Abstract
The problem of caste and the struggle of literary voices for a solution against casteism has been a topic of concern in Dalit Literature. U. R. Ananthamurthy is one among such writers who looks upon the caste division as a challenge against the rise of social inequality and through his works tries to critique such modern existentialist crisis based on caste and untouchability. It should be noted that being a member of the Navya Kavya movement, U. R. Ananthmurthy was under the impression of Ram Manohar Lohia and Mahatma Gandhi for their concern about the problem of caste and untouchability in the Post-independent Indian society. In a similar context, U. R. Ananthamurthy’s Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man (1965) echoes the evil social practices based on caste and Brahminical hierarchy by presenting the existential and intellectual crisis of Pranesacharaya, the most learned Brahmin of Durvashapura village. Keeping due attention to the views of Gandhi and Lohia, the proposed article would like to explicate how far Ananthamurthy was influenced by the views of these socialists and to which level his method of presenting casteism in Samskara follows the criterion style of Munshi Premchand and Mulk Raj Anand who were also the disciple of Gandhian ideology about caste and untouchability. This article would also like to focus on how this discrimination in caste based on social superiority and inferiority has constructed an exploitative relationship between the Brahmins and other upper castes, and the untouchable; and how it functions and would finally lead to nothingness where everything would be at a terrible situation of destroying the very society itself.
Introduction
A typical feature of Indian society is its formation based on caste. According to the ancient Dharmashastras of Hinduism, there were only four varnas. First, the Brahmins, who are often known as priests, used to perform the practice of worshiping God and religious rituals. Second, the warriors and for their tasks, they were known as Khshatriyas. Third, the traders, called the Vaishyas, and last, the Shudras who were skilled, semi-skilled, and often unskilled labourers. This class system has now become a universal phenomenon. Dr Shridhar V. Ketkar, a well-known sociologist and literary critic, in his book The History of Caste in India (1909) classifies caste as a social group. In the Indian context, however, the caste system has often been partial in its treatment of the lives and histories of people, particularly those who were often ignored and consequently forgotten by anti-colonial movements during the phase of national independence, as we find in the case of the untouchables in India. Untouchables live a life full of poverty, starvation, ignorance, insults, injustice and atrocious practices in humans. Indian government recognizes them as the Scheduled Castes since they were listed in a schedule, but for certain sociopolitical reasons, they prefer to call themselves Dalits. This article would like to focus on how this discrimination in caste based on social superiority and inferiority has constructed an exploitative relationship between the Brahmins and other upper castes and the untouchable; and how it functions and would finally lead to nothingness where everything would be at a terrible situation of destroying the very society itself. U. R. Ananthamurthy’s novel Samskara (1965), translated into English by A. K. Ramanujan, will be the primary text to explicate the major thoughts of this article. For cross reference, one will also find references to Mulkraj Anand’s English novel Untouchable (1935) and also some of the Hindi short stories written by Munshi Premchand, namely Kafan (1932) and Thakur ka Kuan (1932).
Noted political and cultural critic, Gopal Guru in his article ‘Archaeology of Untouchability’ (2009) points out that the impression of untouchability is an essential requirement of Brahmin hood (p. 49). At the deeper level, it can be perceived that the source of untouchability lies in the Brahmanical self. Brahmins at first separate themselves from the whole system of caste by upgrading their social significance by the category of twice born, first as human being and second as a Brahmin. And then, they make the untouchable realize that they are moreover parasites or else free riders. Thus the Brahmins hide their own encumber on the remains of the untouchables. The most important tools the Brahmin used to make the discrimination proper were water, fire, air, sound and touch. The Brahmins, taking this nod from the Manu code, draw on the water for constructing a constant division, thus creating some bodies as ritually chaste and others as perpetually polluted. They refer to water as a criterion that makes it possible for them to evaluate how intensely the essence of caste has pierced and distorted the social associations across castes. In other words, the higher castes, to retain relative hierarchy, use water as a metaphor and relates it with the practice of untouchability. Thus water determines the scale of untouchability.
According to the laws of Manu, fire is considered another source of purification. The Brahmins use fire as a weapon. They use fire for dual purpose to punish the vicinity through seeking displacement of the untouchables as walking carrion. In consequence, water helps to purify the Brahmins’ bodies, while fire ultimately preserves the purity of breathing space or the ‘akasa’. Moreover, fire is often used by the upper caste as an instrument, deployed to demolish not only the untouchables but also their wells. Here, one also needs to note how fire has also been used by Dr B. R. Ambedkar as a purifying resource. In March 1927, Ambedkar set Manusmriti on fire to give a powerful voice to the Chuddar water tank resistance at Mahood in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. From this historical venture of Ambedkar, one may understand that although the socially prevailing deploys fire only to disseminate the dissection between the supreme untouchable (twice-born) and the appalling untouchable (Dalits), it can also be used symbolically to demolish this partition.
Gopal Guru writes in his article that the Dalits’ houses are generally located on the eastern side of a village (Guru, 2009, p. 52). The Brahmins generally believe that air flows from west to east. They cannot control this flow of air in another direction. So, they are bound to change the social dissection of the village in such a way as to position themselves on the west while pushing the untouchables to the east.
In addition, sounds created by untouchables are considered a source of ritual pollution. They are often forced to proclaim their arrival before they could penetrate the main village. The reason for such wounding treatment lies in the fact that Brahmins and the upper castes consider the resonance of an untouchable polluted; hence they sought to shirk listening to their sound. To avoid the risk of words impending from the untouchables, the upper castes, predominantly the Brahmins, try to make it compulsory for the untouchables to eradicate the word and reinstate it with sound. And this is practised by compelling the untouchables to announce their appearance in the public sphere, not by dumping their words but by beating the drum. Later in the article, one would find how Ananthamurthy, in his novel, shows this complex relationship between Brahmins and untouchables has led to pollution of humanity itself as can be seen in Durvasapura and Parijatapura which is both the Brahmins’ village.
The context of the novel would make the division clear to the readers how the touchable treat the untouchable as the repository of all their impurities. The untouchable as supplementation of the touchable has contradictory values. It is followed for two purposes: conservative as well as subversive roles. On a conformist interpretation, it could be assumed, that untouchability has ethical implications. For instance, one may visualize how deeply the touchable would be affected if the untouchable say no to their conversion into the dumping ground for someone’s moral dirt or repudiate to illuminate the touchable. Possibly, it would escort to the moral corrosion or shrink of the touchable’ body or they would get pulverized under the accrued burden of these impurities. In this way, one can understand how the untouchable has a moral significance as the repository of impurities too. In such circumstances, the upper caste politician must be grateful to the untouchable for contributing a glossary to express their anguish or rage in opposition to their political adversaries or strike the antagonists with untouchability as a venomous weapon. ‘It seeks to undercut the social significance of the twice-born by making the latter realize that they are either parasites or free riders resting their burden on the body of the untouchables’ (Guru, 2009, p. 53).
Argument 1
The novel Samskara vividly describes an instance of a Brahmin community in the remote village of Darvasapura in Karnataka following the long adherence to traditional religion and morality, and it makes a mockery of the caste system itself. The novel opens with an anti-Brahmanical Brahmin’s death and it brings many questions without answers. Narannappa, throughout his life and even after his death, questions the rituals and practices of the Brahmins of the village. He manifests their [Brahmins] samskaras, enhancement of spirit; maturation stands as an outcaste for the Brahmins and does all works which the tradition does not allow. He shows how the caste system has become a burden and does not permit them to enjoy life as human beings. He does all those things, breaks all identified taboos; consumes liquor, relishes flesh, with his Muslim friends in the sacred holy place’s bank catches fish, and lives with a low-caste sudra prostitute called Chandri. Here, one may notice the violation of the code already described such as fire, water, air and touch. Naranappa breaks the code consciously to challenge the Brahmanical system within itself. Naranappa’s appearance seems very shocking; a feeling of hatred comes for him in the heart of the orthodox upper-caste reader. But why does he do so? This is a very big question and its answer lies in the fact that he wants to break all these Hindu orthodox rules which stop a man to live a normal life. For instance, it is because Naranappa does not feel comfortable with his Brahmin wife, he leaves her and stays with Chandri without marrying her since marriage is an orthodox ritual. Here Ananthamurthy’s vision of Naranappa may be compared with Premchand’s vision of a Dalit in Kafan to be described later in this article.
Ananthamurthy’s treatment of problematizing the issues of castes has an echo of Gandhian ideology, with special reference to the case of untouchables. For Gandhi, it is as wrong to destroy caste because of the outcaste, as it would be to destroy a body because of an ugly growth in it or of a crop because of the weeds (Prabhu & Rao, 2010, p. 108). Therefore we need to destroy the outcasts altogether. It is a glut that must be removed if the whole social system needs to survive. In other words, untouchability is not the product of the caste system, but of the differences which exist between high and low castes that have encroached into Hinduism and are nibbling it. Therefore, the strike on untouchability is a counterattack upon this high-end-lowness. And, the moment untouchability is demolished, the caste system all on its own will be purified. In proportion to Gandhi’s view, Dr B. R. Ambedkar suggests the annihilation of castes of which untouchability is just existence. According to him, the Brahmanical mind produces opaque forms of untouchability which can be detected either through sociology or anthropology. Dr Ambedkar’s life and philosophy are a source of inspiration to all Dalit writers. The source of inspiration for Dalit literature is the centre of Dr Ambedkar’s movement—the common man who is explained on the economic, social and cultural fronts.
It needs to be pointed out that untouchability being a part of a social interest finds its most insightful cast in two disciplines particularly—the Dalit and non-Dalit literature. Arjun Dangle, a noted Dalit writer and critic, in his edited book Poisoned Bread (2009), explains in the introduction that Dalit literature relates people to the caste system and untouchability in India, its atrocious temperament, and its abusive structure. Dalit is not a caste but a consciousness that is associated with the experience, happiness and misery, and resistance of those who are in the lowest section of society. ‘It gets mature with a sociological point of view and is related to the principles of negativity, rebellion, and loyalty to science, thus finally ending as revolutionary’ (Dangle, 2009, p. lii).
Other than castes, the experiences and their interpreting make a Dalit different from non-Dalit writers. Mulk Raj Anand and Munshi Premchand are often considered to be the first non-Dalit writers who have raised a voice for the untouchables in their works breaking the entire social and caste barriers. Mulk Raj Anand is perhaps the first fiction writer in English who narrated the problem of untouchability in his novel Untouchable through a one-day experience in the life of Bakha. Bakha, from very early in the morning is engaged in clearing latrines and he goes on washing the dirty latrines. When he returns home tired and thirsty, his sister Sohini tells him that there is no water in the house. She has to go to bring water but becomes a victim of a Brahmin Priest, Pandit Kali Nath who is attracted by her youthful charms rather than her need. Thus Anand here explicates how an untouchable becomes a thing of material possession for a Brahmin just to satisfy his sexual hunger. When Bakha goes to sweep the main streets in the town, he feels attracted to the jalebis. While relishing the juice delicacy being absent-minded bumps into a high caste gentleman who flies into a terrible ray at the ‘touch’ of the untouchable. Here Anand shows the contrast between the touch one by Brahmins to Sohini and another by Bakha to a gentleman from two different angles. Later, Bakha reaches the temple and wants to see the prayer proceeding. As he enters the temple, the priests who had attempted to violate his sister shout at him for ‘polluting’ the temple. Still later, when he asks a housewife for food, she throws down a wafer’s thin chapatti at him from the third floor which lands in the dust of the street. As the novel ends, Bakha gets a ray of hope from Gandhi’s words that untouchability is the greatest blot on Hinduism. He listens to two poets whose songs suggest that the use of the ‘flush system’ is one of the means for achieving the end of untouchability. Thus the possibility of a casteless and classless society could be envisioned.
The story of Bakha, a scavenger, embodies Anand’s vehement protest against the fourfold Hindu caste system which kills the valiant, the beautiful and the glorious. Moreover, after reading Untouchable, one must note the fact that this particular novel is considered to be the first novel in Indian English by a non-Dalit author who presents the social realism of the Dalits at the core level. For his presentation of social realism, Anand appears to be following the literary trend of Premchand, who happened to be his literary guru.
Premchand is possibly the first non-Dalit writer to raise the voice of protest in favour of the Dalits. He gives due concern to the problems of Dalits and explains it as a national problem. He speaks about the poisonous relationship that is present between casteism and nationalism. In his novels and short stories Godan, Rangbhumi, Sadgati, Mandir, and Kayakalp, he pays due attention to how a society should be built. In the short story Thakur ka Kuan, he shows the pathetic condition of the Dalits; even water becomes an entity that cannot be easily attained by them. Dalits cannot take water from Sarwan’s well even if their wells are dried or some animal has died and polluted the water. Ganga’s husband is very ill. She goes to Thakur’s house to get some water, but she returns empty-handed. At night she tries to fetch a pitcher of water from the well but the very moment Thakur’s doors open, the rope slips from her hand in agitation. She returns home and finds that her husband is drinking the same dirty water. Ganga’s daring capability to reach Thakur’s well is not a voice of protest but can be considered the first step against the caste system. In his short story Kafan, Premchand shows the pathetic condition of Ghisu, Madhav and his wife Budhia. Budhia dies in the pain of pregnancy and Ghisu and Madhav remain aloof from her and gobble potatoes because they are hungry for three days. Even money they have begged for Budhia’s funeral, they spend drinking liquor and eating fried fish and purses. They feel that it is better to eat and fulfil their hunger than to buy ‘kafan’ for her. For them, ‘kafan’ is less important because it will get burnt. They believe that Budhia will reach heaven because her funeral money has finally helped to feed their hunger. They accuse God, the zamindars, and the upper-class people of not giving any help earlier for saving Budhia. If they had received the money earlier, she might have been saved but now it is of no value for her. So, it is better to utilize the money for their benefit. It is a kind of protest against the social and economic system. What Ghisu and Madhav have done can be possible only by Dalits, because they are the sufferers of the vicious social system. However, Premchand never gives a final solution to this problem of caste and untouchability in his works and leaves it for the readers to think about and decide the future course of action.
As already suggested, the shock evoked by Ghisu and Madhav in the mind of the readers is something very akin to that initiated by the deeds of Naranappa in Ananthamurthy’s Samskara. Ghisu and Madhav live such a life because they are forced to live in poverty-ridden conditions. They are deprived to such an extent that their sole concern is to have food. Rituals, rites, and tradition are of no concern for them in contrast to the life they have been deprived of living. The economy becomes the base for the caste superstructure in Premchand’s vision which takes him close to the Marxists. But he is not subjected to economic determination. The code of fire and water becomes giant figures which his characters like to crush again and again to make a living out of it.
Argument 2
U. R. Ananthamurthy has been a disciple of Dr Rammanohar Lohia. Ananthamurthy wrote his novel in England and dedicated it to a farmer leader named Gopala Gwoda Shantiveer. Shantiveer was a follower of Lohia and a great friend of Ananthamurthy. When Gopala Gwoda received a draft copy of Samskara he gave it to Lohia. Lohia was so impressed by the book that he asked his friend and film director Pattavirama Reddy to make a film on it. The film Samskara changed the texture and mode of Kannada film (Kishore, 2013, p. 106). It was a huge success. After going through the social dynamics of Samskara one may find that Ananthamurthy is influenced by Dr Lohia’s thoughts about the caste system and untouchability.
According to Dr Lohia, the great facts of life such as birth, marriage, death and other rituals move within the frame of caste. Lohia was a rebellious follower of Gandhiji, and some of his ideas and thoughts tally with Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Dr Ambedkar wanted to change the whole caste system so that there could not be any Dalits or untouchables. In the reform of caste, in Lohia’s vision, the first step is to abolish sub-castes. Then he speaks about intercaste marriage. And the feeling of being Kith and Kin can only be created by the fusion of blood. The separatist feeling is the feeling of being alien. Only after the emotional connection of being kindred, of kinship becomes dominant the separatist feeling shaped by caste will get dissolve. Although it appears a positive decision but in reality its practice appears very much challenging. Lohia thus approves the proposal of Ambedkar with an open hand. He says that to make it workable, Dalits will have to come forward themselves. In Samskara, Ananthamurthy shows how Naranappa’s living- together with a low-caste Shudra woman changes the whole scenario of the Agrahara Brahmin community. Chandri becomes a heroine-like figure for the young men of the village and they always get mesmerized by the behaviour, charm and devotion of Chandri to Naranappa. Lohia opines the caste system could be changed from within itself. Dalits and backward-class communities must agree and make unity among them. Since the population of Dalits and backward classes is huge, they can use the power and resources of the upper class also. They must have politico-socio-economic understanding among themselves. The time has come to realize that this difference between superior and inferior classes has created a great gap among us. In Samskara, Naranappa has a deep friendship with the Muslims. They spend time together enjoying fishing and gossiping. And it is, after all, a Muslim fish merchant Ahmed Bari who in the end gives a funeral to Naranappa’s dead body. Moreover, there lies a difference between the Brahmin community itself as seen in Durvasapura and Parijatapura. Though both are Brahmin villages, the Durvasapura Brahmins do not eat or even drink in the homes of the Smarta Brahmins of Parijatapura. Naranappa, in that context, is the mocking anti-self of Brahmins. The villagers of Parijatapura are happy at heart to be friends with Naranappa, though he is an outcaste on his own for all practical purposes, and they would be happy to do the last rites if they were asked to do so by Praneshacharya, the most learned Brahmin, without any further prejudice of their rank.
Naranappa as an untouchable has not received fire and water as his funeral rite. The moral and spiritual bankruptcy of the community comes out very clearly in its numerous acts of heresy and sacrilege. He deserts his wife and takes a shudra mistress. He drinks wine and eats meat. He throws away the holiest of holy Saligrama, the stone god, and spits at it. When the Brahmins warn him that they will excommunicate him if he pursues his ways, he threatens that he will convert to Islam. They are powerless before him, as before a hurricane or a cyclonic storm. When Naranappa suddenly passes away, it causes not a little inconvenience and discomfort to the Brahmins. When Chandri realizes that the Brahmins are not going to take any action, she wastes no time in persuading the former Muslim friends of Naranappa to remove the body in the dead of the night without anybody’s knowledge and give it a decent funeral.
On the other hand, by keeping the plague-ridden dead body rotting in the village, they bring the plague upon themselves. The Brahmins of Durvasapura who refuse samskara, to Naranappa in the name of samskara ironically enough, have no touch of the refinement of mind and spirit that anybody who follows these should possess. Here we can see the death of the Hindu samskara, tradition and culture. The story of the funeral of Naranappa moves subtly into the story of the death of traditional values and questions the caste system itself.
According to Lohia, a strong society could be built only when equal rights and power are given to Shudras, women, Dalits and all other minority and backward-class people. (Kishore, 2013, p. 81) In Samskara, one would find how the low caste and outcaste women are treated unequally more as a subject of temptress than like a common human being. Making comparison to the classical women like Shakuntala and Menaka, the low caste and outcast women like Chandri and Belli are hallowed and romanticized. Moreover, just like the classical women Chandri is also secular and immoral, with ethics of serene sexuality. The transition in Praneshacharya comes not from reading the religious ancient scriptures but from his physical relationship with Chandri. In her arms, he experiences for the first-time sexual ecstasy. Naranappa’s dead body exposes the value system of the Brahmins, and Pranesacharya, greatly confused and shocked, begins his search for new values and ideals. His abrupt sexual incident turns into an untraditional ‘rite of initiation’. Thus the issue ‘What is a Brahmin, how is he made?’ in the end turns even against this irreproachable ‘Brahmin of Brahmins, a Brahmin by birth as by samskara’ (Ramanujan, 1965, p. 141). Hence he passes through three stages: ‘separation’, ‘transition’ and incorporation. Such change is symbolized by a change of place—a going away, a seclusion and a coming back (Ramanujan, 1965, p. 142).
Through Pranesacharya’s existential crisis, the modern critical mode of Brahminism towards the outcaste itself gets trolled. And this ultimately leads him into a new-fangled and everyday world, which also includes the world of Naranappa and Putta. Putta does not have any ideology like Naranappa. In the steered expedition in the course of the temple-festival and fair, pawnshop, and whore house, the Acharya perceives a demoniac reflection of this world. Putta is a riddle master, expert bargainer, and pimp without any samskara. He is a marvel for his completeness and thoughtlessness. Being the initiator of Pranesacharya’s ingress into the anonymity of the commonplace and the recognizable, Putta is Pranesacharya’s initiator into the anonymity of the commonplace and the recognizable, the limpidness of the unregenerate, and the comprehensiveness of the crude. The current revelation of this ordinary world is the new passage of Acharya’s new Samskara. In the entire voyage, the readers observe him metamorphosing, mutating from a completely orthodox socialized Brahmin to one amid his beliefs headed for a new type of human being; preferring himself, categorizing himself and ‘alienating’ himself. And just like Acharya, the readers are left anxious and expectant at the end of the novel.
Conclusion
To sum up, the facts and experiences presented by the characters in Samskara make it very clear to the readers that there are various layers in the caste system itself. Brahmins who are claiming to exist at the highest level have so many discrepancies among themselves. The difference and corruption between the Brahmins are at such a level that there hardly lies any space for humanity to exist. The article finds that the upper-class people have created a superficial reality in the name of caste and it has become so corrupt and suffocated under the name of religion that those who belong to this class are suffering from an identity crisis. As a result, in this humanity-less caste division, the untouchables become easy victims and have to suffer on different grounds and factors under the name of religion, society, economy, and culture. The strength of religion lies in the fact that it maintain the doctrinal unity of the entire society and strives to ensure that the upper class does not get separated from the lower. But if the people who are bearing the banners of religion get transformed morally and ethically then ultimately that will lead to a situation where people like Narayanapa, Bhiku, Ghisu and Bhaka have to raise their voices of protest against the traditional social harmony.
For the untouchables, Dalits and backward minority classes’ religion penetrates their consciousness as the aspect which grants them entrée to a more powerful cultural structure. Hence one may agree that Ananthamurthy through his two main characters and their journey—Naranappa and Praneshacharya—makes it clear that the citadels of Hindu orthodoxy appear too weak to stand the passage of time. If a Brahmin can get transition through touch by a low caste Shudra prostitute and a person like Putta, whose caste and creed are unknown, becomes a guide for a learned Brahmin, then what is the need for such a claim of orthodoxy and superiority? A Brahmin must be called a Brahmin not by his caste but by his work and contribution. Therefore anyone in the present time who could give knowledge and can inspire others to achieve success in life must be the new definition of a Brahmin because caste is after all a material reality with a material base.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.