Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand: A Complete Story
Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand: A Complete Story
Mulk Raj Anand stands as a pioneer of the modern Indian English novel, famous for giving a powerful voice to the poorest and most oppressed people. His masterpiece, Untouchable, published in 1935, is a groundbreaking work that exposed the brutal reality of the Indian caste system. The entire novel takes place over the course of just one single day in the life of Bakha, a young and sensitive sweeper boy. Through this short timeframe, Anand captures the immense pain, humiliation, and daily struggle faced by millions of outcastes. It is not just a story, but a fierce cry for human dignity, equality, and social justice.
The story begins on a cold autumn morning in the outcaste colony of a northern Indian cantonment town called Bulandshahr. Eighteen-year-old Bakha wakes up late in his dark, single-room mud hut, which he shares with his family. His father, Lakha, who is the chief of the sweepers, shouts at him lazily from his bed, demanding that Bakha get up and clean the public latrines. Despite his father’s harsh and ungrateful attitude, Bakha gets up without complaining. He is a strong, hard-working, and unusually clean young man who takes pride in doing his job well, even though society looks down upon it.
While Bakha goes out to clean the filthy public toilets, his gentle younger sister, Sohini, goes to fetch water for the family. Because they are untouchables, they are not allowed to touch the village well or draw water themselves, as it would "pollute" the water for the upper castes. Sohini must sit patiently at the base of the well with other outcastes, hoping a kind upper-caste person will come and pour water into their pitchers. After a long wait, a high-caste sepoy named Charat Singh arrives. He takes pity on Sohini and kindly pours water into her pot, allowing her to return home.
When Sohini returns, Bakha is thirsty and asks for tea, but there is no water left for cooking. Bakha willingly volunteers to go out into the town to sweep the streets and beg for food for breakfast. Before he leaves, his father Lakha pretends to be sick so he can stay home and avoid work. Bakha puts on his blanket and leaves for the town with his broom and basket. As he enters the streets of Bulandshahr, he feels a sense of excitement. He loves buying small treats, and he spends his only coin to buy some cheap cigarettes and a few pieces of traditional jalebi sweets.
It is on these crowded streets that the central tragedy of the novel occurs. Walking while happily eating his sweets, Bakha accidentally brushes against a high-caste Hindu merchant. The merchant immediately explodes in a violent rage, screaming that he has been polluted by an untouchable. A large, angry crowd quickly gathers around Bakha, shouting insults and abusing him for his carelessness. Poor Bakha stands frozen in terror, holding his hands together and begging for forgiveness. Instead of showing mercy, the angry merchant steps forward and slaps Bakha hard across the face, scattering his sweets into the dust.
This public humiliation shatters Bakha's spirit, but the trauma of the morning is far from over. A kind Muslim horse-cart driver stops to help Bakha up and tells him to keep moving. As Bakha continues down the road, he learns that he must loudly shout "Posh, posh, sweeper coming!" to warn upper-caste people to step aside. Soon after, Bakha passes by a temple and feels a deep curiosity to see the gods inside. He slowly climbs the temple steps and looks in. Suddenly, a priest spots him and screams "Polluted, polluted!" because an untouchable has dared to look at the holy shrine.
At that exact moment, Bakha hears his sister Sohini crying out in distress from the temple courtyard. The temple priest, Pundit Kali Nath, had earlier asked Sohini to clean his house with dishonest intentions. When she was alone, the priest tried to molest her. When Sohini screamed and pushed him away, the priest ran outside and falsely accused her of polluting him by touching him. Bakha is filled with a blinding rage when he realizes what happened. He wants to attack the priest to defend his sister, but he realizes he is completely helpless against the rigid social walls of the town.
Filled with grief and anger, Bakha sends his sister home and goes to beg for bread at different houses. He sits outside a house and calls out for food, but the residents ignore him for a long time. Finally, a woman comes to the balcony and throws a piece of dry bread down onto the dirty ground for him, treating him worse than a street dog. Another woman yells at him for sitting on her doorstep. Disgusted and deeply hurt by this endless cruelty, Bakha takes the dry bread and walks back to his colony.
When Bakha returns home and shares the day's bitter events, his father Lakha does not comfort him. Instead, Lakha defends the upper castes and reminds Bakha that they must accept their low position in life. Lakha shares an old story about how a high-caste doctor once saved Bakha’s life when he was a sick child, arguing that some upper-caste people are kind. Later that afternoon, Bakha escapes his tense home to attend a friend's sister's wedding and later visits his friend Ram Charan. They go to a quiet hill where Charat Singh, the Sepoy, surprisingly treats Bakha with genuine kindness and gifts him a brand-new hockey stick.
For a brief moment, playing hockey makes Bakha forget his miseries, but a fight breaks out during the game and a small boy gets hurt. When Bakha carries the injured boy home out of kindness, the boy's mother screams at Bakha, accusing him of defiling her son. Heartbroken once again, Bakha runs away to the edge of the town. He ends up at a public railway station where a massive crowd has gathered. A train arrives carrying Mahatma Gandhi, who is visiting the town to speak about the evils of untouchability.
When Gandhi arrives at the Golbagh ground, a massive, chaotic crowd gathers to see and hear him. Because of the huge rush and his low social standing, Bakha wants to avoid bumping into upper-caste people and causing another "pollution" incident. To get a clear view and stay out of trouble, he climbs up into the branches of a large tree.
Gandhi delivers a powerful speech, calling untouchability a sin against God and urging Hindus to treat sweepers as equals, naming them 'Harijans' or children of God. Bakha is deeply moved by Gandhi's words, but he is still confused about how his life will actually change. As the crowd disperses, Bakha overhears an argument between two educated men: a traditional lawyer and a modern poet named Iqbal Nath Sarshar. The young poet argues that India does not just need changing hearts; it needs the modern flush toilet. If machines take over the cleaning of waste, the caste system will naturally collapse because no one will be forced to be a manual sweeper.
In conclusion, Untouchable is a deeply moving and unforgettable story that remains highly relevant today. Through the painful journey of Bakha, Mulk Raj Anand successfully holds up a mirror to the dark evils of prejudice and social inequality. The novel does not end with a magical solution, but with a glimmer of hope. As the sun sets, Bakha walks back to his dark hut, quietly thinking about Gandhi’s speech and the poet’s machine. By using simple language and immense empathy, Anand created a timeless masterpiece that forces readers to question their own prejudices and strive for a more compassionate world.