Mulkraj Anand - Coolie

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Mulk Raj Anand is one of the big three of Indian English fiction along
with R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao. Anand is the most famous creative
writer in Indian English fiction. The novelist Anand is similar to Dickens,
Hardy, Tolstoy, Munshi Premchand and Chinua Achebe, who have on a
large scale concentrated on the problems of their respective societies.

Anand is also a short story writer and art critic writing in English. Anand
was among those who gave Hindustani idioms to English. In his works,
Anand showed a real-life representation of the poor of India which
arouses our pity. Anand and R.K. Narayan were among the earliest
Indian writers to become internationally famous.

The face of the novel writing in English was changed by Anand. Anand
is likely the first Indian novelist writing in English who depicted the real
troubled lives of the suppressed Indians. In the novels of Anand, we can
see that he points out to the readers the living conditions of people like a
sweeper, a coolie, a peasant, etc. who suffered exploitation, conditions
of poverty and bad actions. Anand included the lives of the unlucky ones
in his works. His great sympathy and intensity of narration produced
exceptional vigour in his novels as in the novels of Marxim Gorki.

Anand is a dedicated writer. According to him, literature is for the benefit

of people, for purifying them, and stirring up feelings of human welfare in
them. He tried to produce pity in people for the sufferers.

Mulk Raj Anand was born on 12th December, 1905 in Peshawar,

Pakistan. Anand

at an nearly time onwards protested against his father’s subordination to

the British authorities. He attended Khalsa College, Amristar. He
completed graduation with honours in 1924. In England, he studied at
University College London and Cambridge University. In 1929, he
received Ph.D. Anand studied at League of Nations School of
Intellectual Cooperation in Geneva. He also lectured at this place later.
Through the early 1930s he worked as a lecture, a broadcaster at the
British Broadcasting Corporation, and contributed to T.S. Eliot’s journal
named Criterion. His friends there included the likes of George Orwell
and Henry Miller. He was inspired by the literary products of Marxim
Gorky and James Joyce. He was also strongly motivated by the writings
of Karl Marx and was a member of communist party. He was outraged
by the civil war in Spain (1936) and joined the fight for the republican
cause.

Anand became involved in the literary field by a tragedy in the family.

Anand’s first prose essay was a reaction to an aunt’s suicide. This lady
had been excommunicated for dining with a Muslim woman.

Anand spent his time pursuing literary career in England and with
Mahatma Gandhi in the freedom struggle. After 1945, he returned
permanently to India. Gandhiji influenced him and that had a great effect
in his life and his writing. He founded a magazine called Marg. He held
the position of the director of Kutub publishers. He taught at Indian
Universities for eighteen years from 1948. From 1965 to 1970, Anand
was the fine arts chairman at Lalit Kala Academy (National Academy of
Arts). He became the President of Lokayuta Trust after he made a
community and cultural centre in the village of Hauz Khas, New Delhi.

In the works of Anand, we can hear the moving wail of suppressed

people of India. He gave voice to those were denied their basic rights to
live. He wrote about India before the independence in 1930s. He
reproduced the conditions of the times, that is, he was able to reinvent
the social, moral and political conditions that existed then. His stories
present a realistic and sympathetic portrait of the poor in India. Anand
was the first novelist in India to make an untouchable, the hero of a
novel. Anand’s works are based on the poorest of the poor in India,
whom he had come to know about. The
works Untouchable, Coolie and Two Leaves and a Bud depicts the plight
or sad state of the suppressed men of India.

Untouchable is Anand’s first novel. It was written in 1935.It is his most

compact as well as artistically satisfying work. All his other novels are
longer than Untouchable. This short novel narrates a day in the life of
eighteen year old Bakha, who is treated very miserably by all Hindus on
account of his profession which is to clean latrines. The place is the town
of Bulashah. Untouchable is a marvellous work of art that shows the
bare inhuman realities of life. The many things that occurred to the victim
Bakha in the novel could have happened somewhere. Perhaps, it is still
going on.

Coolie is Anand’s second novel. It came out in 1936. It is the story of a

child labourer Munoo. The orphan boy Munoo runs to avoid every place
of cruelty in search

of happiness and everywhere he is suppressed. He is aged fifteen and

he does various jobs at Daulatpur, Bombay and Simla. He dies of
tuberculosis in the end because of poverty. In Coolie, Anand brings out
his favourite themes of the varied nature of man, the power of money
and brutual suppression. It gave wide recognition to Anand.

Munoo is exploited greatly in one way or another, by one person or

another. Munoo universally symbolizes the suffering of the oppressed
and those taken advantage of. According to the novelist, there is a need
for reestablishment of kindness. Anand not only makes a hero out of the
boy but also gifts him with self-esteem. Suppression takes major role
in Coolie to show how pathetic the lives of the Indian people are under
the suppressive forces.

Coolie has been called an epic of misery. It is the epic of modern India.

The main theme is the suppression of the poor by the forces of
colonialism, capitalism and sex. This theme is deeply studied with
references to Munoo and others, who are prevented from enjoying their
fundamental rights to live with happiness on earth.

Coolie is different from Untouchable in that the author gives a wider

canvas through the lives of coolies. Coolie has many themes and ideas
that make it a masterpiece.

Munoo, the central character of Coolie, is exploited all the time in one
way or the other and his future is typical of the future of millions whose
only common feature is patient suffering. The novelist brings into
prominence the requirement of reestablishment of kindness in the world
lost in capitalism and colonialism. Munoo is a person with lot of
problems. He creates pity in our minds but no fear. Here, Anand does
not romanticize the

character but renders the societal forces of catastrophe, that is,

capitalism and colonialism, as they are found taking place in existing
society.

If Untouchable is the microcosm, Coolie is the macrocosm of Indian

society.

Coolie is really a cross-section of India – the visible India that contains

the horrible and

the holy, the inhuman and the human, the sordid and the beautiful.

Two Leaves and a Bud is a dramatic novel and its title is appropriate. It
came out in 1937. This novel holds a special position among his novels.
It is about the suffering and exploitation that takes place in the lives of
workers on Assam tea-plantations. In the novel, we see a poor Punjabi
peasant Gangu who suffers in a tea-plantation and is killed by a British
official who attempts to destroy the chastity his daughter. Anand also
portrays other coolies under the clutches of suppression.
Like Munoo, Gangu has zest for life and this leads him to leave his
village for a tea estate in Assam. This is in the hope of making money
and land for cultivation as assured by a person called Buta. Gangu is
accompanied by Sajani (his wife) and children, Leila and Buddhu. Buta
traps Gangu and his family with his sweet words. Despite the advance of
civilization, the tea estate is a terrible place. It is a hell within a hell.
Gangu receives only low wages and lives in unhealthy conditions. This
makes him to suffer an attack of malaria, but, he recovers. His wife
comes down with fever and dies.

Munoo and Gangu’s life symbolizes tragedy responsible for their agony.
The title of one of the works is not ‘The Coolie’ or ‘A Coolie’ but ‘Coolie’
encircling all coolies who are treated badly and their providence.

The works Village which came out in 1939, Across the Black

waters which came

out in 1940 and The Sword and the Sickle that came out in 1942 were
strong protests against social injustices. These three works are based on
different phases of Lal Singh’s life. In these three works, the author
shows the career of Lal Singh over the years before the First World War
to the Post-war era in India. The Village is a true picture of a typical

Punjabi village, and shows the adolescent Lal Singh rebelling against
the narrow superstitions of the villagers—he goes so far as to cut his
hair, which a Sikh normally won’t do. Across the Black Waters shows Lal
as a soldier fighting in the trenches of Flanders in World War I; his
contact with the French makes him realize that the white races too are
human, and not demigods like the British in India. The Sword and the
Sickle shows Lal engaged in revolutionary activities in India after eloping
with the village landlord's daughter; it is not as well written as the earlier
two volumes.
The Big Heart came out in 1945. It recreates some features
of Untouchable such as intensity and compactness. The novel describes
a single day’s events in Ananta’s life who is a coppersmith. He is called
‘big heart’ because of his kind nature.

The work Seven Summers that was published in 1951 is a semi-

autobiographical work based on Anand’s childhood. It covers the early
seven years of the hero’s life.

In The Private Life of an Indian Prince ,we find the fall of kingship in

India and the suffering of the Indian princes. Victor is one of the six
hundred rulers. He had all the bad features of royalty and becomes
insane and enters an asylum. The work was first printed in 1953.

The Old Woman and the Cow depicts the hardships and revolutionary

transformation of a character named Gauri. The Old Woman and the

Cow was brought out in the year 1960.The Road came out in 1963. The
Death of a Hero is based on the life

of a Kashmiri freedom fighter. Morning Face (1968) is about the life of

Krishna Chander Azad till the age of fifteen. Morning
Face and Confession of a Lover (1976) continue progression of Anand’s
autobiography. The Bubble appeared in 1984. Anand published

over six volumes of short stories. His fiction defends the value of living
and highlights the condition of the marginalized men.

Anand has written about seventy short stories. His short story collections
include: The Lost Child and Other Stories(1934), The Tractor and the
Corn Goddess, and Other Stories(1947), Reflections on the Golden Bud
and Other Stories(1953), The Power of Darkness and Other
Stories(1959), Lajwanti and Other Stories(1966) and Between Tears and
Laughter(1973). He retold old Indian tales in two collections: Indian Fairy
Tales (1946) and More Indian Fairy Tales (1961).

The awards he won include the following: Leverhulme fellowship, 1940-

42; World Peace Council prize, 1952; Padma Bhushan, India, 1968;
Akademi prize, for Morning Face, 1970; Sahitya Academy award, 1974;
Birla award.

The concept of life as journey is dominant in Anand’s novels. The

realistic demonstration of life as well as the ugly, unpleasant and
immoral realm of life can be noticed in his novels. Anand is a humanist.
He is a fine storyteller and he can bring out a story which makes the
readers excited and convinced.

CHAPTER II

SUPPRESSION AND HUMANISM

Suppression takes many forms to enter into the poor people’s lives and
create problems for them. The main types of suppression are capitalistic,
colonial and sexual. Suppressing one person for another’s existence is a
curse on humanity. Every society has this menace.
Anand’s Coolie and Two Leaves and a Bud, presents to us the horrifying
state of victims, who are suppressed till their death.

Coolie and Two Leaves and a Bud, display Anand as a unique

representative of the weak. Their cry, pain and suffering are portrayed
with heartfelt sympathy. Anand presents a representation of Indians
through the realistic depiction of the oppressed people of India. Several
people across the world are suppressed for the pleasure and well-being
of others. A lot of people in India are suppressed in a lot of ways.

In Coolie, Anand presents Munoo, an eleven year old boy who is

innocent and energetic. Through his saga of suppression, Anand shows
the decline and upturn in the life of Munoo. Munoo’s uncle and aunt
consider him as a machine for obtaining money. Munoo willingly
receives his role as a slave and agrees to go to town with his uncle. His
pain and powerlessness can be seen through these lines:

‘My aunt wants me to begin earning money,’ said Munoo. ‘And she says
she wants a son of her own. My uncle says I am grown up and must
fend for myself. He has got me a job in the house of the Babu of the
bank where he works in Shampur.’(Coolie 2) Being an orphan he should
look after him. Daya Ram and Gujri behave as agents who

lead the boy to suppression. At fourteen, Munoo is forced to work in the

house of Babu Nathoo Ram,a worker in Imperial Bank in Sham Nagar.
Munoo’s romantic views are destroyed by the wife of Babu Nathoo Ram.
This lady is not good-natured and always abuses and curses him without
any reason. Anand’s Munoo is denied happiness. Munoo is humiliated
for relieving outside the wall and abuse is showered on him. Munoo
suffers physical and mental torture and this shows suppression in the
form of child labour. Even at the tender age of fourteen, he is not
provided with the basic necessities. One day, when the boy protested
against Daya Ram, he was rewarded with thrashes. The boy’s wail
shows his poor condition: ‘Oh, don’t beat me, please don’t beat me,
uncle,’ cried Munoo. ‘I only want food.’(Coolie 47)

Munoo has meagre expectations in life. His face is swollen and tear-
washed and this shows his utter submission to suppression. In another
place called Daulatpur, we again see suppression. Munoo gets in a train
that goes to Daulatpur. During the journey Munoo meets Prabha Dayal,
who is very kind to Munoo because he is childless and treats him as his
own son.

Prabha Dayal is completely unlike his partner Ganpat. While Prabha

Dayal and his wife behave well to Munoo, Ganpat ill-treats Munoo.
Prabha gained his present status by his effort to overcome difficulties.
Prabha Dayal is ruined by the exploitation of his partner Ganpat. Ganpat
was the son of a rich man who lost all his wealth and was helped by
Prabha. But Ganpat cheated Prabha and made him without money by
not letting Prabha the money that was obtained. After the bankruptcy of
Prabha Dayal, Munoo and Tulsi try to get a job in the grain market. The
unhygienic condition of the market clearly 10 shows the dishonest and
profit-loving mind of the ruling class. In the grain market, Anand shows
the true picture of the oppressed people. A watchman shouts at Munoo
and Tulsi: ‘Go away, away from the precincts of this shop. Lalla Tota
Ram does not allow any coolies to lie about near here. There is a cash
box in this shop.’(Coolie 118) Here, Anand shows suppression in its
severe form. Lalla Tota Ram is a representative through which Anand
shows the suppressing nature of merchants. The hardships of coolies
who lie in the gutters trying to get a wink of sleep after the hard labour of
the day are portrayed by the author. In the market, there is cut-throat
competition among the coolies and so Munoo and Tulsi try their best to
succeed. The coolies rush madly in the direction of the shop and this
shows their state of poverty and helplessness. They struggle to fill their
empty stomachs. The coolies get only low wages. The author gives
authentic picture of the oppressed. Anand reveals:

For there were swarms of coolies about. And, urged by the fear of
having to go without food, driven by the fear of hunger gnawing in
their bellies, they rushed frantically at the shops, pushing, pulling,
struggling to shove each other out of the way, till the merchants’ staves
had knocked a hill man’s teeth out or bled the sores on a Kashmiri’s
head. Then they would fall back, defeated, afraid for their lives and
resigned to the workings of fate, which might single them out for the
coveted prize of an anna job. It was not that the strongest of them were
chosen and the weaker had to go to the wall. The caprice of any
merchant boy decided their lot, or the shrewdness of the Lalla who could
make them accept less wages for more

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work. (Coolie 126)

In Two Leaves and a Bud also Anand presents the saga of suppression,

mainly through Gangu. Men are suppressed and ill-treated in
plantations. Gangu is a middle-aged peasant. He and the members of
his family become the sufferers of suppression. They were cheated by
tempting words of Buta. They thought that they would become rich. They
later realized that the plantation itself is a prison without bars. Their
dreams are shattered and like Gangu’s family many men, women, and
children get suppressed by the ruling class.

Gangu and his family went to a market expecting low price for their
goods. The low wages and capitalistic suppression forced them to
bargain for their food items. Gangu’s expectations were shattered. Seth
mocked Gangu. Their conversation reveals suppression undertaken in
the society.

Man has urge to live happily in the novel, but he is suppressed to the
core by the merchants. There is class conscience and suppression. Seth
Dhanu Mal is a typical of the suppressing class. Seth Dhanu Mal shows
the true nature of them in his talk. He is a person who wants to make
money and charges more. He never thought of the condition of a man
like Gangu. Anand brings into prominence the agents of suppression
who made other’s life miserable.

The term humanism has several meanings. This is due to the fact that
authors and speakers do not make clear the meaning they intend. There
are various kinds of humanism – literary humanism, renaissance
humanism, cultural humanism, philosophical humanism, Christian
humanism, etc. Humanism is a philosophy for those who think of

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themselves among others. A humanist is capable of challenging and

exploring any area of thought. It is a philosophy of reason and science
that is in search of knowledge.

Humanism is a philosophy that is realistic and for those in love with

life. Humanists take the responsibility for their lives and enjoy the
adventure of being part of fresh discoveries searching new knowledge
and exploring new options.

Humanists look at the world by giving importance to human beings--their

nature and place in the universe. Humanism means love of man with all
his weaknesses, instincts and impulses. Human desires, values and
dignity are given great importance. Humanism indicates commitment to
the considerations of mankind. It is an attitude that focuses on the
pursuit of humans more than the supernatural world, the world of nature
or the so called animal kingdom. There have been several types of
humanism that can be categorized as religious and non-religious. But, all
the humanists agree that people are the centers of their study. Every
person has importance and worth and should be respected by every
other person(s). Humanism has its roots in ancient Greece and Rome.
Even though humanism had its roots in the life and thought of ancient
Greece and Rome, it flourished as a historical movement in Europe from
the 1300s to the 1500s. Its approach to the study of humanity formed the
intellectual core of the cultural reawakening called Renaissance. Even
today, the humanistic attitude towards life has not come to an end.

The thrilling rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman led to the

beginning of humanistic movement in the early Renaissance. These
classics were models of literary style. They were also helpful in
understanding life. This was dissimilar to the opinion of many medieval
scholars, who said that earthly life should be lived in a way that would be

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helpful in getting a place in heaven.

Humanists were against their attitude of sinful nature of humanity. This

new way of looking at life during the revival of learning began in the
country of Italy and extended to France, Germany, Netherlands and
England. At its height in the 1500s, humanism was an international
fellowship of scholars.

A lot of modern western culture results from humanistic achievements.

Humanism still influences the arts, education and governments. Most of
the early humanists were religious. Later, the humanists urged a more
robust recognition of the realities of human nature. The literature of the
humanists is realistic, critical and usually humorous. Erasmus, a Dutch
humanist who was brilliant was a priest and he attempted to find
similarity in Greek philosophy and Christian thought. The Price of Folly is
his great work. This work is witty. It is a satiric criticism of kings and
churchmen and also recognition of general human error.

Historically, humanism is a Renaissance doctrine, which emphasis the

essential worth, dignity and the greatness of man as compared to an
earlier attitude that humans are not good, are worthless and destined to
destruction both in this life and in that to come. Anand’s humanism
makes him use his arts for serving humanity.

Anand favoured humanism. This can be seen in his expressions. Anand

was influenced by both eastern and western thought. Anand stated that
he ignored all types of system and categories of philosophy that are part
of western humanism.

Anand is a great humanist. His emphasis on man’s greatness regardless

of

caste, creed and wealth, his appeal for the practice of compassion as a
living value, his

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idea of the whole man, the great importance he attaches to art and
poetry as instrument for developing whole men, his crusade against
superstition, feudalism and imperialism are a few of the main features of
Anand’s humanism. A true humanist, Anand refuses to accept God, fate,
religion, past and future. He is not against the supremacy of man. Anand
admires man. He opines that man is the maker and breaker of worlds.
This admiring attitude of Anand does not restrain him to man’s
weakness. He does take knowledge/awareness of man’s greed, lust,
selfishness, cruelty and uncertainity. He really respects man. He loves
man. He trusts in man’s ability to live a life full of dignity. Anand says that
humans are capable of finding solution to their troubles with the aid of
imagination, reason and advancements of science. For Anand, the
highest reality in the world is ‘the whole man’ and not God and the
supernatural.

Because of the reason that man is wholly responsible for his destiny,
Anand does not believe in fatalism, a concept that adversely affected the
Indian masses for a very long time. Fatalism decreases man’s faith in
oneself and proceeding inconspicuously and harmfully tries to make him
become passively rely on unseen and non-existent forces. So fatalism is
truly not a humanistic idea. Anand says that caste system is a heinous
crime and a severely affects the concept of the dignity of man.
Therefore, casteism should be stopped.

Anand’s humanism declares the fact that pain and cruelty are two other
serious maladies of the universe. With the help from the progressing
science and technology, and

practicing love and compassion for the downtrodden, misery and

sadness can be lessened or even removed. To Anand, humanism is a
great tool for social development. He says

15

that getting rid of pain should be the paramount importance for people
everywhere. One should believe in the virtue of brotherhood of men and
must be practiced by everyone without falsity.

The philosophy of Anand is extremely against fascism, feudalism,

imperialism, and tendencies which obstruct man’s efforts to get freedom.
These forces separate people into groups and classes, which is why it
should be deliberately avoided. There should be democracy, socialism
and nations must be in harmony with each other. Everyone should have
social, economic, political, intellectual and emotional freedom without
destroying another’s freedom. Nationalism sometimes produces war and
no one who knows about the horrifying events resulting from the use of
modern weapons would want a war. Anand says that art and science are
useful together and both should strive to make man happier and good.
All people should have freedom as well as equality. There should not be
wars for mankind to live on. Religion is something that should be left for
the individual to decide.

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CHAPTER III

COLONIAL SUPPRESSION IN COOLIE AND TWO LEAVES AND A

BUD

Colonialism means oppression, humiliation and suppression of people of

the colonized regions. The British formed and controlled the largest
empire in history for a fairly long period. India also formed part of the
empire. They came for trade and established their empire in our land.

Suppression in India began in the early stage in the form of trade.

Afterwards it engulfed the society wholly. The white man had a feeling of
racial superiority and this also was a main reason for capturing India and
making it their colony. They damaged seriously the indigenous culture
and heritage. For them, the orient people were a mass of barbarians and
called their rule as ‘civilizing mission’ and suppressed people to the core
and made their lives a hell. Under the British rule, India lost its cultural
heritage and honour. The colonizers forced rules on the native people
and forced them to do work requiring great effort. Less pay made them
poor.

COLONIAL SUPPRESSION IN COOLIE

In Coolie, Anand shows the state of coolies on a big scale. The author
proves these suppressing monopolies are the cause of the wretched
lives of coolies. The colonizers always harmed the coolies in order to
secure the position of colonial traders. Anand gradually puts in his
novels the bad condition of the coolies. Anand writes:

The bodies of numberless coolies lay strewn in tattered garbs. Some

were
 curled up into knots, others lay face downwards on folded arms,
others

were flat on their chests, pillowing their heads on their bundles or boxes,

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others crouched into corners talking, others still huddled together at the

doorsteps of closed shops, or lay on the boards in a sleep which looked

like death, but that it as broken by deep sighs.(Coolie 162)

Munoo, the protagonist of Coolie, with a character Hari joins a big cotton
mill. Jimmie Thomas, the white foreman is like devil and the cotton mill is
a hell for the coolies.

Colonizers not only suppressed men and women but also their children.
Jimmie Thomas is an example of one of the colonizers who utilized the
Indian workers like anything. He harassed the poor natives like Hari. The
wicked colonizers squashed the lives of men to amass wealth. Without
shame, he demands eatables for Mem Sahib. He makes Hari to borrow
ten rupees from him for his present needs. The method of these wicked
men was tricky; they knew the needs and conditions of people and
suppressed them till they faced death. Jimmie Thomas in
Anand’s Coolie says:

‘And now I suppose you have no money. Well, I will advance you ten

rupees at four annas in the rupee, which sum I will add to the regular

monthly commission you give to me. Agreed? I will go and fetch the

money.’ (Coolie 174)

Hari was asked to live in a cottage that was not enough even for
animals. Hari had to pay commission to the white man.
The whistle sound of the factory heard before dawn gave them no time
to sleep or to have food. Through Munoo, the author Anand, clearly
explains the labour rules of the

whites and the poor treatment there. The poor Indian labourers were to
work without rest

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from dawn to dusk.

The colonizers ruined the lives of people under their rule. Jimmie
Thomas made the people work very hard. Hari became panic-stricken as
he had to take his boy to the doctor and at the same time was expected
to work also. Here, is a person who is in dilemma.

The colonizers troubled the people under their rule both mentally and
physically. The trouble-makers gradually led people to death. The heart-
breaking condition of women and children in the spinning-shed shows
the brutal treatment of the British.

Hari’s family represents millions of toiling coolies in India who are ill-
treated and insufficiently nourished till the end. The colonizers saw the
unlucky Indians just as animals. The colonizers never cared for the
safety of the Indians.

COLONIAL SUPPRESSION IN TWO LEAVES AND A BUD

In Two Leaves and a Bud, Anand presents the lives of coolies under the
control of the colonizers. The author shows the hardness of the rules
which made the lives of the victims a terrible experience. The victims
had only few dreams in their lives and even these few expectations did
not happen. Labour rules were imposed on the coolies without any
human consideration.

Coolies in the Macpherson Tea Estate suffered due to the unhealthy

living conditions and undernourished food. Every year, cholera took
away many lives mainly due to lack of water supply. The white owners
did not improve the living conditions of coolies. A section of the novel
says:

The whole bloody thing was fantastic in its futility. Such as a simple

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scheme he had devised. The water supply was at fault. It was the main

source from which the disease spread. And it was criminal not to do

anything about it. (Two Leaves and a Bud 18)

The white owner Croft-Cooke is not ready to take any action to improve
the living conditions of coolies. Croft-Cooke is a hard-hearted business
man. John De La Havre, a white man is a humanitarian. He is a
physician and unlike other whites, he always stands for the rights of
coolies. He is insulted by his fellow white man. Croft-Cooke considers
the coolies as objects to be shot dead.

The cruel whites considered that it is the ‘white man’s burden’ to civilize
the people of the east and white men exploited the coolies in the name
of civilization.

The coolies were never allowed to leave the plantation which was a
prison within a prison. The coolies are overworked till they spat blood.
The workers are made to work under harsh rules to make profit. The
unsympathetic nature of the colonizers is shown in the novel. Malaria
breaks out. Sajani dies. Plantation life is set to change from bad to
worse.

The government of India also helped the colonialists to implement their

rule, and they were permitted to imprison or kill the coolies. The novelist
with heartfelt sympathy shows his pain:

The famine-stricken peasantry from various parts of India was recruited

to
supplement indigenous labour and the Government of India helped the

trade by giving the planters the power to imprison or kill any coolie who

broke this contract. (Two Leaves and a Bud 98)

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The author shows Gangu in a state of agony. He is penniless to cremate

his dead wife, Sajani’s body.

Anand brings out the dark side of the plantation labour. Coolie and Two

Leaves and a Bud show colonization with all its vices. Anand portrays
the pain of the coolies, the unlucky ones.

21

CHAPTER 4

CAPITALISTIC SUPPRESSION IN TWO LEAVES AND A

BUD AND COOLIE

The basis of capitalism are private ownership of property (capital goods);

property and capital create income for those who own the property or
capital; individuals and firms openly compete with one another, with
each seeking its own economic gain (so that competition determines
prices, production, and distribution of goods); and participants in the
system are profit-driven (in other words, earning a profit is the main
goal). Capitalism is the antithesis of socialism, a theory by which
government owns most, if not all, of a nation's capital.

CAPITALISTIC SUPPRESSION

The disadvantaged world-wide are exploited by the capitalists. Their

poverty is because of the presence of capitalism in the world.

Anand discovers that the society of the present times is divided and
further divided into different classes sections of people and these are
mainly the haves and have-nots. The rich exploit the poor in several
ways since they are meek, fatalists and at the same time satisfied with
their living conditions. They are not in a position to speak aloud angrily.
Their life is a hell. The obstacles created on people in the name of things
like caste, creed and religion is to protect the advanced lives of the rich
of society.

CAPITALISTIC SUPPRESSION IN COOLIE

The rural village of Kangra is not free from capitalistic suppression.

Munoo has a horrible fate even from his early days as a child. Munoo is
led to the path of suppression and endless suffering. Anand shows
capitalistic suppression as it is.

22

Anand shows the mortal fate of the victims under the treachery of
landlords. A landlord gained for himself his father’s five acres of land as
his male parent could not return the landlord’s money on account of bad
harvests. The landlords showed them no mercy and left them destitute
and his father passed away due to utter bitterness and disappointment.
His mother was the next target of capitalistic suppression. She worked a
lot to look after the family.

With love for wealth, the capitalist suppressers are hard-hearted and
behave cruelly. They treat the coolies by using bad words.

CAPITALISTIC SUPPRESSION IN TWO LEAVES AND A BUD

In Two Leaves and a Bud, Anand describes the poor condition of

Gangu. The disadvantages of capitalism are experienced in the non-
urban village of Hoshiarpur in the most profound manner. The villain
came in the form of Seth Badri Dass. Gangu’s joint family owned three
acres of land. As per a law of the British government, the debt created
by one member of the family will be imposed on the other. In accordance
with the rule, the debt created by a brother of Gangu lost him three acres
and his hut. Seth Badri Dass came to own this property.
Like Munoo, Gangu is a sufferer of the cruel behaviour of the landlords.
The law and force do not work for the sufferers but only for the British.

Coolie and Two Leaves and a Bud reveal the true nature of capitalism.

By any method, it takes away the properties of men and leaves them to
destruction.

28

CHAPTER 6

HUMANISM IN UNTOUCHABLE AND COOLIE

Through Untouchable, Anand shows the sufferings and worries inflicted

on the untouchables and outcastes through Bakha, a poor sweeper boy.
Bakha says: “They think we are mere dirt because we clean their dirt”
(Untouchable 39). Here, we see Anand’s knowledge of the grim realities
of India’s social life.

Anand speaks of Bakha. The latter is extremely sensitive and his

aspiration includes a decent life with good education. He desires to be
treated as a human being. Even though he has good qualities, he has to
suffer insult. The rudeness of the high caste priest, the cruelness of the
crowd delighting in his humiliation and also the rejection of his good act
of saving the injured boy have told him that he is not of the society
though he is in it. Bakha realizes that he is surrounded by a barrier which
is not a physical barrier but a moral one. He realizes that it is not
possible to “overstep the barriers which the conventions of his superiors
had built up to protect their weakness against him.”(Untouchable 75)

He is unable to share his views with his father who “was as good as
dead, a putrefying corpse like that of a stray dog or cat on the rubbish
heap” (96). He finds that there is no way out. He wished that he was
dead.

Untouchable shows his belief in the statement ‘man is the measure of all

things.’ Man can solve the problem of misery and sadness in the society
with the help of science and technology and by showing love and
compassion for the weak and the low. However, in Bakha’s case,
basically, man is the cause of his problems and sufferings.

Anand says that it is a heinous practice to observe casteism. This is

portrayed in the novel realistically. The novel is about the wrongness and
oppression to which a large section of the Hindu society is subjected by
another group which is blessed with higher status. In the novel, we see
the life of the untouchables who became the sufferers of social
injustices. The novel is not just the story of one person Bakha, but
through him, it presents an enormous problem of Hindu society. This
untouchable Bakha is almost a dispossessed man. He lives in poverty.

Anand is a true humanist, and he rejects fate or God. Anand opines that
the basic reason for Bakha’s sad state is nothing but the cruel activities
of mankind. Bakha was considered an inferior by the higher caste. They
did not have a brotherly affection towards him. He was treated as an
untouchable. The many humiliations Bakha experiences wihin a day of
his life speak of his life as one of blighted hopes and despair.

Anand improves Bakha’s religious status when Bakha faces Colonel

Hutchinson, the main person of the Salvation Army. The colonel’s
portrait is really an eminent satire on Christian missionary activity. The
readers are chanced to get a glimpse of his sensation-loving wife
shouting at her spouse and making fun of his missionary work. Bakha
does not yield to the missionary’s manoeuvres.

As a humanist, he is sure that man’s problem can be answered by

universal brotherhood, love and pitiable feeling. Unlike the Hindus of
high caste, there are also good persons like Havildar Singh, who shows
great love and consideration for him. The Tommies also treats him like a
human being unlike the caste Hindu to whom he is untouchable.

29

Bakha’s world is not fit for his wants and therefore, he longs for another
world. Anand tries to identify the kinds of likely answers to religious
conversion, rapid industrialization and the Gandhian way. Bakha likes
only the idea of cleanliness and equality that can be attributed to
Hutchinson’s religion and feels flattered by Gandhi’s sympathy. It is only
the poet Iqbal Nath Sarshar’s solution--the flush system that captures
Bakha’s attention. Anand appears to believe that the rapid growth of
industries only could create secular situation and introduces flush
system as a desired image of the change. He is not happy with
Hutchinson’s religious idea of getting equal status by conversion. In a
similar way, he is skeptical of the gradual regeneration of the traditional
Hindu society in the Gandhian way. For Bakha, hope lies in machines.
“Perhaps, I can find the poet on the way and ask him about the
machine.”(Untouchable 178)

In Untouchable, Anand creates a character who is seeking his own

identity in the world around him which has for ages suppressed persons
of his kind. It is a degrading ill of the society which people like
philosophers, poets and reformers have fought over a span of one
thousand years. Anand’s heroes always live and cope up with the
present and struggle for the future.

The best fictional treatment of Anand’s humanism can be seen in his

second novel Coolie besides his first novel Untouchable.

Coolie is a novel about the lowest class showing the tragic situation of
millions of coolies who are without land and has run away from hunger
and starvation. It is because of their poor condition that they become
coolies and labourers and fall prey to forces of oppression in society.
Afterwards they die somewhere in a corner, unknown and unwept.

31

Coolie is the narrative of life and death of a coolie, Munoo, in a time

span of two years. Anand is a reformer of the society besides being a
realist. So, he preaches for the welfare of the many like Munoo. His
tragedy is Anand’s passionate appeal for change. Humanism is Anand’s
solution to this menace. This is expressed through typical situations and
characters.

Coolie shows his belief in the essential dignity of man whether he

belongs to the group of the rich or the group of the poor. In this novel,
Anand chooses a poor boy, Munoo, as the hero, and he dominates this
novel from the beginning to the end. To Anand, the pain and suffering
form universal brotherhood, love, etc. Through Coolie, Anand expresses
his belief in man’s dignity whether he is rich or poor. Munoo’s life is full of
sufferings and in the beginning of the novel itself we can see how his
aunt Gujri ill-treats him. Anand writes:

‘Munoo ohe Munooa!’ she called again, exasperated and raising her

voice, this time, to the highest pitch to which, in her anger and hate, she

could carry it: ‘Where have you died? Where have you gone, you
ominous

orphan? Come back and begone!’ The piercing soprano resounded

through

the valley and fell on Munoo’s ears with the dreadening effect of all its

bitter content.(Coolie 1)

If his aunt Gujri and Uttam Kaur had not ill-treated him, his tragedy would
have been avoided. In the novel, Munoo meets cruel and bad characters
besides good characters like Prabha Dayal and his wife in Daulatpur,
Chota Babu in Sham Nagar and Ratan in Bombay. Here is an example
of the goodness of Prabha Dayal. When Munoo

32

first met Dayal, the latter ignoring his partner Ganesh’s advice, patted
Munoo on his back and said: ‘Come, come now, be a brave lad. Wipe
your eyes. We will take care of you. Look, we are almost nearing
Daulatpur!’ (Coolie 64)
Anand’s philosophy of humanism rejected fatalism and gave importance
to man and his ability. Anand opines that Munoo suffers because of
society and not because of fate. Munoo meets his tragic end because
the society leads him to it.

Unlike Bakha in Untouchable, Munoo belongs to high caste. Society did

not consider him as a human being because of his poor living conditions.
Social forces of capitalism and industrialism are more powerful than
stray individuals. Munoo has no economic freedom or prosperity and he
is victimized. His hunger and poverty makes him yield himself to be
oppressed.

In Coolie, Anand refuses to accept the idea of karma. As per the Indian
belief, one gets rebirth on the basis of his/her karma. The people with
special benefits are important than those without those benefits because
of this. Munoo has important aims about life. But, he is treated just like
an animal used for heavy work. Anand says the only solution to this
problem is humanism—a creed of love.

The increasing indebtedness and unemployment forces Munoo to go to

town in search of work. In the Daulatpur market, he is astonished to see
the wild competition in there. The feeling of insecurity and uncertainity of
employment makes Munoo to come to Bombay. Even here, the situation
is not different.

. Munoo’s tragic story is shown to be all over the world and the human
element in

men of lower birth is introduced by revealing their essential dignity and

innocence.

33

Coolie is a novel of social protest. Anand’s anger with which he

described Munoo’s pitiable situation is a direct expression of love of
man, a basic principle of his humanism. Through Coolie, he behaves like
a proletarian humanist.
 34

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION

Anand has a philosophical view of the world. He also has a poetic

vision of life.

As a social realist and a critic, he is against every unjust act. He speaks

for the unlucky people. He openly reacted to various kind of suppression
which had created problems in the people’s lives.

As a fiction writer, Anand has been noticed for vitality and keen sense of
actuality. Anand selects from the lower section of the society those with
pureness and innocence and gives full life and blood to them. His novels
mostly portray the tragedy of those free from moral wrongs under
external and wicked forces.

Anand rises in value because of his love for the enslaved mankind. His
novels are an eye-opener to our community. Anand understood the
degree of pain and suffering of his fellowmen. Anand is the champion of
the suppressed, that is, he fought for the good of the suppressed. He
has always written to stress man’s worthiness for respect and to
generate pity and love for the underdogs and downtrodden.

Anand is a humanist and he is a writer with a mission which is to write

for the good and development of the oppressed people of the society.
He writes for the sake of man, for cleansing and making him noble and
for leading him into action calculated to achieve the welfare of everyone.
Anand’s humanism is the focal point of his fiction. He is almost as great
as Dickens. The people of the lowest class of the society in India are the
central characters of his novels—a sweeper, a coolie, a labourer, a
villager, etc. Anand wanted to eliminate social problem by criticizing it
through his novels. This makes him a

35
novelist of the lower class. Each and every novel and short story created
by him show that his main purpose is to bring into prominence the
different social problems of Indian society.

Coolie and Two Leaves and a Bud prove the genius of a great writer,

who set apart his works for the outcasts of Indian society. Anand deals
with suppression in a larger scale in Coolie and Two Leaves and a Bud.
The different forms of suppression take place with all its venom and
brutality. The endless sagas of suppression in these novels start with
colonial suppression. Anand depicts the cruelty of the colonizers, which
has no limits.

The lives of Munoo, Gangu and other coolies give easily understandable
demonstration of the crushed humanity throughout the world. They do
laborious work, yet, they get abuses and good thrashing. They have
skeletal bodies which show their poor condition under white reign. Even
the mothers with new born babies are denied their right to suckle their
babies. Here, the author Anand shows the madness of men who go after
money like anything which shows the callousness of colonial monsters.

The severely damaged lives of Munoo and Gangu are strong

representation of capitalistic power. Through the lives of Munoo and
Gangu, Anand shows the not so wonderful side of life under the
capitalists. Anand brings into prominence the pain of Munoo who is
without his parents because of capitalistic suppression. His parents were
sufferers of it and throw him into a life of misery. Anand shows how
Gangu is in penury under capitalistic suppression. Gangu loses his
means of living under its powerful hold and he has to work hard to make
both ends meet.

36

With the help of his novels, Anand portrays the outcastes’ intense
struggle with the suppressing forces. Of these, only the rebel Bakha
succeeds to a significant little. Bakha and Munoo stands for the the two
faces of the archetypal figure of the dispossessed but undefeated
outcastes or the untouchables that could be found in all of Anand’s
novels. The misery and unhappiness of the poor and their attempts to
get better lives can be seen in Untouchable and Coolie. The tale of the
pitiable conditions of Munoo and Bakha serves the good intention of
arousing the conscience of the educated Indians to the economic and
social injustices in India.

Anand was well familiar with the life of the untouchables and Bakha has
been based on one of his playmates. The high caste Hindus were
polluted by just an untouchable’s touch like Bakha. But we can see that
those like Pandit Kali Nath do not hesitate to molest an outcaste girl like
Sohini.

Anand is for the scientific and technological development because he

sees in it the plentiful potentials for solving our socio-economic
problems. Munoo thinks of railways as a wonderful thing.
In Untouchable, the problem of untouchability is sought in machines as it
creates new labour system and destroys the caste system where all
people are not equal and some are suppressed. The sociological
concern of poverty, suppression and corruption are shown
in Coolie and Untouchable. He wrote Untouchable on the theme of
untouchability and the Coolie presents the tragic situation of the coolies.

Most of Anand’s heroes are poor suffering people. Characters belonging

to the other classes, that is, the middle class and upper class also make
appearance but they are the object of his social satire. It is the
suppressed persons -- a Bakha and a Munoo -- who

37

have sympathy on their side. The sweeper, the peasant, the plantation
labourer, the city drudge, the sepoy –all come out alive from his novels
anguished and hungry. With these characters, Anand started the
literature of the suppressed.

Anand intensified his efforts to demonstrate the current tragic state of

taming millions, conflict within the class and defend the propaganda
against him. His commitment to humanism can be seen in his treatment
of the theme of hunger, poverty, etc. Anand has presented unforgettable
scenes. We cry when we find Anand’s victims are intensely pained and
denied even the basic requirements of life.

38

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