, and most specifically textiles.
Gandhi’s Swaraj movement included the Swadeshi policy to boy-
cott British fabrics and rely on the Khadi movement that would have
decentralized, charkha (hand-held spindle) woven fabrics produced

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locally in India. This was a key element of the non-violent resistance
against British rule. Indian and British readers alike would recognize the
importance of textiles to this struggle, so the role of “fashun” and cloth-
ing in the novel would have been immediately obvious to them when
the book was first published – the relationship between the British Raj
and fabrics would be as obvious and natural to them as the relationship
between the Iraq War and oil is to people today. However, by relying
on British habits and products in order to feel good about himself (this
being a direct consequence of his subjugation in the caste system), Bakha
directly subverts Gandhi’s independence movement. Anand cannot say
this explicitly in the novel, lest it become a lecture rather than a story,
but it is a clear point.
We as readers, if we adopt this historical context, then notice how
closely Bakha’s mistreatment by his fellow Indians relates to his abject
glorification of all things British, and likewise how closely this is con-
nected to the problems of consciousness:

[Bakha] drifted in his unconscious happiness towards the

cloth shop where a big-bellied lalla (Hindu gentleman),
clad in an immaculately white loose muslin shirt, and loin-
cloth was busy writing in curious hieroglyphics on a scroll
book bound in ochre-coloured canvas, which his assistants
unrolled bundles of Manchester cloth one after another....
That was the kind of cloth of which the sahibs’ suits were
made; the other cloth that he had seen before the yokels he
could imagine turning soon into tunics... All that was be-
neath his notice. But the woollen cloth, so glossy and nice!
so expensive looking!... He remembered that he had prom-
ised to pay the babu’s son for the English lesson. (44–45)

In this scene, we would do well to notice how the Hindu shopkeeper is

dressed in locally produced and locally styled clothing, even though he
sells British goods to other (his economic interests lead him to subvert
Indian independence), while at the same time Bakha can feel superior to
his Indian oppressor by admiring the British wool cloth. Of course,
wearing wool in Bakha’s climate would be challenging, but by admiring
the British fabric he looks on those who shun him as “yokels” and im-
mediately is reminded of his English lessons. That Bakha invests his
scant income on English lessons, shows how his pursuit of Englishness
is actually part of what keeps him subjugated. Likewise, this passage
opens with the keyword “unconscious.” The unthinking happiness
brought on by his unawareness of his domination is precisely what
leads Bakha to the textiles shop and his direct support for British rule

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and subversion of Indian independence, both of which are contrary to
his own best interests.

Morgensen & the Settler University

Morgensen’s argument take a similar approach to discussion of indige-

nous identities within settler-colonial academies (universities). The
problem in this is knowledge itself, how we come to know things, and
just as importantly what things we come to not know. The styles of
knowledge and the operations of power (with knowledge as one of
power’s principle products) is the key to Moregensen’s argument in this
article. While it is somewhat distinct from Anand’s approach in Un-
touchable, you may also ask how Anand’s imposition of Marxist (Euro-
centric) critical ideas on an essentially Indian caste problem can itself be
seen as a product of his educational background at English institutions,
both in India and in England. Said slightly differently, is Anand’s Marx-
ist approach to his own Indian culture itself an instance of Orientalism?
Morgensen will ask us to question the nature of our own studies in set-
tler-colonial universities of North America, including our potential re-
luctance to identify as settler-colonials.

Questions for Self-Review

1. Why would Anand’s novel, written during colonial rule, be im-

portant to postcolonial literature?
2. In what ways do you engage in thoughts or consumerism today
that could be comparable to Bakha’s “fashun”?
3. What example can you think of today that works like conscious-
ness in Anand’s novel?
4. How might Edward Said read Anand differently than we have in
the Study Guide?

Works Cited & Supplemental Reading

Anand, Mulk Raj. Untouchable. Penguin, 1990.

Bald, Suresht Renjen. “Politics of a Revolutionary Elite: A Study of

Mulk Raj Anand’s Novels.” Modern Asian Studies, v. 8, no. 4, pp.
473–489, 1974.

Berman, Jessica. “Comparative Colonialisms: Joyce, Anand, and the

Question of Engagement.” Modernist Commitments: Ethics,

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 Politics, and Transnational Modernism. Columbia UP, 2011, pp.
90–135.

Blair, Sara. “Local Modernity, Global Modernism: Bloomsbury and the

Places of the Literary.” English Literary History, v. 71, no. 3, pp.
813–838, 2004.

Gajarawala, Toral Jatin. Untouchable Fictions: Literary Realism and the

Crisis of Caste. U Virginia P, 2012.

Gopal, Priyamvada. The Indian English Novel: Nation, History, and Narra-
tion. Oxford UP, 2009.

Sales-Pontes, Alzira Hilda. Dr Mulk Raj Anand: A Critical Biography.

1985. Loughborough U, PhD dissertation. Loughborough Re-
pository, https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/10854

Author: James Gifford

Editor: Lucie Kotesovska

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