‘Voice of the Voiceless’ in Mulk Raj Anand with special reference to ‘Untouchable’ and ‘Two Leaves and a Bud’

Abstract

Abdul Jubbar Abstract: The superfluous and malice behavior summoned out to the untouchables in India has been an issue of enormous concern. They have been undergoing the inexorable humiliation at the hands of the so called higher classes of Indian society. Concurrence of political independence has not improved their social status. Untouchables, referred as scheduled caste have been assigned the name "Harijan” by the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi. Now-a-days these groups refer to themselves as Dalits which means exploited or underprivileged. Mulk Raj Anand, a pioneer of Indian writing in English, has gained an international reputation through his works. Anand's literary career is notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. His novels set an entire generation of educated Indians thinking about India's social evils that were perpetuated in the name of religion and tradition. His works were a chilling exposé of the day-to-day life and used it as a tool to make broad attacks on various elements of India's social structure and on British rule in India. It brought into sharp focus the dehumanising contradictions within colonised Indian society. Through his writings he revealed that in addition to the foreign colonialism of Britain there exist layers of colonialism within Indian society. This internal colonialism stood in the way of India's transition to a modern civil society. While exposing the overarching divide between the Brit...