Can the Voice of the protagonist be always the Voice of the Author? An analysis of Dalit Literature

Praveen Kumar N & Linet Thomas

Abstract

To brand a distinction between ‘a voice for’ and ‘a voice of’ the Dalit, taking into account numerous Dalit literary works, is thought provoking. On close examining one comes to see that the works of the celebrated writer Mulk Raj Anand, an ‘upper-caste sympathizer’, who formerly advocated that ‘a writer should be the fiery voice of the people’ unveiling the pain, pathos and plight of others through his art of writing seems ambiguous. While considering his novel Untouchable, one can sees that the problem of untouchablily has not been presented as it should be. The voice of the central character is sometimes subsumed by the voice of the author. He poses several questions through the character Bhaka, but seems incompetent to response the age old social problems. The untouchables response to the abuses targeted at him becomes suspect.

Whereas, Sharankumar Limbale’s The Outcaste depicts the meta-realistic accounts of his life as a Dalit and can be extended to the life of any individual of the Mahar community in general- a togetherness in triumphs and tribulations. In his autobiography Limbale asks a number of questions regarding irrational and inhuman beliefs and practices. This leads to an awakening of the revolutionary impulses of his people. He has attacked the system itself and its followers consequential in a revolutionary and awakening intellectual.

Despite the fact that in both the novels, tribulations of the exploited class are depicted explicitly, the writer’s commitment towards it seems shifting. In this juncture, this paper intends to explore whether the voice of the author constantly echoes the voice of the protagonist.

Untouchable is a universal metaphor of the sociology, history and metaphysics of human sufferings and of man’s inhumanity to fellow man. The very terminology ‘untouchable’ becomes analogical metaphors of human enslavement, subjugation and oppression. Mulk Raj Anand’s first novel Untouchable brought to him immediate popularity and prestige. It shows the evil of untouchability in Hindu society. It emphasized on an individual’s attempt to emancipate himself from the age old evil of untouchability. Mulk Raj Anand is here concerned with evils of untouchability and need for radical empathy than a protest against this evil practice. He describes the pathetic conditions of the untouchables through the character Bakha, their immitigable hardships and physics and mental agonies almost with the meticulous skill of historical raconteur. Correspondingly SharanKumar Limbale the distinguished Dalit writer through his autobiography The Outcaste (Akkarmashi), gives a meta-realistic account of his life as a Dalit in particular which can also be extended to any individual belonging to Mahar community in general. In a different line of attack, the novel can also be described as the story of a Dalit woman who is enslaved, harassed and exploited with many children born out of different caste Hindu men. Limbale brilliantly uses individual “I” and collective “we” while explain the cracked images of untouchables. Both the novels mutually execute the semiotics of exclusion the untouchables come across.

Why did Mulk Raj Anand choose Bakha the hero-anti-hero as the central character? Usually authors take central character as a medium to express their view or to discuss social matters vibrantly. Such vigor is not seen in Bakha’s action. Often Bakha remains a mute witness in many scenes especially when Pandit Kali Nath tries to molest his sister Sohini. What is the intention of the author to say with a ‘mute’ character? In a scene at the temple Bakha enters the temple courtyard apparently to clean it. The painful knowledge of the brand of untouchability which won him a slap on the face arouse in him contrary feelings – fear and curiosity hones up his determination to seek the cause of stigma on him. Then he finds that the temple stood challengingly before him and it “seemed to advance towards him like a monster”, the monstrous symbol of unrelenting authority that “murdered without a rite” the unfortunate victims thrown away from its fold. It might as well throttle his freedom and dignity and reduce him to a helpless subhuman existence as the oppressive forces of authority did for centuries. Complementary to Bakha, the protagonist in Limbale’s novel speaks against the social discriminations; illogical and Unreasonable conduct code of conduct from upper class Hindus and soon after acquires liberation, freedom of choice from his purgatory of caste through education. However the dilemma of untouchability faced by both the protagonists seems analogous to some extent, Bhaka suffers less compared to Limbale. The curse of being fatherless and the tag “akkarmashi” which means ‘the bastard’ seems truly wretched. This isolated stigma made him linger as ‘other among the others’- someone more inferior to Dalits. When Bhaka admits his doom blindly, Limbale is far-sighted enough to fill the fissure of ‘otherness’ through education and then a job.

Mulk Raj Anand employed stream of consciousness technique in this novel mainly for describing the desires of Bakha. Whereas Limbale, materialistically sketches his experience of being imprinted as an inferior in the name of gods, goddesses, religion, and through other phenomenons. Bakha’s burning desire to go to school and to become a sahib remained a child’s fancy. His father reminded him that schools are meant for the babus and not for the lowly sweepers. Bakha had been painfully aware of the absurdity and cruelty of the upper-caste Hindus who have openly and boldly embraced the tradition of untouchability. Bakha’s desire didn’t get a momentum in the novel. As an alternative for being unvoiced before the hardships in his underprivileged family, Limbale manages to accomplish his ambitions to be enlightened from the clutches of dearth and filthy religious prejudices. The extent to which Bakha’s innocence has been violated by social and religious determinism becomes abundantly clear by the ironic enslavement of his desire. Anand’s treacherous irony here exposes the colonial- imperialist strategies of doubly colonizing the Bakha types which is exceptionally conflicting to Limbale’s stratagem. Limbale gives another picture of the protagonist where his desires are fulfilled despite the condition of despondency which preoccupied him in all walks of life as a stumbling block even for his marriage. Bakha knows that he was born into a family of sweepers, but he is unable to comprehend the intricate problem of untouchability. He helps people clean their bodies, but he does not understand how his touch will pollute those who profess purity by birth. What manifest in the minds of the upper class majority is the fear of intermingling and hence of the probable loss of inherited purity.  When Limbale questions the hypocritical attitude of the culture to which he belongs, Bhaka remains as an unspoken witness. He subsequently asks:

What kind of religious burden do we carry like a porter his load? Why is this burden of religion thrust upon us? Why can’t we discard it? How has man lost himself under this huge tree of caste, religion, breeding, family?

The inquiring temperament of Limbale substantiates that he doesn’t want to admit defeat to the ‘margins of caste’, in its place to go ahead of the frontiers of religion and the conservative society. The particular incident in the village hotel, when served tea in separate mugs for the Dalits, he complains it to the police about the hotel owner. Subsequently Limbale realizes the need to respect the Dalits who are to be respected, though Dalits were never honoured by other castes. He remembers:

“I stopped saying ‘namaskar’ and started saying ‘Jai Bhim’ instead. I substituted Babasaheb for Ambedkar since it sounded less formal and more respectful.” (86)

From the above incident it’s obvious that Limbale was not a ‘slave’ in any sense, as an alternative was a man with committed aspirations and will power to overwhelm the smutty ideologies. The voice of the author is resounded through the protagonist. Nevertheless, Mulk Raj Anand often fails to provide an identity to the character Bakha. His voice is not always from the part of Bakha. It is evident from the models suggested by Anand in the concluding section of the novel. He put forwarded the Gandhian model first which combines the ideal of swaraj and the abolition of untouchability as a single goal. In the Gandhian model there is a call for inculcate the value of cleanliness among the untouchables. The very idea of cleanliness is associated with the purity of the upper caste Hindus. Hence this model may suggest the assimilation of upper caste culture and pattern of living. Here again the identity of Bakha is not acknowledged. When the voice of the author suggests following the life style of the upper caste people through Bhaka, Limbale remains inflexible to his ethics and viewpoints through education, were he is proficient enough to get hold to his own views in disobeying the undemocratic and autocratic system.

The second model of salvation by converted into Christianity propagated by Colonel Hutchinson seems to be a part of the imperialist agenda. It tends to lead to colonization and subjugation of people. Anand at this point debunks the significance of Christianity in the lives of Dalits in spite of the material benefits acknowledged by the Dalits, who came into Christian fold. The third model of the plea for industrialization and mechanization in the cleaning job does not provide a clear cut solution of the problem of Bakha. Will industrial progress and modernity liberate the Bakha of society from the karmic obligation of cleansing human excreta and guarantee them basic human dignity and general acceptance to their birth or heredity? In its place he simply desires for the sympathy of the readers and not strong enough to stipulate a satisfactory resolution for the sovereignty of ‘stinking untouchables’. The irony is that none of these models provides any hope for the realization of freedom and identity. The voice of the author does not echo any solution to the plight of untouchables.

Another inconsistency that has to be discussed is the illustration of women characters by the two authors. When Anand’s women characters are subservient, dormant, reliant, and stereotyped as mistresses, shameful tender figures and wives, Limbale’s women characters are rational and radical to some extent. When Anand drew the women imagery in cheap romantic way, Limbale writes about their existent sufferings under the patriarchal pressures. The character Masamai is the best example from Limbale’s novel to prove it. Even if she leads a life completely against her desires, she faces all the problems with her gutsy heart and heroic body. Being physically exploited several times, instead of cursing the conditions, she withstands them.  

Limbale furthermore realizes the foundation for sufferings of his community – the false concept of superiority, which made him reorganize of the age old oppression, subjugation, dispossession, and exclusion. It is clear that the protagonist in The Outcaste, compared to the other in Untouchable seems liberated through the medium of knowledge. Limbale notes in his critical work, Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature,

“The conditions that I have written about, the environment that I have written about, no longer exist in my house, because of the position that I happened to hold today” (156).

This shows that the voice of author is so powerful enough to put an end to the upper caste Hindu ideologies by asserting rights and resisting the system.  It is unambiguous that Limbale becomes critical and obdurate to the age old conventions and practices when he started to think independently. He disowns his father’s caste and expresses his aspiration to get wedded as per the Buddhist rituals. Apart from these anti-caste moves from his part, the readers can also witness other pioneering and fundamental shifts like the inter-caste marriages that are taking place in his community. Through crucial questions in his autobiography he attacks the system poignantly. He even asks:

Who has created such values of right and wrong, and what for? (113)

 In turn, if all these state of affairs would have made Bhaka a rebellious character, there is no doubt in saying that the voice of the author reverberates through the protagonist. Despite the fact that Anand has realized the pain, pathos, frustrations and aspirations of the oppressed class, and tried his finest to renovate it from beginning to end in his art of writing, he doesn’t amalgamate with the protagonist so as to ascertain a resolution for the prejudiced forces that are operated in the social order. He merely sketches Dalits as submissive, inactive, and ineffective in the realm of social struggle. He also marginalizes and ignores the struggles of Dalits. Looking into both the novels, it’s factual that both the authors have well-defined the mistreatments of a demoralized category with a great concern. Other than Bhaka remains unspoken, Limbale move violently, initiated for self-identity and dignity in the social order and doesn’t want to give way to the deplorable continuation, launches his attacks all the way through the voice of the protagonist exclusively.

Mulk Raj Anand and Sharankumar Limbale are both socially dedicated writers with their stanch contributions in the field of Dalit Literature. Their works are most excellent examples echoing for restoration and transformation of the ‘cracked images’-the untouchables. The argument, in this paper, in brief, is that the voice of Anand, on the cause of untouchability, has been more or less the voice of the upper caste who formulates their idea of reform. Being a Dalit who had undergone the pain of denunciation and segregation, Limbale’s novel presets us purely the Dalit will and vision. However being an ‘elite’ addressing the Dalit, Anand’s novel reminds us a kind of information to somebody else, taking the stand of an ‘outsider’. This incongruity is unmistakably seen in their narrative strategies, their assumptions and most prominently in the voice of the Protagonist.

WORKS CITIED

Anand, Mulk Raj. Untouchable. New Delhi: Arnold Publishers, 1970. Print.

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1946. Print.

Deliége, Robert. The Untouchables of India. Trans. Nora Scott. New York: Berg Publishers,

1999. Print.

K. N, Sinha. Mulk Raj Anand. New York: Twayne, 1972. Print.

Limbale, Sharan Kumar. The Outcaste: Akkarmashi. Trans. Santosh Bhoomkar. New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

---. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations.

Trans. Alok Mukherjee. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007. Print.

Sathyanarayana, K. and Susie Tharu, ed.  No Alphabet In Sight: New Dalit Writing from

South India. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2011. Print.