Tribute to Mulk Raj Anand: Novelist and Fighter
(His death anniversary falls on 28th Sept.)
Mulk Raj Anand passed away at the grand old age of 98 on Sept. 28, 2004 and left behind him remarkably large number of novels and collections of short stories. He deserves the credit of entertaining and enlightening generations of readers during his life time and his works will continue to do so in times to come. It may not be an exaggeration to say that he was, he is, and he shall be socially very relevant as an author – a novelist with purpose, cause, and concerns. It is also quite relevant to assert that Anand tried to do with his pen what Mahatma Gandhi did through his political actions.
Anand will be remembered as a novelist of lowly, the lost, and the underdog. Not that he was the first to voice in his novels the voice of the poor and the down-trodden. Bankim Chandra, Tagore, Sharat Chandra, and Premchand had also done it effectively in their novels. It was Anand who took the romanticism of Bankim, humanizing breath of Tagore, Premchand’s sympathy for the suffering people and Sharat Chandra’s understanding of human hearts to synthesize the texture of his novels. That is why he has been called as a writer who wrote of the people, for the people and as a man of the people.
An important aspect of Anand’s fiction is its concern with the reality of organized evil. In all most all his novels he appears as a social critic. The society he has seen and observed is the field of his work. His writings probe deeply into the social process. For him literature is an expression of society and the large numbers of questions raised by him in literature are social questions: questions of tradition and convention, norms and genres, and symbols and myth.
Before Untouchable (1935) Indian English novels were mainly based history or romance and they are primarily written for merely enjoyment or escapist light reading. Anand’s temperament and social concern have not been suited to such ventures. His missionary zeal for the welfare of the masses had added purpose and brought a new direction to Indian novels in English. His purpose in writing fiction has been to focus attention on the suffering, misery, and wretchedness of the poor and the underdog of society caused by the exploitation of capitalists or feudal lords or by the impact of industry on the traditional or agrarian way of life. Through his art Anand has been trying to awaken our sympathy for the subalterns of society which in turn can urge us to be an active agent of social reform.
Anand is a humanist, a proletarian who does not believe in ‘art for art’s sake’, but writes to awaken the social conscience. He is audacious enough to admit that he is using literature as a means to some other end, and that this end is the alleviation of the suffering of the fellow human beings. He has made his position very clear in his Apology for Heroism: “Any writer who said that he is not interesting in ‘la condition humaine’ was either posing or yielding to a fanatical love of isolationism.” In the same book he asserts; “just as I desire a total and truly humane view of experience, a view of the whole man, in order that is completely new kind of revolutionary human may arise, so I have been inclined to stress the need for truly humanist art commensurate with the needs of our time.”
Anand has written novels and short stories with a view of teaching man to recognize the fundamental principles of human living and exercise vigilance in record to the real enemies of freedom and socialism. The truth Anand the artist interpreted from the realities of life focuses on man’s inhumanity to man. It tells: (1) Casteism is a crime against humanity and anyone who believes in human dignity should actively strive to eliminate it. (2) Inequality in society and the ill-treatment by “haves” and “have more” of “have not” is a national tragedy. The nation can be saved from this tragedy only by following the path of dramatic socialism i.e. way of life in which the moral and material urges of the people can have the fullest play. (3) Belief in fate or ‘karma’, religious fundamentalism and fanaticism are enemies of healthy social life, progressive thinking and individual and national prosperity. They should be totally removed from the minds of the people by inculcating national thinking. (4) Social, Economic, and Political freedom is the birth right of all the citizens of a nation. To ensure this to common man, society must be free from its arch-enemies i.e. capitalism and imperialism. (5) War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity. It destroys not only states and families but also international harmony and peace. As war is mainly due to the failure of human wisdom so the disputes should be settled by apply wisdom. (6) Anand believes that machine is important for rapid growth and modernization of any nation. But it should be introduced keeping in mind the welfare of the society as a whole not for turning poor, poorer and rich, richer. (7) According to Anand feudalism is a terrible evil crushing the peasant folk. If land, the principal means of production in the agrarian economy, is under monopoly of few people- landlords, then the poor peasant will remain in the state of perpetual beggary and slavery. Only by abolishing the landlordism and giving the right to ownership of land to all can the diabolical exploitation of peasants can be stopped. (8) He is of the view that the ill-treatment of woman is a barbaric act. Woman should be given equal right with man both in theory and practice. (9) He notices that modern education is futile and produces only frustration as it gives merely degrees not imparts skills. So he believes that the time has come when this education is to be overhauled.
Anand’s works were inspired and influenced by the lives of real people in unglamorous situations, warts and all. In addition his writings demonstrate a keen desire for a political change and social transformation. The best tribute that we could pay to this great novelist would be to read his novels and be inspired by the dedication and commitment that he had.
