LIBERATION MOTIF IN SELECT NOVELS OF MULK RAJ ANAND AND CHlNUA ACHEBE :

A SEARCH FOR A NEW PARADIGM IN TERMS OF RELEVANT THIRD WORLD FICTIONAL STRATEGIES

Thesis submitted to the Pondicherry University for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in

ENGLISH

BY

FR. A. LEO ANTONY TAGORE, S.J.

PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY PONDICHERRY 605 014

APRIL 1993

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It is with a tremendous sense of gratitude and appreciation that I recall

the services rendered t o me by numerous friends, well-wishers, colleagues,

scholars and professoein the process of my completing successfully my Ph.D.

thesis. The journey has been at once challenging and hlfilling, exhausting and

enriching. However the role that these persons played all through the process

has been nourishing and sustaining me.

I owe my debt of gratitude first and foremost and in an abundant

measure to Dr. P. Marudanayagarn, Ph.D. Professor and Head of the

Department of English, Pondicherry University, who guided my research with

critical interest, scholarly insight, friendly concern and above all, with a

perfectionist's eye for the correctness of language, aptness and

appropriateness of style and format of the thesis, and the overall evolution of

thought and the impact of theme. I remember wi th a deep sense of gratitude

the long hours he has spent with me, discussing the different aspects of the

thesis, clarifying, criticising, elucidating and eliciting. I t has been an extremely

enriching experience relating to him as my mentor teacher and fiend. He has

introduced me, by his example and teaching, t o fascinating and hitherto

mchartered areas of research and investigation, specially to the infinite

research potential that is there in the domain of Commonwealth Literature

and that of Comparative Literature.

My sincere thanks are also due to my Professors in the faculty of

English of Pondicherry University. Their positive approach to me and their

timely suggestions and ideas have sustained my research fervour.

I express my deep sense of thankfulness to a host of my Jesuit friends

who were a constant source of encouragement and support : Fr. Xavier

Alphonse, S.J. who was instrumental in my conceiving and relentlessly

pursuing the topic that lent itself for fruitful research; Fr.G.Packiaraj, S.J.

who has all through rendered help by way of offering suggestions, comparing

notes and above all, by providing a stimulating companionship; and my

religious Superiors and fellow Jesuits who have given me the necessary

support and encouragement.

I place on record my sense of gratitude to Dr. C.D. Narasirnhaiah, for

his rare insights and views, and his monumental collection of works on

Commonwealth Literature in his Dhvanya Loka Library a t Mysore. The

American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad, the Central Institute of

English, Hyderabad, the Central Library, Pondicherry University, the library

of the Department of English, American College, Madurai, the library of the

Regional Institute of English, Bangalore and the libraries of St. Joseph's

College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli and Loyola College, Madras have been

the resource centres I have visited and benefited from.

I remain grateful to the Pondicherry University and particularly to the

English Department for kindly allowing me to do research. My special thanks

are due to Rev. Sax, S.J. who &om Nigeria generously supplied me with

primary and secondary source materials on Chinua Achebe-

Finally let me thank Mr. Charles and Mr. Esther for the excellent

typing of the thesis and Profhirthan, M.Phi1. of the Department of English

of St.Joseph's College, Tintchirappalli for his meticulous reading of the rough

draft of the thesis and his suggested corrections and alterations.

April, 1993

Dr. P. Marudanayagam, P ~ . D . Professor and Head Department of Engl~sh Pondicherry University Pondicherry 605 01 4

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the thesis entitled LIBERATION MOTIF IN

SELECT NOVELS OF MULK RAJ ANAND AND CHINUA ACHEBE : A

SOllURCH FOR A NEW PARADIGM IN TERMS OF RELEVANT THIRD

WORLD FICTIONAL STRATEGIES submitted by Fr. A. Leo Antony

Tagore, S.J., is a research work done during 1990-93 under my supervision

and that the thesis has n o t previously formed the basis fo r the award to the

candidate of any Degree, Diploma, Associateship, Fellowship or other similar

title.

I also certzy that this thesis represents complete independent work on

the part of the candidate.

Fr. A. LEO ANTONY TAGBRE, MA Department of English Pondicherry University Pondicherry 605 014.

DECLARATION

This is to certify that the thesis entitled, LIBERATION MOTIF IN

SELECT NOVELS OF MULK R A J ANAND AND CHINUA ACHEBE : A

SEARCH FOR A N E W PAILADIGM IN TERMS OF RELEVANT THIRD

WORLD FICTIONAL STRATEGIES submitted by me is a research work

done during 1990-93 under the supervision of Dr.P.MARUDANAYAGAM,

Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Department of English, Pondicherry

University , Pondicherry - 605 014 and that the thesis has not previously

formed the basis for award to me of any Degree, Diploma, Associateship,

Fellowship or other similar title.

I also certify that this thesis represents complete independent work on

my part.

PREFACE

It was during my fairly long stint with a College students' movement as

its national adviser that I began to dabble in liberation theology and liberation

movements and struggles in various third world countries. As it became an

absorbing interest I felt urged to make a study of some third world English

novelists who have sought to capture the liberationist aspirations of their

people and their struggles in their novels.

It was at this juncture, that a friend of mine who had already examined

the cultural assumptions of a group of South Indian novelists, proposed that

I could consider the possibility of a comparative study of two third world

novelists from the perspective of liberation. As Mulk Raj Anand of India and

Chinua Achebe of Nigeria came across to me as novelists with a basic

liberative thrust, I decided to work on theh keeping in mind the liberation

parameters and the literary aspects of a study like this. I discussed this topic

with colleagues and professors of English. I found their responses quite

positive and challenging.

The topic, however, assumed its present form only after I held a series

of discussions with my guide. It was he who enabled me t o understand the full

import of such a topic and the hurdles I would have to cross in order to

complete my research successfully. It dawned on me during these sessions that

an investigation of the novels of Anand and Achebe from the perspective of

liberation could not only yield some invaluable insights into the perceptions

and performance of these two wr ikrs as committed novelists but throw light

on some hitherto unexplored areas in the realm of third world English fiction.

This was how I commenced my research odyssey realizing that, while

investigating the comparative merits of h a n d and Achebe as committed

artists, it would not be an iduence study but an analogical one. In point of

fact, the whole exercise turned out to be a fascinating and liberating one, as

it helped me to rethink my own traditional and stereo-typed approaches .to

literature in general and fiction in particular and to be open to culture -

specific literary categories, outputs and approaches.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

In the present study, citations from Mulk Raj h a n d and Chinua

Achebe are from the following editions. Abbreviations here indicated are used

throughout.

h a n d , M u l k Raj

Untouchable (London : Wishart, 1935)

Coolie (London : Lawrence and Wishart, 1936)

Tulo Leaves and a Bud (London : Hutchinson, 1945)

The Big Heart (London : Hutchinson, 1945)

Gauri (New Delhi : Orient, 1976)

The R o d (Bombay : Kutub, 1961)

Achebe, Chinua

TFA Things FUZZ Apart (London : Heinemam, 1958)

NLAE No Longer At Ease (London : Heinemann, 1960)

AOG Arrozu of God (London : Heinemann, 1964)

AMP A man of the People (London : Heinemarm, and New York :

John Day 1966)

Anthills of the Savannah (Kenya : Heinemann 1987)

JTWE: Journal of Indian Writing in English

TBP The Banasthali Patrika

KJES The Kakatiya Journal of English Studies

WLWE World Literature Written in English

BW Black World

LHY The Literary Half Yearly

513s

CWQ

JCT;;;IVL,

LC

ALT

MFS

TLE

JLC

IJES

REL

CI3

Research in African Literature

Journal of Black Studies

Commonwealth Quarterly

Journal of Commonwealth Literature

Literary Criterion

African Literature Today

Modern Fiction Studies

The Literary Endeavour

Journal of Literary Criticism

The Indian Journal of English Studies

Review of English Literature

Chandrabhaga

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

CERTIFICATE

PREFACE

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION AND RELEVANCE O F "LIBERATION" IN THE THIRD WORLD CONTEST

MULK RAJ ANAND AND CHINUA ACHEBE AMONG THEIR CONTEMPORARIES

LIBERATION MOTIF IN THE DELINEATION OF PROTAGONISTS

TRADITION VERSUS MODERNITY

CLASS WAR AND CASTE POLITICS

LIBERATION FROM THE FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE

ART AND COTUIMITMl3NT

SUMMING UP

PAGE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

----------------------- I N T R O D U C T I O N -----------------------

This study aims at investigating the fictional writings of

Mulk Raj Anand and Chinua Achebe from the perspective of social

justice and liberation. While Anand's oeuvre is marked by a

deep-seated desire to portray and probe the hitherto unsung

plight and predicament of India's poor and marginalised people,

AchebeJs relentless logic and artistic fervour succeed in

reconstructing the glorious past of the Igbo tribe and in

indicting the havoc, psychological, social and cultural, wrought

by the colonial confrontation. The characters that people the

novels of Anand are the underdogs, the untouchables, the

unlettered and the unwanted categories, who would never have

found an entry into the world of literature, but for Anand8s

pioneering and bold initiative. Achebe has filled his fictive

canvas with men and women, drawn from the Igbo heartland

enacting the unheroic but warm, homely, intense and moving drama

of life, in its pristine purity and r a w innocence,

Both these writers are wedded to their respective national

history, culture and people as it emerges from their novels.

They not only love and respect their people and their traditions,

but are irrevocably committed to the task of educating and

conscientizing them and the Europeans, about the rich and

colourful cultural heritage and achievements that their respective

country can boast of.

In other words, Anand and Achebe are both committed

writers. Their novels are classified either as the political

novel or as the novel of dissent or protest. Achebe has, time and

again, confessed that ,he is a political writer and that he

believes in the politics of universal human communication and

mutual respect. Anand is a humanist and his humanism manifests

itself in a realistic representation of the inhumanity of the

situation of the oppressed masses, suffering various types of

disability, discrimination and alienation.

Anandfs humanism was the natural outcome of the impact of

his childhood experiences and observations, chastened and

purified in the crucible of his systematic and intense study of

the different systems of Western thought and philosophy. It is a

synthesis of a sort, which, in due course, becomes a unified

perception of the Protagorean dictum, ItMan is the measure of all

thingsM. The simmering anger and impatience that one often senses

in his works, are the product or offshoot of his passion for

social justice and human dignity.

It should nonetheless be added that Anandrs commitment as a

writer has been a target of scathing attack from several

literary quarters. Critics have been haggling over the question

of Anand's writings being pure agitprop or propaganda. Anand has

been charged with being propagandist in his writings. Moreover

he has been branded as a Marxist, leftist and a socialist because

of the predominance of social themes, stories and plots

of his novels.

While Anand admits that he has studied Marxism

systematically, he never professes himself to be a Marxist. He

may have been influenced by Marxian thinking and approaches to

social reality. His rejection of, and disaffection with

religion, creed and cult and his scant respect for superstitions

and irrational beliefs and fears are certainly expressive of his

Marxian sympathies. Nevertheless it may be unfair to label

him as a Marxist. His philosophy of life and approach to art

are still 'sui generisf. The societal analysis that undergirds

his fictional portrayals nay have been inspired or dictated by

Marxism. His anti-capitalistic sensibility as expressed in novel

after novel is a sure sign af his socialistic persuasion.

It is interesting to note that influences of Gandhi, Tagore

and Nehru are discernible in Anandts writings, Thus his concern

for the poor and the untouchables is not imported from the West,

but the byproduct of his association with Gandhi and learning in

the school of Gandhisrn. His socialist and modernist conception

of a new India is without doubt an echo of Nehru's political

philosophy. However, Anand reminds one of Rabindranath Tagore

when he touches the depths of the human spirit and pathos in some

of his novels and engages in probing motives and deeper

sensibilities of characters.

Achebe resembles Anand in some of his characteristics as a

writer. He too is a committed artist with a missionary zeal for

the restoration of dignity to his people. Achebe is a consummate

artist. His craftsmanship is nowhere in jeopardy. Without

sacrificing his overall aim of evoking the splendid past and the

harmonious but simple life-style of his ancestors, he has

succeeded in creating credible characters, substantive stories

and enthralling and absorbing plots.

While Anand doesn't conceal his sensibilities and political

posturing on occasions, Achebe merely shows up the

contradiction and chaos thrown up by the colonial regime and

leaves it to the reader to make his own judgement or inference.

Where Achebe wants to indict the arrogance and imperialism of the

British, he takes recourse to the ironic or satiric mode,

Thus we notice that there are similarities and variances

between Anand and Achebe as writers and artists. Nevertheless

what interests one here is the possibility of an in-depth analysis

of the novels of Anand and Achebe with a view of establishing

their liberationist angle and scope for libterationist

interpretation and illustration.

A host of critics and scholars both Indian and foreign have

studied the works of Anand and written elaborate critical

commentaries on individual novels and on Anandfs merits as a

novelist, Similarly Achebe has attracted a number of African and

foreign scholars and students of English literature. There is a

fairly sizable corpus of critical scholarship on Achebe and his

works. Considering the short span in which he engaged in active

literary output, the quantum of writing on him is quite amazing.

While a plethora of criticism of Indian Scholars is

available, only critics such as K . R . Srinivasa Iyengar, S .C.

Harrex, C.D. Narasimhaiah, Saros Cowasjee, G.S. Balarama Gupta

and some others who have shown extraordinary interest

in Anand1s literary career and produced significant critical

scholarship are taken up for review. Among the Western critics

it is, Margaret Berry, Marlene Fisher, Alastair Niven, D.

Riemenschneider and Jack Lindsay who have written extensively on

Anand and ofcourse a score of others who have published well-

documented, research articles in leading journals.

K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, in his Indo-Anslian Literature

(1943) renamed as Indian Writins in Enslish (1962), has devoted a

chapter to Mulk Raj Anand. Iyengar starts with a brief

life-sketch of Anand where he traces the carftsman's industry and

meticulous attention of Anand to his father, who was a

copper-smith turned solidier, and his common sense and

compassionate understanding to Anand's mother. He takes up all

the published novels till date and assesses objectively the

merits terms craftsmanship, art, characterization

and style. The writer pays a rich tribute to Anand for having

chosen to paint, in his works, the predicament and plight of the

bottom dogs in 1ndian society and for having done it

spontaneously without any self-conscious display of *

proletarianism. In other words, the uniqueness of Anand consists

in his portrayals being the outcome of his personal knowledge and

experience of such outcastes and underdogs in his life, and

identification with their lot.

He declares that Untouchable is perhaps the most compact

and artistically satisfying, coolie is the most extensive in

space and time and Two Leaves and a Bud is the most effective as

a piece of sarcasm and satire. For him Bakha is both a prototype

and an individual. The Lalu trilogy is an impressive work that

comprises local and national politics. Iyengar commends the

terrific intensity and concentration of The Bis Heart and Anand's

familiarity with the theme that he is treating. He is rather

negative about Private Life of an Indian Prince from the point of

view of style and treatment, Later in a postscript he has

revised his opinion and expressed appreciation of the novel's

autobiographical strand, sense of history and narrative power.

He further adds that Anand's remarkable qualities are vitality

and sense of actuality. His characters are real and full of

flesh and blood. They are allowed to act, react and interact on

their own. He, moreover, emphasises the universal against the

particular.

Iyengar's criticism is quite perceptive and unbiased. While

assessing the individual merits of a novel, he is able to point

out the finer artistic aspects of the work. He has probably

belaboured the point that Anandfs commitment is not artificial or

obtrusive but natural and spontaneous.

Jack Lindsay has contributed a very stimulating and

insightful study of Anand's works in his book, The Elephant-and

the Lotus: A Studv of the Novels - of - Mulk Rai Anand (1965).

Lindsay's minute sketches on the individual novels are immensely

elucidating and scholarly. He brings his erudition to bear upon

his critical judgement. One of his objectives seems to be to

bring out Anandrs capacity to define the general in the

particular. Starting from an analysis of Untouchable. Lindsay

runs through the whole canon of Anand's major novels published

till then and shows how his protagonists are both individuals and

types. Moreover, Lindsay points out the technical superiority of

Anand as compared with Premchand whose fictional canvas bears

close resemblance to Anandfs. While asserting Anand's variety

and fecundity in terms of his style and theme, he is able to

recognise the influences in Anand of both Tagore and Prem Chand.

However, Lindsay is of the opinion that Anand displays a

beautiful blend ot Tagore's full humanistic focus symbolising

universalism, and the compassion or solidarity with the

suffering mankind that Prem Chand so spontaneously exuded.

Lindsay compliments Anand on his ability to command a philosophic

detachment from his subject and characters. In his attempt to

harmonize the Eastern and Western traditions, he is an heir to

Tagore and scores a creditable victory in novles such as The Biq

Heart, Untouchable and The Road. Lindsay makes Anand out to be

a citizen of the world, who strives through his writings, to

create a new India, a new society and new harmony.

D. Riemenschneider has a monograph that must have, when it

appeared in 1967, been a breath of fresh air in Anand criticism,

as the author maintains that Anandfs conceptual framework is

quite limited and therefore it is his artistic and creative

acumen that must have enabled him to create a whole gamut of

people in his novels. The article entitled "An ideal of Man in

Mulk Raj Anandrs Novelsw (1967) sets out to show how from Munoo

of Coolie to Maqbool in Death of Hero there is one line of

stereotyped heroes but how there is a constant development, an

ever deeper insight into man's nature and the different stages in

the process of self-realization. From one protagonist to the

other, there is a higher level of maturity, a spiral process of

growth in self-awareness, According to the author, Gauri and

Ananta are two characters in whom Anand has expressed his idea of

man clearly and convincingly. Anand seems to advocate the ideal

that the most a man can do, is to sacrifice his awn self for the

sake of his ideas or his fellow human beings.

C.D. Narasimhaiah in his book, The Swan and The Easle

(1969), has devoted a whole chapter to Mulk Raj Anand

with a subtitle "The Novel of Human centrality" and makes an

impassioned appeal for a revival of interest in ~ n a n d ~ s writings

both in India and\abroad. While asserting that Anand is guilty

of a propagandist streak in his short stories like "The Barberst

Trade Unionu and "The Tractor and the Corn Goddessnt, the author

goes on to make a detailed critical analysis of three of Anand's

novels, namely, Untouchable, Coolie & Heart. C.D.

Narasimhaiahfs attempt is praiseworthy as he exculpates Anand of

the allegation of being propagandist, leftist or Marxist in

conviction, by pointing out the artistic merits of each of the

novels, in terms of the story, theme, characterization, plot and

structure. For the author, Anand is a humanist and therefore

his novels are concrete artistic expressions in human terms of

the predicament of vast majority of Indians. He pays tribute to

Anand's rich repertoire of novelistic tecniques and his fecund

imagination. In fictional techniques and topics, Anand is

declared a pioneer, a trail-blazer, not withstanding his

occasional failure as a craftsman or his passionate social

philosophy getting the better of his artisitic judgement. His.nove1

can be called the novel of human centrality according to C.D,

Narasimhaiah. S.C. Harrex has a fine study, in his book, The

Fire and the Offerinq: The Enalish Lanauaae NaveI ef Xndia

1935-70, Vol.1 (1969), of Anandfs literary career and his

achievements as a novelist, He severely criticises Anand for

his lapses or shortcomings in style and language, pointing out

samples of such "slipshod writingaa to illustrate his criticism.

He comments on the realism of Anand as portrayed in his novels

and appreciates the manner in which Anand identifies himself with

his protagonists and looks at the sordid reality and the

revolting situation, through the soul and the eyes of the victims

of exploitation. While Harrex is inclined to accept the term

'aProletarian arta1 as applied to a novel like Coolie he is opposed

to the neat schematization of values and people according to the

Marxist dialectic allegedly operative in Coolie.

Margaret Berry has published a full length study of Anand

and his works in her book, Mulk R a t Anand: The Man and the

Novelist (1970). Her approach to Anandfs novles seems to be

dictated by her conviction that Anand is a die-hard socialist

with a humanist depth and a Marxist bias. She focuses her

attention on the novels as a product of Anand's socialist and

humanist persuasions and therefore as reflective of the

oppressive mechanism underlying the unjust social reality and the

iniquitous relationships. Understandably she examines the

various novels from the parameter of forces that impede social

change and social and economic transformation, thus proceeding to

determine Anand's solution to the impasse. Having 'abjured his

faith in God and as a consequence having renounced religion and

all forms of worship except the worship of man, Anand becomes a

social iconoclast. He demolishes most of the accepted traditions

and practices, that, in his opinion, militate against social

equality, freedom and brotherhood.

Thus social institutions like religion, caste, certain

traditional aspects of marriage and sex and s s e m of education

were construed by him as detrimental to the natural growth of the

individual and society. He attacks these social and the other

economic and political evils with vehemence and the passionate

zeal of a crusader.

According to Berry Margaret, Anand offers a plausible

solution to this deadlock by advocating bhakti-yoga understoood

as the relation of personal, efficacious love as the integrating

factor. She believes there is a credible attempt on Anand's part

to blend humanism, socialism and bhakti in his The Heart.

his new religion, for Anand, will combat not only the external

symptoms but also the root of all this in the socio-politico-

economic structures.

Balarama Gupta has to his credit a voluminous work

entitled Mulk Rai Anand: A Studv of JIis ~iction Humanist

Pers~ective (1974). The central interest of the author is

riveted on the humanism of Anand. Therefore, Gupta strives in

all the chapters to marshal all his critical matter to establish

his premise that Anand is first and foremost a humanist. He has

listed the characteristics or tenets of Anandfs humanism in

chapter 2 titled "The Humanism of Mulk Raj Anandn. He undertakes

thereafter to make a close reading of all his fictional works and

shorter fiction from the perspective of Anand's humanism.

Balarama Gupta winds up his study by stating that Anand as a

humanist has surpassed Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the first

Bengali novelist and even Tagore, his mentor and model, in

respec t of the psychological approach in fiction, as Tagorefs

interest was confined to the genteel upper middle class and

affluent society. Anand has scored a point over Prem Chand,

Gupta concludes, in this, that the former's fictional men and

women are by far more reflective, speculative, articulate and

even assertive than Prem Chandfs ensemble of docile, submissive,

static, helpless characters. Gupta has also underlined some of

Anandfs defects as a writer, specially his preoccupation with an

ideology at the expense of his style.

Alastair Niven's The Yoke of Pity: A Studv in the

Fictional writinss of Nulk Raj Anand (1978) offers a whole

spectrum of insights into the techniques and fictive approaches

of Anand as exemplified in his novels. He has tried to

investigate the message of Anand in each of his novels. by

situating the story and action of the novel in the overall

perspective of his social philosophy and aesthetic principles.

Niven's perceptive study of Gauri and The B i u Heart have yielded

some refreshing and exhilarating insights that make the message of

Anand come home to the reader with great force. He affords some

rare modes of critical appreciation of characters and Anand's

techniques. Moreover he is not blind to some of Anand's flaws

and pitfalls, where it concerns language. Niven upholds the view

that Anandfs intellectual formation and systematic training in

Western philosophy and literature provided the soil in which his

compassionate humanism is founded and without it, his fiction

might have plunged into "ranting hysteriat1. According to him,

both the intellectual desire for objectivity and emotional urge

for commitment qualify and stimulate each other in Anand and

account for his central energy and tension.

Marlene Fisherfs The Wisdom of the Heart: Study of the

Works of Mulk R a t Anand (1985) is a laudable work, that, as the

title signifies, reduces all the impulses and sensibilities

portrayed in Anand's novezs to the basic, primal experiences and

impulses stored in Anand's heart. In other words, Anand looks

into his intimate personal storehouse of impulses, good and bad,

right and wrong, sad and happy. However, Fisher has discovered a

deep quest in and through all Anandys chain of sufferings,

sorrows, struggles and failures. Love, in the end, seems to

provide the answer to all the problems of Indian society, as

projected in his novels U J Coolie, pro Leaves and a Bud

and The & Heart. Technically, Marlene Fisher admires

the first novel and The Bia Heart as both these have a compact

structure and plot. In Two Leaves and a Anand is so

overpowered by his sentiments and social and political

principles, that the ulitimate impact the novel suffers the

process. All said and done, Marlene Fisherrs analysis is more

descriptive and confined the perspective the wisdom the

heart that should rule all areas of human life, communications

and relationships.

R. Shepherd, in his essay "Alienated Being: A ~eappraisal of

Anand8s Alienated HeroH, maintains that Anand's perception of

revolution as stated in his novels, springs from his consistent

theme of t h e individual's struggle against social injustice. In

a very scintillating essay entitled ttQuest for strucutres: Form,

Fable and Technique in the Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand", S.C.

has through systematic approach, arrived the

conclusion that Anand's art form or genre is Western in origin

and form; yet he has used it so intelligently and creatively as

to make it an apt medium to convey Indian ideas, ideals, values,

symbols and facets of reality. Thus he appreciates the unique

contribution of Anand to the sphere of Indian fiction in Enligsh.

In the book of the title Perspectives on Mulk

Anand,there are some interesting essays by different scholars.

Gillian Packham, in his essay entitled "Mulk Raj Anand and . the

thirties movementt1, has tried to trace the roots of his humanism

to the different political happenings in Europe and India,

particularly to the Marxist protest movement in literature of

which' Anand became an ardent member. Anand's concern with the

development of individual consciousness and individual values

seems to have sprung from his ~arxist roots, by now radically

altered or transmuted into humanism. Dieter ~iemenschneider, in

his article IIAlienation in the novels of Mulk Raj Anand," deals

with the concept of alienation as represented by Anand in his

novels. The concept stems from a Marxist understanding of

labour, which is at the root of alienation in capitalist form of F

production process. He points up the paradox in this that the

working classes or the labourers are alienated precisely because

the objects of their labour in effect rule over them. This

concept is being creatively used by Anand in nolvels like Coolie.

Two Leaves and a Bud, The Biq Heart and The Old Woman and the

Cow, where the whole action and plot seem to hinge on the fact of

alienation at different levels, and in different forms. The

author makes an analysis of two characters: Panchi in The Old

Woman and the Cow and Lalu in The Village, who are considered to

be the owners of their means of production.

H.M. Williams, in his book ~ndo-~nalian Siterature

1800-1970: A Survev (1976), is merciless in criticising.the

artistic lapses of Anand specially in Two Leaves and a Bud an&ha

propagandist vein in the same novel. He is unwilling to

accept the Marxist interpretation or economic colouring given to

the different situations in coolie where Munoo is involved.

Williams makes out the story of Munoo, to be part of a long line

of innocents in literature, thus becoming archetypal in nature.

In his book The Literature of Labour:-200 years of

writinq (1985), Gustav Clans has included a brief examination of

Anand's novels Coolie and Untouchable. He praises t h e taut plot

and the psychological growth of Bakha so meticulously observed

and depicted by Anand. He, however, faults Anand with having

precluded any wider vista of Indian society, by choosing a

protagonist from the lowest saatum of society. Munoo typifies

t h e millions of Indian peasants who have per force to adapt to

t h e capitalist mode of production as they are pulled to the

cities in search of employment/livelihood. Anand has creatively

appropriated the picaresque tradition in order to project the

inevitability of the advent of modernity. The author, moreover,

appreciates Anand's deliberate and conscious avoidance of the

pitfall of naturalism in such a situation and his bold

presentation of antifatalistic and defiant attitudes in

characters like Ratan and Sauda who strive to form a trade union,

despite initial opposition and failures.

There is a fleeting but incisive reference to Anand's ~auri

in Shantha Kirshnaswamyrs thought-provoking work titled, The

Woman in Indian ~iction in Enslish (1974). Anand is hailed as a --- pioneer in championing the cause of the woman in the

post-independence era. He takes up the cudgel in literature on

behalf of the silent half of India, the women, who are the

poorest of the poor for Anand. His novel is a historic land-

mark in terms of authorial shift in sensibility in Indian fiction

towards the woman.

Saros Cowasjeefs fairly lengthy article titled, Coolie:

Assessment (1976) has a brief life sketch of Anand and a lucid

expos6 on Anandls literary creed in addition to a fine analysis

of the artistic highpoints of Coolie, While assessing Anandf s

literary creed or his avowed humanism, Cowasjee cautions that we

must go by what is expressed in Anandfs concrete creations, that

is, his novels and not get played out by his numerous

protestations, generalisations or definitions. Anand has set

himself, according to his own protestations high standards, of a

writer being the fiery voice of the people or the great god

Brahma. Notwitstanding the flaws in his style and technique,

Anand is, in his own right a good artist as, despite his

emotional involvement in his subject and characters he is able to

command a detachment from his work. He has a ItChrist-like, all

embracing compa~sion~~ as Arnold Bennett termed it. Coolie is a

big departure from Untouchable, as it ushers the readers into a

more complicated and devious world built on profit-seeking and

cash-nexus. Anand, through Munoo's predicament, raises the

question of freedom in a capitalist society-

From among a whole mass of articles and papers dealing with

Anandfs literary creed and achievements, published in leading

national and international journals, it may be worthwhile

reviewing a few notable and recent ones.

M.K. Naikls article under the title, "The Achievement of

Mulk Raj Anandn published in Journal of Indian writinq in English

(JIWE) (Jan. 1973) probes the question of how far Anand succeeds

in reconciling his humanistic ideal with artistic integrity.

Based on the premise that a writer has a right to be judged by

what he attempts to do and can do rather than by what he cannot

do, Anand emerges as a committed writer by conscious intention.

Further Naik lists Anandf s own views on commitment and art and

comments that there are a few questions unanswered in Anand'Is

self-defence. There are a few defects in Anand that flaw his art

and constantly interfere with the progress of the action and plot

and the organic growth and interaction of the characters. The

Banasthali par t r ika (BPI 1969, carried G.S. Balarama Guptags

article, I1Anandfs The B i s Heart: A study1B. The author calls this

novel an effective dramatisation of the consequences of

industrialisation on the conservative and closed-up community of

the thathiars. It is a compact novel with Anand cutting out

unnecessary details of early life of Ananta and making him ready

for action when the novel opens. The author praises Anand for

having successfully avoided the danger of praducing a

propagandist work, given the theme of conflict between the

labourers and the capitalists.

The (12, 1969) includes Saros Cowasjee's essay, "Mulk

Raj Anand and his criticsfl, wherein the author summarises some

statements of select critics and assesses the same. After

quoting extracts from some of the outstanding Western critics,

he singles out Mrs. Meenakshi Mukherjeefs criticism of Anand.

Mrs. Meenakshi Mukherjeefs criticism appeared under the title

"Beyond the Village" in critical Essavs on Indian writinq

Enslish (1968). He takes exception to her statement that Anand

has been subjected to the least amount of critical scrutiny. H e

blames her for making some unwarranted and generalised

allegations on Anandfs writing. She attacks his '!habitual

overstatement and translation of Hindi and Punjabi idioms into

English and disapproves of Anand interpolating ~indi words in

English sentences and changing the spelling to imitate the speech

of the uneducated.

The main section of hex criticism pertains to Anand's

characterisation. According to her, Anandfs characters fall

neatly into three types: the sufferers, the oppressors and the

good men. C o w a s j e e challenges her to place characters like

Lakha in Untouchable, Babu Nathoo Ram, Mr.W.P. England and Mrs.

Mainwaring in coolie in their proper niches.

Mrs. ~ukherjee points to the lack of a "sustaining mythu as

the major cause for Anandf s failure as an artist. As a result,

she adds, Anandrs characters are tlrootless and rnythless and

appear somewhat unnaturaltg. Mrs. Mukherjee should recognise that

Anand has tried to create a new myth, and that is, his projection

of social outcastes and eccentrics as heroes, thus exploding

the myth that only aristocrats could be heroes.

Saros Cowasjee has an essay entitled "The B i q Heart: A New

Perspectiven in ACLALS Bulletin (4th Series, No.2, 1991) where he

traces the different conflicts in the novel to the one basic or

fundamental economic problem. Hence he concludes that all

freedom is reducible in Marxist categories to economic freedom.

He moreover, commends Anand for making a significant deviation

from his earlier narrow frame of interest in order to recognise

the good even in an otherwise evil system like, for instance,

the cornpossionate factory owners and machines in the context of

individualistic profit-seeking industrial capitalism. The

article throws light on the humane and positive side of Anandfs

personality.

The spring 77 issue of the Pakativa Journal of Enalish

Studies (KJES) has articles by Jack Lindsay and G . S . Balarama

Gupta. In "Three views on Cooliew, Jack Lindsay sets out to prove

that Anand was a trail-blazer as one, who in his novel, presented

the manifold and variegated glories and aspects of India and its

people. In this way he has made it possible for Indian novel to

enter the realm of world literature and for a whole new

literature of the oppressed and colonised people to make its

debut in the world arena. Anand as a pioneer drew on the works

of the Spanish writers, Latin American poets and' novelists and

joined hands with African, West Indian and other Asian writer*o

constitute a new brand of internationalism.

G.S. Balarama Gupta in his essay "Anand in Lettersmm,

provides a brief and illumnating summary of Anand's letters to

him on the model of Saros Cowasjee's Author &Q critic. According

to Edge11 Richwood, Coolie is a rich panoramic spectacle of

India's life in the villages and the cities. Anand has taken a

poetic view of life and given it a fictive representation. In

this, his Western mastersf quintessential ideas have been of

great help, The second view expressed by Edward Burra is that

Munoo is a universal figure. Hilla Vakeel observes that Coolie

presents the moving tragic drama of the life of Munoo, a harassed

underdog, a victim of fate and circumstances. The human depth

that offsets all the unmerited sufferings and buffetings of Munoo

is the central strand of the whole novel.

ROT. Robertson has written an article under the title

"Untouchable as an Archetypal Novelu in World &iterature Written

in Enalish (WLWE) . - He has explored the possibility of

categorising the novel Untouchable as an archetypal novel, as it

displays characteristics of an individual, typologically

representing a group and of the conflict reaching epic

proportions at the end. The novel leaves the unmistakable

impression of the central paradox of Bakha being both isolated

and entangled in a society, torn and fragmented by the colonial

confrontation. The archetypal figure is Bakha and the concept is

that of untouchability. As the context is the colonial

situation, it becomes a pattern for all commonwealth literature.

Robertson's approach is original and hence may be an impetus to

further investigations along this line-

There is an enormous amount of scholarship and criticism on.

Chinua Achebe. More than books, we have a lot of articles,

papers, essays and monographs published on Achebe and his

fictional achievements. Arthur Ravenscroftrs Chinua Achebe (1969)

is one of the early commentaries on Achebe's first four novels.

Ravenscroft displays good grasp of the history and past

traditions of the Igbo clan in his critique of Thinqs Fall A~art

(TFA) and Arrow of God (AOG) , Moreover he is quite nuanced in

his comparative analysis of and AOG, the two novels dealing

with the Igbo past and A man of the Pe0~I.e (AMP) and No Lonaer At

Ease (NLE), the ones repsresenting the modern, urbanised ethos of

the Igbos. Ravenscroft compliments Achebe on his range of the

English language and his adaptation to suit a given character or

situation. Even Achebefs use of pidgin, although presenting a

1

difficulty t o non-West ~frican readers, makes for authenticity,

according to the author. The author admires Achebe's ability to

vary and change the style and tone in accordance w i t h the theme

of the novel. The satiric mode and the sardonic and cynical tone

of Achebe in and NLE are preeminently suited to the novels,

their themes and characters.

G.D. Killam is one of the more popular ~ornmentators of

Achebe. He wrote his first book on Achebets novels in 1969 under

the title, The Novels of Chinua Achebe. He has a lucid and

informative introduction wherein he presents Achebe as a

committed and supremely endowed artist. Achebe is said to be

convinced t h a t a writer" task in Africa today is to recreate its

glorious past and achievements in all departments of human --.c-.-dpz.pIc.--

affairs and to restore dignity and pride to t h e African race.

Killam's detailed analysis of the action, characterization and

structure of each of Achebe's first four novels is quite

illuminating and elucidating. He has a good grasp of the matter

he is criticising and therefore his commentaries are a useful

guide to understand the spirit and texture of Achebe's novels.

Although Achebe's basic vision is tragic, there are reasons to

affirm that he believes in the ultimate triumph of the African

spirit, as Killam avers.

Charles Larson, in his book titled The mersence of

African Fiction (1971), commented on Achebets unique contribution

to the novel in Africa and attempted to elucidate the different

scenes and actions in the novels. According to Larson, TFA is not

a novel about an individual, but about a community: it is not a

novel of character, but a novel of situation. Larson moreover

praises Achebe for his creative, artistic and effective use of

Igbo figures of speech and proverbs.

In M.G. Cookef s book, Modern Black ~ovelists: collection

of Critical Essays (1971), Anne Tibble has a brief article on -

Chinua Achebe. According to her, in all his novels Achebe is

preoccupied with the moral conflict of values and is trying to

sift them and show them as the perennial challenge to the race.

David Cook's book entiled African ~teraturg: Critical

View (1977) has an essay on Chinua Achebe under the title "The

Centre Holdsu. This essay in effect turns out to be an in-depth

examinaion of the character of Okonkwo. The ultimate question

is: "1s Okonkwo dishonoured in his death or the people who did not

have the courage to defy the whitemen's messenger^?^^ The answer

is evident. Okonkwo even in his abomination of death by suicide

rises over the others in eminence and dignity. The irony' is

quite poignant.

Jonathan A Peters has in his book, pance of Masks

(19781, lengthy critical sketches on the first four novels of

Achebe. What is novel about his critical writing, is his

approach from the assumption, that it is the cultural heritage

and its traditions and symbols, like the mask, that constitute

the substance of Achebefs stories. Peters perceives a

well-conceived plan behind all the four novels commencing from

the glorious pinnacle that was Igbo past as protrayed in TFA and

deteriorating gradually with the advent of the white menfs

religion and administration, as represented in the other three

novels in subtle situations and actions shot through with an

ironic and satiric vein.

Critical Pers~ectives ~hinua Achebe (1978) edited by

Innes and Bernth ~indfors contains some useful, informative

essays. The pieces included here are not all that new, even as

the purpose of the editors was only to offer a good collection of

critical writings on Achebe to readers. The articles on TFA are

certainly qualitatively superior to others.

Bernth Lindfors has an essay titled "The Palm Oil with

which Achebefs Words are E8atenI1, in African Literature Todav

edited by Eldred D.Jones. The author's main argument is based on

Achebe1s successful and effective use of the English language and

specially his inimitable employment of Igbo proverbs, similes

and tales to evoke the cultural milieu where the action takes

prace. The way Achebe varies his similes in the rural and urban

novels is striking.

Eldred Jones in his article, "The ~ecolonization of

African Literature" in The Writer in Modern ~frica edited by

Per Wastberg, contends that in the postcolonial era colonialism

or decolonization has become a common and predominant theme of

most African writers and rightly so. He points out the two

approaches to the problem, one of pure invective against the

foreign rulers and the other of extolling the past civilization

and traditions of Africa in a bid to restore her to former glory

and dignity. Writers like Achebe and Soyinka have struck a

balance by not glossing over the imperfections of modern Africa-

Robert M Wren's study entitled Achebe1s World: - Historical and Cultural Context of Chinua Achebe (1979) provides a

refreshing peep into the assumptions, allusions and the novel's

context in general. He goes on to unravel some of the mysterious

and unexplained symbols, practices, rituals and terms so

commonly used by Achebe in his novels. His illuminating

commentaries and explications are a great help in appreciating

the beauty of Achebe1s art.

Ulli Beier has edited a collection of essays on African

writers, entitled Introduction 9 African Literature: An Anthology:

of Critical Writinq (1980). Ezekiel Mphahlelels article under - the title, "Writers and Commitmentv is a lucid presentation of

the concept of commitment and its relationship to literature as

defined by Marxist critics and writers of the left and as applied

in practice to African literature by leading paets, dramatists

and novelists of Africa. While admitting that commitment implies

the propagandist vein in practice, he asserts that it depends on

the handling of propaganda. He cites tlnegritude" as one eloquent

example of this type of writing. The novelists who document even

as they dramatise are committed, with the abler kind of novelist

allowing for a free use of irony. Achebefs themes of the

conflict between n e w ways of life and new beliefs and the old and

of the consequent frustration and disillusionment are expressive

of his commitment to the African ~etting~origins, history and

past. The writer expects that any African art should give

expression to a new spiritual point of view that explores the

human situations in general and concedes our weaknesses.

Abiola IreZe in the same anthology has an essay entitled

"The Tragic conflict in Achebef s Nove1sl1. It is a perceptive

analysis of Achebefs art which is at home with the tragic medium.

The tragic vision permeates not only the situations but also the

individual characters. The author examines the first four

novels of Achebe from this perspective. The strength of Achebefs

tragic presentation depends largely on the central character

whose tragic destiny is symbolic of the social drama. By the

same token, the writer points out, Lonser & Ease is a

disappointment because the central representative character is

inadequately drawn. He doesn't possess the tragic substance or

the stuff of which a tragic character is made. Abiola 1rel.e

characterises his style as sober, disciplined and economic, and

his prose as utilitarian. He is not only a keen observer and

recorder but a committed African novelist who is involved in the

process of "African Becoming1l.

In Twelve African writers (1980) by Gerald Moore, there is

an article on ~hinua Achebe. He perceptively points out the

circularity quite evident in the principal characters of

Achebe1s novels. The fate that is met by Obi in NLE is in no way

different from that encountered by his grandfather Okonkwo in

TFA. By striving to do better than their progenitors or fellows,

they do worse and end up most pathetically. According to

Moore, there is a certain sirnialrity, cyclical fate that hounds

the Okonkwos. The author, further, refers to AchebeJs style

and range of language and his capacity to enrich and embellish

his language with a judicious intermingling of Igbo proverbs,

myths and anecdotes. He discovers subtle manifestations of racial

superiority on the part of the British officials created by

Achebe. For him A Man of the Peo~le is a disappointment as

compared with the tragic grandeur of Arrow of God.

Nkosi Lewis has published a book entitled Tasks and Masks:

Themes and Stvles of African Literature (1981), wherein he has

commented on Acheber s style and fictional strategies in several

places. In chapter three with the title ItHistory as the Hero of

the African Novelt1, Lewis holds up Achebe as a superb model of

how the African past can be put to good use by an imaginative

writer. Achebe has proved that he is both an inventor of

t'fictionsn and a recorder of "social historyu. He is devoted to

the past not merely as an auditor of his peoplers past traditons

but also a creator of tffictionsll. While exploring the inner

dynamics of an Igbo society steadily reeling under the impact of

a& outside power Achebe highlights the inner movements and

conflicts of the protagonists.

There is no dearth of journal articles and essays on

Achebe. We are forced to make a good selection and confine it to

the recent ones. In Black World (June !73), Omalara Leslie has

analysed the first four novels of Achebe from the point of view of

alienation in her article entitled "Nigeria, Alienation and the

Novels of Chinua Achebe". Basing herself on Rousseaufs

definition of alienation as representation of a community by a

smaller group, the writer concludes that it is the colonial

administrative and political set up that caused the upheaval in

the Igbo society and even politics.

Ihechukwu Madubuike in Black World ( D e c , 1974) has an

article entitled IlAchebers Ideas on LiteratureN wherein he sets

out three areas of concern for Achebe: the interpretation of the

African past from within ; the problem of interpreting this past

in a foreign language; and the responsibilities and obligation of

the writer to his own people. The writer goes on to show h o w

these concerns blend in all Achebefs novels. In th+ame issue

Mavreen Warner Lewis i n his essay *tEzeulu and his God" probes

the novelfs central and dominant charactersf internal conflict

as mirroring and to a large extent triggering the strife in an

already disunited clan.

The Literary Half Yearlv XXI, I, Janf80 issue has the

following articles on Achebe and his art. Robert Wren titles his

article "Achebe's Odili: Hero and clown". ~ccording to Wren, it

is the natural wisdom of the past, preseved in traditons,

proverbs, tales and songs that finally infuses hope into Odili

who is otherwise a natural opportunist and holds out hope and

promise to the nation. IfChinua Achebe and the structure of

colonial tragedyw by Bruce F.Macdonald is an attempt at

projecting Okonkwo as a tragic hero, not cast exactly in the

mould of an Aristotelian tragic hero, but in his own right

fitting Achebers vision and parameters of a tragedy. Here the

social disintegration wrought by the colonial forces and .the

inner chaos caused by Okonkwofs excessive fear of annihilation

are presented. Thirdly, Hugh Webb has tried to discover a

reasonable theory underneath the fictional matrix of A Man of

the People. -

His article, "Drawing the Lines of Battle: A Man of the Peo~le." - argues that Achebets approach in this navel is realistic and

therefore the actual military coup in ~igeria in January 1966 was

not a mere coincidence. ~t was a vindication of Achebe1s

"realistupresentation, he asserts.

Andrew Peekfs interesting article, ltBetrayal and the Question

of Affirmation in Chinua Achebe1s No Lonqer At Eases1 throws light

on a dimension probably little probed earlier. The author

concludes that it is the so called betrayal of obi, by his

elitist Western education, symbol of the overall situation of

chaos and ambiguity in the colonial. period, that people at

large find it difficult and challenging to cope with.

Lastly there is the essay by Rosemary Colmer, ##The start of

Weeping is always hard: The ironic structure of No Lonser &

Ease," where the author's main contention is that Achebe denies

the novel and robs Obi of the only chance of a tragic moment by

placing his public humiliation at the beginning. There is no time

for a tragic understanding on Obits past or for cathartic

experience on the reader's side.

Kalu Ogbaa writing in World Literature Written in Enalish

(WLWE) (Aut. '81) puts forth a n e w interpretaion of the cause

of Ezeulurs death in his art'icle, ''Death in African Literature :

The Example of Chinua Achebe**, It is interesting to read his

arguments to show that Ulu, the God of security of Umuaro is

different from the Ulu created by Ezeulu or his personified

obsession for revenge. In this opinion he differs from better

known earlier commentators such as G.D. Killam and David

Carroll. The same writer advances a variation of this view in

his article "A cultural Note on Okonkwors suicideu that appeared

in Kuna~i~i (111, 2, 1981). According to his perception Okonkwo

commits suicide because he feels abandoned by both his clan and

his god for his triple murder. Murder, according to the Igbo

beliefs, i s an abomination and is avenged by ~ n i , the earth

goddess,

In the journal, Research in African Literature (RAL) (vol. 13

19821, Simon ~imonse has an essay titled "~frican Literature

between Nostalgia and Utopia: ~frican novels since 1953 in the

light of the modes of production approachw. Simonsels argument

is that it is more f r u i t f u l t o approach the African novel from

the Marxist perspective of the modes of production and their

articulation than from an approach that focuses on its specific

African content. The writer describes Achebe as being

particularisk and opposed to universal themes or problems to be

treated by African writers. Achebe has tried to define the

boundaries of African literature, He assumes the Marxist view of

the novel as literary form in which fundamental social

contradictions are reflected. According to him, Achebe

concentrated on the symbolic order of the pre-capitalist tribal

society. Thus it becomes the confrontation between the social

order of the African society and non-African within these

societies and within the tribal society, between the insiders and

outsiders.

Ibe Nwoga has an article in Literarv Half - Yearly (Jan. '86) entitled "The Igbo World of Achebe's Arrow of God" where

the writer establishes the artistic credibility and mastery of

Achebe. He maintains that Achebe first settles on a particular

theme and chooses events and characters and the social and

historical material suitable for his specific treatment. His

focus is not so much on the individual as on the clan or

society,

Catherine Lynette Innes has produced several useful and

illuminating studies on Chinua Achebe. Her expertise is

descernible in every one of her studies. Her book entitled Chinua

Achebe (1990) has an interesting introduction wherein Innes has

attempted a profile of Achebe as a novelist, She has restated

some of the major tenets and key principles of Achebefs fiction

writing. She spells out his main themes, of rejection of the

image of Africa as a cultural foil to Europe, of offering new

alternatives and of challenging the Western view of individual

autonomy. The essay on Anthills of the Savannah is rich in.new

and original insights. What is most interesting is Innes'

perception about Achebets investigation of the concept of power,

of its different manifestaions, corruption and distortion in this

novel, Her insights about the multiple narration and its

relationship to sharing power and decentring administration and

the satiric vein that runs through the whole work are worth

pondering. The final point about the racial and historical

importance of stories and story-telling is quite illuminating.

She throws a lot of light on AchebeJs presentation of the role

and function of women in this novel and of the eschatological or

apocalyptic elements contained in the novel particularly after

the death of Ikem and Chris.

In Journal of Black studies (JBS) (June 1990) there is an

essay by Joe E.obi, under the title, "A critical Reading of the

Disillusionment Noveltt. The writer devotes quite a lot of space

to discuss AchebeJs contribution to this type of fiction in

Africa. The fiction that came into vogue in the mid-sixties is

significantly known as the disillusionment novel. The novelists

of disillusion like Achbe and Soyinka, reflect the present

disaffection of the people, the lack of clarity and political

will among politicians and in general, the existential angst and

anger of the people and therefore they are very much

circumscribed, and operate in a limited framework,

In F s ~ e c t s of Common Wealth Literature (Vol 1, 1990) we come

across the essay by Mary Ebun Modupe Kolawole entitled "The

Omnipresent past and the quest for self-retrieval in African

Novelu. The author's thesis is to establish that among other

objectives, African novelists desire to reflect the past as well

as reflect on it in order to understand the present better.

Writers like Achebe have been consistently focussing on the past

so that identifying the root of the present problems, a search for

solution may be initiated. There is a good analysis of Achebefs

latest novel Anthills of the Savannah. The ultimate goal of all

this retrospection is not romanticism but a transformation of the

present.

In the autumn ,91 (Vol 37, Number 3) issue of Modern ~iction

Studies we find three fine studies on Chinua Achebe. Robin

Ikegami has offered a new interpretation of the role of story

telling as a political and social act, as a demonstration of

knowledge and an exercise of power. The author proceeds to

investigate the novel Anthills of Savannah from this angle.

There are several story-tellers each with his or her own way

of story-telling. Probably the most reliable and informed story-

teller is Beatrice who eventually proposes a new role to

stroy-telling, that of doing something. She believes in intiating

changes at all levels. Her performance of the naming ceremony of

Elewafs daughter too is symbolic of the convergence of the past

and the present and the emergence of women as a powerful segment.

The focus of this novel is on the future. The second essay is by

Kofi Owinsu under the title, "The politics of Interpretation: The

Novels of Chinua Achebe", The main thesis of this essay is the

importance and inevitability of interpreting stories. The role

of interpreters or critics is important and responsible. The

author infers from this that rereading and relearning of Achebe, .---'

and indeed of all African writers is called for today. *he third

piece is "Achebe and Negation of Independence" by ~nyemaechi

Udumukwu. The author sets out to clarify the nature of Achebe's

reaction to the negation of expectations of independence from /---'

colonial rule. The postcolonial &le can be identified as kl

neocolonial. He takes two novels of Achebe, A Man of the People

and Anthills of the Savannah as the basis for his investigation.

Achebe points out the inherent truth or rather the mistakes and

lapses of the rulers and exposes the nature of the security

apparatus. Achebe is not pessimistic but offers signs of hope,

hope of change and transformation.

The above survey is certainly very impressive and the extent

and quality of the scholarship extant on both Anand and Achebe,

are commendable. While Anand has had a rather biased critical

review at least from some scholars in India, he has been reviewed

objectively and in fact positively by a good number of Indian and

foreign critics. Nevertheless it has to be admitted that Anand

as a writer is not altogether free from flaws. His artistic

failures as pointed out by even neutral and scholarly critics both

fareign and Indian, have a basis in his works. While it. is

difficult to agree with Mrs. Mukherjee with regard to some of

her charges,one has to concede that Anand oversteps his limits

when his humanist impulse gets the better of his artistic temper.

All credit should be given to Anand, as critics have never failed

to point out, for his pioneering efforts and fighting qualities

so evident in his introduction of and persistence with the

marginallised and outcast people in his fictional works,

notwithstanding an orchestrated propaganda against him.

Achebe, on the other hand, has had a fair critical review.

There has been hardly any adverse or deliberately maligning

propaganda against his works, barring perhaps the controversy

over his alleged denigration of the ~ritish colonial agents.

This allegation, however, could not mar the overwhelmingly

positive response to him, as his novels on the post-independence

rulers and educated elite are a powerful and at times

devastating critique of their topsy-turvy and anti-people

attitudes, values, corruption and abuse of power. Achebers

artistic excellence, range of his language and style, grasp of

Igbo culture, history and ethos, have all been meticulously

observed and praised by critics and comentators. All said and

done Achebe emerges as a consummate artist, always striving to

create and innovate in terms of style, techniques,

characterization and theme.

A run-down of the survey of critical scholarship on both

Anand and Achebe amply justifies a comparison between the two-

They share a whole gamut of interests, concern and artistic

traits. Both the writers are confirmed as committed writers,

committed to the cause of the downtrodden each in his country.

Both have stuck to the parameters of creative writing whose

fictional matrix is the colonial history, the culture, life,

toil, struggle, the aspirations and hope of the masses of their

countries, labelled as third-world countries. They have been

consistent in addressing people's problems in a bid to create

awareness and conscientization not only in the victims but also in

the victimizers.

There are, however, areas where both these writers differ as

it is clear from the critiques of several scholars. While there

is a near unanimity among critics about Achebefs artistic

achievement and virtuosity, the decisive verdict of critics in

the case of Anand's artistic competence is not forthcoming as

yet.

PURPOSE QF THIS SUTDY:

Many of the above-mentioned critics have investigated the

themes of Anand and Achebe by making critical analysis of

individual novels, The interpretation of Anandfs ultimate goal

or thrust is understood as the representation of the stark

reality of poverty and exploitation on the one hand, or the

exposure of the culprits who are the British colonizers, or the-

ruling classes. Individual emancipation is said to be Anand's

ultimate vision of society, but an overpowering pessimism and

fatalism, an integral part of hereditary or cultural inheritance

of every individual, come in the way. Personal conversion or

transformation or amelioration through self-realization and

self-awareness is held out as one mode of changing society.

Compassion or bhakti or Yoga is projected as an efficacious W a y

of combatting social evils such as casteism, class conflict,

exploitation, alienation and social inequalities. There is,

however, a hint, according to a few critics, to collective action

or bold individual decision geared to making a dent in the

citadel of outmoded thought patterns and actions.

Achebers fictional aim or purpose has been interpreted by a

number of critics, from an analysis of both his fictional and

non-fictional output, to be, to teach his fellow-~igerians,

Africans and Europeans about the past glories of African

tradition, culture, religion and literature and to restore

dignity and pride to his people who lost it in their encounter

with the white race, Achebe's n o s t a l g i c and grandiose evocation

of the Igbo tribe's harmony and its unparalleled religious

practices and convictions is cited as irrefutable proof of his

espousal of the cause of his people's freedom. Achebe is open to

change and to any democratic system of government that is

willing to accord top priority to the needs of the masses.

According to some critics, Achebe engages in a systematic

analysis of power equations, use and abuse of power at different

levels in precolonial tribal society, in the colonial

administration and in the post-independence days. Power is said

to be at the centre of all the activities of the tribe, and

therefore Achebe probes the different approaches to it in the

different novels. He seemingly advocates shared power and group

leadership in preference to centralised, autocratic power

structures.

The specific purpose of this study is to prove the

possibility of a liberationist interpretation of the themes and

stories of the novels of both Anand and Achebe. As committed

writers both have identified themselves with their people,

specially the oppressed and exploited masses. The rather

strident voice of anger and protest heard in Anandrs writings and

the subtle notes of protest sounded by Achebe in his novels are

sufficient . . . dication that they are committed to a cause.

Reading the novels of Anand and Achebe and making a deeper

analysis of the same, one cannot fail to perceive the

underpinning ideology. In other words they are both political

writers. They have a basic perception of their respective

societies vis-a-vis the larger society, the different

organisms nd structures that go to make up their worlds and their I. people's lives. Anandrs ideology may be prompted or illumined by

Marxian tools or method of societal analysis. Achebe' s

perception has to do with the havoc wrought to a harmonious

tribal society by the colonial masters and rulers who introduced

forms of religions,administration, trade and education which had

unsettling and destabilising effects on the African society. The

contradictions caused by capitalism are discernible in every

third-world reality. Anand and Achebe are aware of these

contradictions and the subtle and intangible causes underlying

these.

Liberation as a process and an end, is claimed to be the

universal clamour and experience of all oppressed peoples of the

world. while this process may have the special cultural hues and

historical trappings of a particular nation, the general

ingredients and basic impulse and thrust are comaon. The

ideology component is very important and therefore, it may be

prescribed that a liberationist writer has a corresponding creed

or philosophy or vision a.$ Anand 3Eikud.I:~aga in his non-f ictional

writing as well as in his fictional works. Achebe has time

and again voiced his concern for the liberation of his fellow

Africans and has articulated his motives and goals in writing*

What follows in the thesis purports to elucidate the

hypothesis that such a liberationist framework is not absent from

the novels of Anand and Achebe. Their protestations and

confession relating to their literary creed and personal belief

and vision, though very convincing and credible, do not deter us

from delving deep into their respective oeuvre. What follows

will demonstrate how a critical search into the works of art of

these two novelists, will bear ample evidence to the fact that a

liberationist interpretation is very much in order. This

investigation will therefore not only take us inta the labyrinth

of the artistsf wealth of material, content, story line or theme,

but also bring us face to face with the techniques, linguistic

and artistic variations, adaptations and innovation and stylistic

patterns.

A B S T R A C T

Chapter one, Introduction, introduces the topic and furnishes

a critical review of the extant critical scholarship on both

Anand and Achebe. It further provides an abstract of the matter

dealt with in the chapters that follow and states the specific

purpose or aim of the study.

Chapter Two, "The Historical ~volution and Relevance of

Liberation in the Third-World Contextu, provides the historical

and conceptual background of the term llliberationla. It traces

the etymological evolution of the term and the historical context

in which it developed. A fairly comprehensive understanding of

the connotation of the term is attempted, Anand and Achebe as

third-world fictionists do fit into this liberation pattern at

least germinally.

Chapter Three, "Mulk Raj Anand and Chinua Achebe among

Contemporaries~, situates Anand and Achebe among their

contemporaries and proceeds to underscore their unique perception

and singular contribution in the area of political and prophetic

literature geared to liberation of the oppressed masses.

Chapter Four, takes up the study of the I1Liberation Motif in

the Delineation of protagonist^^^ by Anand and Achebe- Anand's

protagonists like Bakha of Untouchable, Munoo of coolie and

Ananta of The Biq Heart are not traditional or conventional

heroes. However, they are representative individuals. They are

models of liberated induviduals drawn from the class of

outcastes, the marginalised and the labourers. Achebe's heroes

are either tribal chieftains like Okonkwo and Ezeulu or the

educated, elitist Africans like Obi and Odili. They are

presented as types of their respective groups and therefore

signify in their own persons, lives and manner of their end, the

predicament of the Igbo tribe after the descent of the Europeans*

Anthills of the Savannah is Achebe's critique of centrialised

power in the person of Sam, and his proposed alternative of a

pluralistic leadership or shared power.

Chapter ~ive, "~radition Versus Modernity", dwells at length

on the manner in which Anand and Achebe have dealt with the

burning issue of traditon as opposed to modernity. Although

this topic is a pet theme with both Anand and Achebe, it is given

an in-depth treatment in The Biq Heart by Anand and in No

Lonaer & Ease, by Achebe, Anand is a stout advocate of

modernity and all that goes with it. His hero Ananta becomes his

mouthpiece and is, in a sense, a symbol and prototype of all

Indians, specially the rural segments, caught between the two

realities. Anandfs brand of modernity or modernism is marked by

moderation, unwilling to jettison humanistic values and ideals

while retaining a pragmatic approach to scientific and

technological changes that are rapidly transforming the face of

the earth in India.

Achebe's protrayal of this historic conflict boils down to

Obi, the principal characterts struggle to balance his idealism

against the insuperable temptation of the consumer world and

culture. He succumbs to the pressure of demands for leading a

life in consonance with his high position and elitist education.

Achebe projects the evils that can be spawned by an unrestricted

or unregulated pursuit of comforts and luxuries without a basic

moral consciousness. Obi has moral awareness and idealism but

lacks the strength of character that alone can withstand the

weight of materialistic and consumeristic demands. Achebe's

context is the Nigerian scene in a state of turmoil and disquiet,

as a consequence of the inroads made by Western ideologies, modes

of production and ownership and the value-systems centred on

money and acquistiveness.

Chapter Six, "Class War qnd Caste ~olitics" takes a critical

look at the treatment of exploitation by Anand and Achebe. In

Marxian analysis of social systems, class plays a crucial role in v.-

maintaining the exploitive character of a capitalist society. 1

Class conflict or class war eventually yields to proletarian rule

and the stateless and classless society accprding to Marx - Anand probes the class character of exploitation in several

novels, the chief among them being, coolie,. Two Leaves and a

Bud and The Bis Heart. Anand seemingly subscribes to the Marxist - view of class struggle preceding final liberation in the form of

classless society and stateless socialism. Munoo and Gangu,

although they are kshatriyas, are discriminated against and

exploited simply because they are poor and downtrodden. Z k @&l

Heart is a moving and heart-rending tragedy of ~nanta who dies a

martyr for the cause of educating and conscientizing his people

to accept the inevitability of modernity. Anand portrays the

heinousness and dissects the per se evil of casteism and

untouchability in Untouchable and The Road. c his twin sin and

shame of ~ndia is projected by Anand as equally responsible for

the social and economic inequalities that persist so many years

after Independence.

Achebe has not addressed class or caste problem explicitly

in his novels. However, his approach to the theme of colonial

confrontation includes a critique of the class distinctions that

emerged from the prevalence of market-economy and liberal use of

money. He deplores the fall in moral standards in the wake of

the advent of capitalism and points to the monumental corruption

in high places as an eloquent example of moral decadence. The

only instance of Itcaste" that can be identified in Achebe's

novels is the ostracism of a slave caste known as "Osu" as

presented in No Lonqer Ease. Achebe does not hesitate. to

pinpoint the irrational beliefs or practices that are divisive.

discriminatory or reactionary.

Chapter Seven, ItLiberation from the Feminist

Perspe~tive~~~attempts a feminist interpretation of Anandfs and

Achebe's study of exploitation. Women's Liberation as a

political or social movement and feminism as a literary or

artistic theory had its origin in the West and therefore the

Indian brand of feminism is not without its Western trappings,

biases, slants or excesses. However, the Indian equivalent has

had its measure of success, specially, thanks to the numerous

writers, particularly novelists, who have espoused its cause or

the cause of the exploited and maltreated women of India, in

their works of art. Anand without doubt, finds a place among

Indian writers who have aided the cause of the Indian woman by

drawing portraits of liberated or enlightened women who rebel

against time-worn or outmoded traditions. Anandrs Gauri is a

historic landmark in the evolution of the feminist novel in

India. Achebe may not be a hardcore Eeminist. Nevertheless his

presentation of women likd~eatrice and Elewa in Anthills of

Savannah can be studied from the feminist angle fruitfully. For

both Anand and Achebe, the woman is an integral and indispensable

part of any process of liberation.

Chapter ~ight, ItArt and ~onunitrnent~~, tries to resolve the

apparent dualism between art and commitment. It has been at the

centre of literary debate over the years. It is contended in

this chapter that-art and commitment are not mutually exclusive4

In fact they are complementary and mutually enriching. Even the

Marxist critics and theorists concede the autonomy of art and

therefore a committed writer need not neglect art or make it

subservient to content or subject matter. Anand1s subject matter

reveals his profound involvement in the lives and fortunes of the

people, specially the oppressed masses, Anand1s language, style

and fictional techniques reveal certain flaws thus inviting

unfavourable critical review. Achebe however comes across as a

master craftsman whose identification with his people, the Igbo

tribe, is near total. Literary commitment should not be equated

with propagandism. While Anand has been searching for the right

style and technique to suit his fictional matrix, he is not

altogether free from propagandist pitfall. Achebe, on the other

hand, has achieved the fine tuning between his art and

ideological conviction, matter and form. He has a rich

repertoire of fictional strategies, and a range of techniques

which are fascinating.

Chapter Nine, ltSumming UpM, is a summation of all that has

been said in the preceding chapters, We have gained a fairly

comprehensive grasp of the liberation motif in Anand and Achebe

through a systematic investigation of their stories, themes .and

artistic features, such as language, style, techniques of writing

and characterization. The ultimate success of the two novelists

is judged by the measure of success achieved by them in striking

the right balance or rhythm between their ideological

sensibilites and the demands of the literary genre. Moreover

this chapter goes on to maintain that the pioneering work of

these two writers provides the framework f o r f u t u r e research i n

the sphere of literature on liberation. The bold experiments

done by both Anand and Achebe, in making heroes of the

disinherited and the wretched of the earth, provide a fresh

impetus to more such experiments in future. More innovative and

creative work in fictional themes, forms, approaches and aim

modelled on Anand's and Achebefs paradigm are in order. Novels

with political and prophetic slant have a crucial role to play

in the liberation dynamics of any third-world country.

------------------------------------------------------ THE H l STOR l CAL EVOLUT l ON AND RELEVANCE OF 'L I BERAT I ON' ----------------------- - -- ............................

------------- - 1-1--------- IN THE TW IRD WORLD CONTEXT --------------------------

The third world context which forms the backdrop of the

novels of Mulk Raj Anand and Chinua Achebe has certain

characteristic socio-economic features. And it is against this

socio-economic scenario that problems like alienation

neo-colonialism, exploitation, starvation, growing gap between

the rich and the poor, poverty, illiteracy, corruption and

erosion of values in public life have to be examined. The

strange irony of it all is that this situation prevails despite

numerous policies and programmes of individual governments to

promote economic growth and to accumulate national wealth as far

as possible so as to increase the per capita income and the gross

national product. It is moreover assumed by the policy-makers

that the benefit of development will accrue to the entire

population including the poor and the rnarginalised in course of

time.

The flaw underlying this assumption is that it

ignores the existing socio-economic structures that favour the

accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few and keep the vast

majority of the population in want and misery. The lacuna

becomes glaring as it dawns on us that poverty need not be the

real problem of the third world countries. We are obliged as a

consequence to examine the dynamics of society and the mechanisms

that operate within the socio-economic structures in order t o

unravel t h e problem. Julius K Nyerere has stated this issue

forcefully and clearly thus:

Poverty is not the real problem of t h e modern

world, f o r we have knowledge and the

resources which will enable us t o overcome

poverty. The real problem of t h e modern

world - the thing which creates misery, wars

and hatred among men - is the division of

mankind into rich and poor. We can see this

division at two levels. within nation states

there are a few individuals who have great .

wealth and whose wealth gives them great

power. But t h e vast majority of the people . .

suffer from varying degrees of poverty and

deprivation. And looking at the world as a

collection of nation states, we see the same

pattern repeated: there are a few wealthy

nations which dominate the world economically

and therefore politically; and a mass of

smaller and poor nations whose destiny, it

appears, is to be dominated.

(Nyerere: 8).

It is in this context of shocking disparities and imbalance

between individuals and between nations that social thinkers,

religious and spiritual leaders down the decades have addressed

themselves to the question of social justice. Social justice has

been variously defined. Time there was when social justice was

made out to be a harmonious balance of the three traditional

types of justice, namely, the commutative justice (the relation-

ships between individuals among themselves), the distributive

justice (the relationship of society with regard to the members)

and the legal justice (relationship of individuals to the common

good). It should be conceded that a purely political and secular

notion of justice as propounded by Aristotle was later modified

radically by the introduction of man's relationship to God as

provident Father as the basis of all justice. It was the

scholastic philosophers and in particular St. Thomas Aquinas who

maintained an intrinsic and almost inseparable relationship

between love and justice. The definitions of the three kinds of

justice have been derived from ~quinas' Summa Theoloqica.

While the notion of social justice comprehends all these

above ideas and values, it cannot be restricted to the economic

order only. Popes Leo XI11 (in his epoch-making encyclical Rerum

Novarum 1891) and Pius XI (in his encyclical Quadrauesimo Anno.

1931) have attempted to further refine and clarify the term

"social justice" by applying it to the specific and new economic

situations arising out of new developments in industry. Both

these Pontiffs were concerned about the reformation of the

economic order by advocating the reign of social justice. Social

justice was propounded as the directing principle of all economic

life, activities and relationships. Although both the Pontiffs

were explicit in making the common good the purpose of s o c i a l

justice, "this common goood is the economic common good,"

(Drummond: 1955 : 27) . It was Pope Paul VI who in his outstanding encyclical

Po~ulorum Proclressio (1967) defined social justice in its most

comprehensive scope as "the integral development of everyman and

of all menq1 (Pope Paul VI 1967 - article 5). Probably the

inspiration for this global vision of social justice was provided

by the teachings of the Vatican council 11, Its document titled

t h e "Constitution on t h e Church in the Modern Worldf1 a major

highlight of the council affirmed that the Church in todayls

world must be committed to the creation of a better world, to the

promotion of justice, to the development of peoples and to the

defence of human rights.

Pope Paul VI in his encyclical sounded a note of urgency by

recommending bold transformations, innovations that go deep and

urgent reforms without delay if the human race, the peace of the

world and the future of civilization should have a chance to

survive.

It is in the context of all these history-making events,

declarations, pronouncements and socio-economic developments,

that the meaning and import of the word 'liberation1 is to be

sought. Probably a practical way of elucidating the term

"liberationf1 is by studying its origin in the Latin American

Continent. Ssgundo Galilea, a leading exponent of Liberation

Theology in Latin America, sums up the process by which the term

"liberationf1 came to be used popularly by the groups of people

engaged in t h e struggle for freedom as well as the Theologians

who began to reflect on the praxis of these people, in the

following manner:

Its immdediate an tecedent is t o be found

in Paul VI's Populorum Proqressio (1967).

Before this Encyclical was issued (that is to

say during the 50's and a good part of the

6 b r s ) , we spoke of 'developmentf a s a project

aiming to rescue the Latin American peoples

from their poverty. Paul VI transcends this

concept and speaks of 'integral development'.

For it was felt that unspecified notion of

development was inadequate; it was too closely

related to the material and economic aspects

of life and overlooked other dimensions of

t h e human person. @'Integral developmentw, on

the other hand, means man's advancement in all

his dimensions, both moral and religious; it

is every process that leads from Itless human

to more human conditionsa1, (Populorum

Progressio, art.20). This conception which goes

beyond the pure and simple, 'desarrollismo' of

the industrialised world, greatly influenced

the second Latin American Episcopal

Conference, held at Medellin in 1968. Even

before this event it exercised its influence,

though a more limited one, on many Christians

who in the early 60s were speaking of

llliberationu. It was in fact at Medellin

that the word was used officially for the

first time. Since then it has remained a

key-word in the reflection and tasks of

Latin American Christians.

(Segundo, 1978 : 336)

llLiberationu, according to the same writer has richer

shades of meaning as compared with the term "integral

developmentu and it posits man as the subject of his own destiny

and history. "Liberationu thus achieved legitimacy not only

among the people but amidst theologians of the Church in Latin

America.

Pope Paual VI indirectly gave his seal of approval to use

the term "liberationf1 by himself using the term in his apostolic

letter Evanqelii Nuntiandi (1975). For him liberation signifies

"the effort and struggle to overcome everything which c~ndemns

those peoples to remain on the margin of life: famine, chronic

disease, illiteracy, poverty, injustices in international

relations and specially in commercial exchanges, situations of

economic and cultural neo-colonialism, sometimes as cruel as the

old political c~lonialisrn~~. (Pope Paul VI 1975: art.30)

While we are not directly interested in a detailed analysis

of the theology of ~iberation, we can't altogether ignore certain

of the premises, methodological sources and tendencies of this

brand of theology. his position can be justified by the fact

that the theology of liberation is localised or situated in the

liberative praxis of the masses. Hence liberative praxis or

actions for justice or the socio-economic reality of the people

becomes the locus of theological reflection and elaboration. And

this is precisely the arena where changes, be they slow or

revolutionary, take place as a result of the liberative praxis of

the people, aware of their dehumanizing situation and of

their collective power to overthrow such oppressive structures.

Liberation theology starts off from human, social and

historical reality, ponders the existing relationships based on

injustice in a global frame and analyses the mechanism by which

the poor are oppressed. This theological reflection is obviausly

done in the light of the Christian faith in the context of Latin

America but the assistance of human science, specially of the

scientific tools of societal analysis available in Marxism is

sought.

What interests us here is the liberation dialectics that is

not the preserve of Latin ~merica, but can be, and in fact, is a

reality in other third world countries such as India and

continents such as Africa. Liberation is the universal clamour

and experience of all oppressed people in one form or the other.

It may have its cultural and historical nuances and specificity.

For instance the socio-economic reality in 1ndi.a has been

certainly affected by the historical event of colonialism and her

multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-racial cultural milieu.

Similarly we could suppose that the socio-economic situation of

Africa, apart from the common factors of domination and

oppression of the majority by a dominant minority is marked by

"its colonial past, racism or apar the id , non-literate culture,

multiplicity of tribes and languages and neo colonialism.

In this connection it may be fruitful to state what

Aloysius Pieris,S.J., one of t h e front-line Asian Theologians

from Sri Lanka has to say. Speaking about the indigenization of

theology of liberation in the context of Asia's ~ocio-political

and cultural reality, he observed that lithe religiousness of the

poor and the poverty of the religious masses together constitute

the complex structure of Asian reality which is the matrix of an

Asian Theologytf.

The same writer concludes to a new paradigm of liberation

emerging in Asia as a consequence of an inversion of values

effected by ~arxism, a widespread and popular ideology in many

Asian countries today. The two old models of liberation found in

India were the elitist exercise of retiring to a sequestered and

comfortable nook for pursuing philosophical or religious

speculations and the other of renunciation of or flight from the

world in order to have a 'desertf or forestf experience. The

new paradigm of liberation emerging today has none of the

features or elements of the former model which was elitist but

has apparent links with the latter model. "In the eyes of many

enlightened "pr~letariate~~ it is the elite of the leisure class

including religious leaders that need to be liberated and

this liberation can be achieved only in and through the

self-redemptive action of the masses, the commoners, the

hoi-~olloi, the poor, the oppressed who are thought to be

invested with a messianic mission for the humankind's total

liberation."

(Pieris , 1986: 275)

And it is significant as Pieris points out that this model

is akin to the twofold biblical doctrine of the renunciation of

Manunon within one's inner self and indirect and silent

denunciation of a world order built on ~ammonic values. Thus the

two principal axioms of the new paradigm of liberation are:

a) The irreconcilable antagonism between God and Mammon (a

universal spiritual dogma found in some form or other in all

religions of Asia particularly in Hinduism and Buddhism).

b) The irrevocable covenant between God and the Poor (a

spefifically Biblical axiom that may prove explosively true if

transposed to the context of a marxist analysis),

The messianic or the liberative role of the poor in third

world countries particularly in India could be meaningfully

viewed .in the light of what the Bible says about the poor.

George Soares-Prabhu,S.J., an Indian Biblical Scholar delineates

the biblical portrayal in his paper "The Kingdom of God: Jesus'

Vision of a New SocietyH, by qualifying the poor of the Bible as

(a) a sociological group, (b) a dialectical group, and (c) a

dynamic group. These three biblical tenets do bear resemblance

to Marxist theory which see$ the poor (proletariat) as a social

class at once victim and creator of human history.

At this stage it may be useful to examine another important

model of liberation dialectics, Karl Marx's elaboration of the

tools for a scientifc analysis of socio-economic reality merits a

close study as it attempts to critique the existent older models

of liberation. The oft-used 'liberative praxisf as one term gives

us clue to the importance or shall we say, primacy of praxis in

the process of liberation in any milieu, as propounded by Marx.

Let us investigate the original meaning of praxis before trying

to understand Marx's theory.

The word 'praxisf is Greek and has invariably found favour

with many commentators in preference to the English word

'practicef which does not adequately capture the nuances of

meaning implied in the Greek usage. It is neither theory nor

practice existing by itself. In one sense if, combines the

meanings and nuances of both in a unique fashion.

It was Aristotle who first posited three kinds of knowledge

designated by the terms theoria, praxis and poiesis

corresponding more or less to three kinds of living that we may

call the contemplative life (philosophical), the practical life

(political), and the productive life (survival activity)

'lThe~ria~~ is directed to the life of contemplation.

....tPraxis', on the other hand, is concerned with the

personal participation of the individual in the life of the 1

Ipolisf. More specifically praxis is directed to the right

ordering of human behaviour in the socio-political world..,.

'Poiesisf, the third form of human activity,is a process of making

those things which are necessary for the survival of human being.

Poiesis is about production: it is the exercise of technical

skills by different people; it is creation of artifacts; it is a

process of human making."

(Cited in Lane 1983: 3 4 ) .

To summarise Aristotlefs ideas on theoria, praxis and

poiesis, it should be pointed out that he never envisaged a

separation or dichotomy between the three, although, "theoriaW

was for him an end in itself, to be supported by "poiesis" and

"praxisu. He advocated a unity and interplay of all three and %

further wanted to keep politics and philosophy, the practical

life and contemplative life together.

We now proceed to an understanding of the ideas of Marx

concerning praxis. By and large primacy of theory dominated the

philosophical and theological thinking of the period preceding

the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment however,the shift

from the individual as knower to the individual as Agent took

place. The discoveries of science in the eighteenth century

opened up hitherto unknown possibilities of human

creativity. Kant reflected this new found enthusiasm and

confidence in his critique of pure reason and his avowed

preference for practical reason. "The human person is no longer

determined simply by a given cosmic order. Instead the

individual as subject constructs his or her own world. However

the problem with Kant was his failure to grapple with the social

and historical conditions of human existence and to apply the

importance of the turning towards the subject to the

socio-political world. This failure of Kant undoubtedly

influenced the works of Hegel and Marx significantly," (Lane, 1983

: 36).

Hegel postulated the Absolute Spirit at the centre of

history and all reality. Praxis for him is the praxis of spirit

reaching itself in history, Theory for him was the rational

articulation by the individual of that praxis. A1 t hough

Hegel posited unity between praxis and theory, this unity is

between the praxis of the spirit and theory proposed by the

individual. Hence he was not concerned with the praxis of the

individual person in the world. This lacuna provoked Marx into

developing his own particular view of theory-praxis relationship.

"Marx criticised Hegel's understanding of praxis as too

idealistic and ultimately ideological. That praxis did nothing

to change the course of history or to bring about freedom in the

world. Marx replaced the praxis of the spirit with the praxis of

human beings. The subject of world history is not Spirit guided

by Providence but the praxis of individual human beings," (Lane,

1983: 38).

Marx's understanding of praxis belongs to the large

complexus within his works which consists of the existence of two

streams referred to as ~ciensific Marxism and Critical Marxism.

The 'scientific stream is that part of Marx's thought that

explains the structures of the capitalist society as governed by

blind and necessary laws that maintain presently t h e capitalist

mode of production but will eventually bring about a classless

society. This introduces forms of materialism and determinism

into Marx's thought. On the other hand the critical stream is

concerned with changing the structures of the social and

political reality of day to day living. And this change

according to Marx can be effected by adopting a creative praxis.

The two streams yield two perceptions of praxis, namely the

blind praxis of unreflective labour of the scientific stream and

the creative praxis of the critical stream. While the former .is

the source of alienation within society, the latter is directed @ towards changing the social conditions of the working masses

whose basic aim is liberation. Taking the clue from Hegel, Marx

affirms that the individal is what he or she does and the human

person is shaped by praxis, At the same time the products of

praxis embody some aspects of the individual as the individual

puts something of himself or herself into his or her world of

product. These 'objectifications' of praxis become sources of

alienation only when the products of one's praxis are taken over

by others and turned into instruments for dominating, controlling

and dehumanizing the person leading ta alienation.

According to Marx it is life that determines consciousness

and not the other way about as Hegel maintained. It is this

principle that is at the basis of Marx's scientific materialism.

And Ifhistorical materialism in Marx implied that the

conditions of life, specially the historical mode of producing

the material means of existence determines the shape of human?

consciousness. Theory is the expression and articulation of

consciousness based on the material conditions resulting fro@ i

praxis, vg (Lane, 1983: 41) . Marx's primary concern in his study is directed to a

diagnosis of present social conditions. Therefore Marx is quite

resolute that praxis mu& be informed by a critical analysis of

societal dynamics. The only way to change the world is to

diagnose the present circumstances via a nrelentless criticism of

all existing conditions. .. not afraid of its findings and just

as little afraid of the conflict," (Cited in Lane, 1983: 4 2 ) .

Marx advocates relentless criticism and the purpose of such

criticism is the transformation of social reality. This

criticism is expected to bring to self-consciousness the reasons

why people are suffering and alienated and what they can do to

alter the causes of such suffering. In his eleventh thesis on

Feuerbach he states: nThe philosophers have only interpreted the

world; the point is to change it." Thus at the bottom of his

concept of revolutionary praxis (practical critical activity) we

perceive the combination of critical understanding and human

activity. Dermot A.Lane concludes his brief but perceptive

analysis of Marx's concept of praxis by saying "praxis is a

multi-layered concept embracing in varying degrees relentless

criticism, human activity, historical change, labour, production

and alienation," (Lane, 1983: 43).

And it is this conceptual richness and importance that

compelled us to study at length its manifold aspects and

meanings. Liberation theologians and thinkers have always

insisted on ''praxisw being clubbed with liberationtf . Thus

liberative praxis becomes the central concept and a very dynamic

and rich instrument of theory and practice in the whole corpus of

liberationist literature.

But what is common in all these different liberative

experiences and models is the fact that men and women have begun

to perceive or discover the world of the poor and the

underprivileged as never before, It is a new awareness of an

existent reality. A realization that people, individuals and

groups of persons who have hitherto been on the fringe of

society have begun to take their destinies into their own hands

and to articulate fearlessly their frustrations, hopes and

aspirations. Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the foremost and

pioneering liberation theologians of Latin America, has captured

the emergence of this new world and new awareness among this

people in the following manner:

Recent years in Latin America have been marked

by a real and demanding discovery of the world

of the other-the poor, the oppressed and the

exploited. In a social order that has been set

up financially, politically and ideologically

by a few for their own benefit, the 'other' of

this society are beginning to make their

voices heard. They are beginning to have

their direct say. They are starting to

rediscover less and less through

intermediaries now and are beginning to have

their direct say. They are starting to

rediscover themselves and to make the system

aware of their unsettling presence. They are

beginning to be less and less the objects of

demagogical manipulation or thinly disguised

social services and are gradually becoming the

agents of their own history, forgers of a

radically different society.

(Gutierrez 1983: 37)

It is a powerful depiction of the radically new situation

that is emerging in the third world as a whole. The ideological

underpinnings are not difficult to perceive. However, what is

central to this action for liberation is the involvement o r

commitment. This commitment implies an active solidarity with

the struggles of the masses in one form or the other. Gutierrez

from his own and his people's christian vantage point explains

commitment thus:

The ixruption of the 'otherr onto one's own

scene, the perception of the world of the

poor, leads one to an active solidarity with

that other's interest and struggles. It leads

to an involvement, a commitment, which

translates into a pledge to transform a

social order that generates marginalised and

oppressed persons. participation in the 1 praxis of liberation places us at the very 'I -

heart of a concrete conflictual history in

which w e meet Christ who reveals God to

us as Father and reveals our neighbours to us

as our sisters and brothers.'!

(Gutierrez, 1983: 38)

While liberative action calls for involvement and

cmmmitment marked by active solidarity with the struggling and

oppressed masses, the degree of intensity of this commitment and

mode or manner of involvement may vary from person to person. it

is in this process that we situate the role of the

intellectuals, writers and artists, as one of being at the service

of the struggling groups and movements. Their role is primarily

one of reflecting the level of consciousness of both the

participants and others. It will be their task to capture the

mood of the people, the ferment, the anger, the protest that is

generated in the process. Moreover they aid the onward thrust of

the process by projecting not merely the plight of the exploited

groups, but also by playing a prophetic role in terms of the

future course of their praxis and the goal of all their

endeavours. We have a very fine expose of this type of function '

of an intellecutal in Paulo Freiref s 'Pedaqoqy of the Qp~ressed'

wherein he dwells on 'conscientizationf as a concept that

signifies the process of the oppressed masses becoming aware of

their ignoble and inhuman situtation and power for changing it,

by means of an educational programme rooted in their

socio-economic and cultural milieus aided by the inspirational,

animational and prophetic role of committed intellectuals.

In this brief examination of the evolution of the concept

of liberation and the different models of liberation, w e have

consistently noticed that it has been interpreted variously

depending on the dominant ideology or culture of a particular

society or individuals at a given time. As in Latin America, in

India and in African countries too the pendulum has swung from an

elitist, personal, spiritualistic perception of fsalvation' to a 1

more societal, grass-roots, change-oriented, poor-centred option

for integral liberation. Several religious streams

and philosophical strands have contributed to this evolution.

Nevertheless the part played by Marxism in this process has been

remarkable and unprecedented. The rapid spread of Marxist

ideology sweeping through most Asian and African countries has

been in a large measure responsible for the radical rethinking of

political and economic policies, programmes and goals in many of

these countries. It should however be conceded that the almost

one sided economic bias of Marxism in its analysis of societal

dynamics has ben criticised by Asian and ~frican liberationist

thinkers.

The dimension of culture so very deep-seated in the

liberationist approaches, has been stressed as an indispensable

constitutent of the liberative processes of their countries. It

has been pointed out that 'even the Latin American approach to

liberation is one-sidedly economico-political and that it does

not pay sufficient attention to cultural, historical and

religious aspects of its reality.

In this context, what we have already said about the

religiousness of the poor in India, assumes greater significance

and relevance. If integral liberation must include cultural

liberation, it means in terms of India, t h e role of religion

which is the heart of their culture :

While culture sets up the symbolic worlds

that structure the life and relationships of

a community, relgion deals with the meaning of

it all, some would say, the ultimate meaning.

Because of this it provides deeper goals and

motivations. Religion, specially in its cultural

expression, may be conditioned and limited in

history. It- can be abused and can become

alienating. But it has also shown a prophetic

power to challenge existing situations.It

(Amaladoss, 268)

A concrete instance of religion's alienating and ambivalent

role is the establishment and perpetuation of caste hierarchy and

the division of people into high and low castes and ritually pure

and impure. While certain individuals and groups or movements i

have attempted to concretise the prophetic dimension of religion

by denouncing the caste-based inequality and untouchability as

anti-God and anti-human, the fact is, casteism and untouchability

have not been eradicated. Castebased discrimination is reflected

in all areas of the nation's social, economic and political life.

The reason for this is perhaps that we have not attacked this

social evil from a religio-cultural angle, systematically.

The prophetic role of religion lies also in its duty to

denounce the values of consumerism and acquisitiveness which are

an integral part of today's social fabric. The values of

voluntary poverty and the spirit of non-attachment of any

religion, as w e have pointed out earlier, may be one way to fight

effectively oppressive poverty. In short, it should be affirmed

that no project f o r the liberation of people in India can ignore '8

the liberation potential contained in great religions such as

Buddhism and Hinduism.

It is in this context that andh hi's ideal of nonpossession,

trusteeship etc., acquire great significance in terms of

liberative praxis in India. Gandhian vision is in sharp contrast

to the concept of class war advanced by the Marxian thought- The

system of Gandhi is rooted in the basic goodness of individuals

and built on an optimistic view of human nature. He was first

and foremost a spiritual leader of the masses seized with a

relentless quest for a more humane and just social order.

Gandhi recognising the fact of all being imprisoned in a

situation of bondage and alienation, posited that individual

persons should be liberated, so that the rest may attain

liberation.

Gandhism "making an analysis of the behavioural struture,

which is at work in an alienated social context, recognises the

active and passive roles respectively of the oppressed and the

oppressor in the process,lt (Statement of Indian Theological

Association, 1985: 18).

Gandhi evolved strategies of non-violent non-cooperation

and civil disobedience. In a bid to invest the whole exercise C

with a spiritual dimension, andh hi imposed voluntary suffering or

self-suffering not only as a sanction for the breaking of bondageJ

and oppression but also as a source of strength to the

participants and of emancipation to the oppressor, thus

reconciling both in a new human fellowship.

Gandhism envisages a just and fraternal communion, a society Ci

functioning within the framework of a self-governing and self-

supporting village or town without the paraphernalia of a huge

centralised governing machinery :

"In this way Gandhi brings the I

religio-spiritual heritage of India to the

liberative task and at once merges it with the

Christian model of Christ's suffering love

which breaks the oppression of the sin of

the world. Thereby challenges

to a rediscovery of the liberative potential of

its own paradigm. It

The

(St at ement Indian

Gandhian approach suffers from

Association,

lack systematic

socio-structural and political analysis as evidenced by his

implicit faith in the basic goodness of individuals and in the

possibility of social transformation to emerge from a moral or

spiritual conversion or mere change of behaviour.

"His vision of equality within Varnadharma again seems

unrealizable in practice. Trusteeship likewise depends too much

on the goodness of the individualst1.

Despite all these deficiencies ~andhism has certain very

valuable insights that can enrich the cultural components of the

new paradigm of liberation.

The liberation movements and traditions of Africa have a

marked cultural bias. The people of Africa have been

particularly wary and resentful of the destruction of their

cultural identity by the colonial powers. The impact of foreign

cultures on theirs has been far too difficult to withstand.

Hence the universal phenomenon of the people, the intellectuals

and writers in particular, seeking above everything to restore

dignity and respect to their native cutlure. Politically tbey

may be free; but culturally and even economically they are

dependent, and are objects of manipulation and exploitation by

the foreign powers and their agents. Hence they are inclined to

stress cultural liberation, more than economic or politcal

liberation. This concern is perceived palpably in the works of

writers from different African countries.

The above &study reaffirms the idea that liberation can

become an actuality only if the projects of liberation or the

liberative praxis takes into accoMt the peculiar cultural and

religious traditions, perceptions and streams of the milieu in

which it is immersed. It iq all the more important as liberation

is being worked out by the oppressed people themselves who, as we

have asserted earlier, are not only poor but religious. Thus the

religiousness of the poor and the poverty of the religious poor

of the third world countries constitute the indispensable two-

fold base on which the liberative praxis can become efficacious,

subversive, historymaking and enduringly people-centred.

MULK RAJ ANAND AND CHINUA ACHEBE AMONG THE l R CONTEMPORAR l ES

Mulk ~ a j Anand (1905 - ) has carved out for

himself a niche among the all-time celebrities in the domain of

the English novel in India. Hailed as one of the ill~strious

trinity, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao being the other t w o , Anand

has dominated the scene for the past five decades and more. He

is a prolific writer who has authored sixteen novels to date and

has to his credit over half a dozen volumes of short stories.

Being a versatile scholar, his interests encompassed a vast range

of subjects. While his principal passion was tied up with the

fortunes and vicissitudes of India's teeming millions, he wrote

on sophisticated subjects like Indian art, poets, painting,

architecture and even Indian cuisine. His Apoloqv for Heorism is

an autobiography of ideas, a remarkable literary venture at once

fascinating and informative.

Anand was born at Peshawar i n 1905. His fa ther came of a

traditional coppersmith stock, while his mother belonged to a

sturdy Punjab peasant family. His father joined the army and

distinguised himself as a disciplined soldier owing loyalty to

the British. Anand must have inherited his insatiable thirst for

adventure and novelty, his keen power of observation and

attention to details, from his father whom he admired and

respected. It must be from his mother that he derived his robust

common sense and his compassion for the poor and t h e downtrodden.

Anand had his education at Lahore, London and cambridge and

took a doctorate in Philosophy:

'Vmm 1930 to 1945 he divided h i s time between

literary London and Gandhifs India while

undertaking his long editorship of the Bombay

arts magazine Marq. Sophisticated and

cosmopolitan, impatient of transcendentalism,

sceptical of religion, Anand looks Indian life

fully in t h e face. His realistic novels, angry

at injustice, satirical yet warm, reveal

generosity of heart and great sympathy with t h e

unfortunate .... His fiction consistently

upholds the value of living and awarenessn,

( T h e Cambridge Guide to L i t i n Eng: 1988, 27)

Indian writing in English o r creative writing in the

English language by Indians is, in its own right, an accepted

genre with a history of nearly a hundred and fifty years. The

term "Indo-Anglian" was given popular currency by Dr.K.R.

Srinivasa Iyengar. He wrote a book with the title Indo-Anslian

Literature in 1943. This term is unacceptable t o many scholars

and students of English literature, although it had been i n vogue

many years before Dr.K.R. ~rinivasa Iyengar popularised it.

Today the corpus of English works by Indians is called Indian

writing in English, All said and done, I11ndian ~nglish writingB8

as Dr. Anand has declared, has come to stay as part of world

literature. Although it is a class by itself, this garden

variety of English literature is deemed to be part of the larger

phenomenon known as Commonwealth Literature. his variety of

literature includes all the literatures in English, of the

countries, once ruled and colonised by the British. The African

writings in English fall under this category thus affording some

common parameters for abcomparative analysis between the literary

works of different countries. Chinua Achebe, being a frontline

novelist and short story writer from Nigeria, stakes his claim as

one of the foremost African and commonwealth writers.

Indian writing in English has gone through a turbulent but

chequered history. It had its origin in the first half of the

nineteenth century. However most of the early experiments were

in verse. Prose of a non-fictional variety existed. But the

novel as a literary genre did not see the light of day until

after many years. For a very long time the 1ndian novelists were

confining their interests to history and romance. R.C.Dutt,

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and ~abindranath Tagore were the

illustrious fore-runners of fiction in India and in Bengal in

particular. Many of their Bengali novels were translated into

English by them, thus providing the timely fillip to the

contemporary Indian novelists in English. It is only with the

emergence of this magnificent trio that the Indian English novel

came to be recognised within and outside India. The approach of

these writers was both philosophical and social. Of course

Tagore brought the psychological dimension to the novel making a

cocerted effort to probe the innermost recesses of the human

mind. Mulk Raj Anand who began writing fiction much later showed

unmistakable signs of Rabindranath Tagore's influence.

It is with the advent of the "Big Three" on the horizon of

English novel in, India that we notice remarkable change for the

better. Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao with their mature

approach to the techniques and content of fictian and an

extraordinary command over the English language and idiom aided

by an unparallelled zest for Indian history, culture and reality,

guaranteed for Indian-English fiction a permanent position of

eminence and importance in the midst of world literatures in

English.

All the three novelists are more or less contemporaries and

have occupied the Indian literary scene for the past five or six

decades. Probably Mulk Raj Anand was the first to write and

publish novels and his first novel Untouchable (1935) was an

instant hit. He followed it up with Coolie (1936) and Two Leaves

and a Bud (1937). It must be remembered that Anand had to fight -

gamely before he could prevail upon the ~ritish publishers to

accept the manuscript of Untouchable. The role that E.M. Forstex

played in getting his Untouchable published is common knowledge

now.

The quality that distinguishes

from ~ a j a Rao, R.K. Narayan and from a host

of his younger contemporaries, is his humanist angle. As a

consequence of his social themes, realistic treatment and

concealed option for the underdog in Indian society, his

fictional approach has been called realism, social or socialist

realism and his novel, protest novel, political fiction, humanstic

or realistic novel or novel of human centrality. He has been

accused of being Marxist in his convictions and sensibility on

account of the consistently pro-poor or pro-worker stance that he

has adopted.

A comparison of M.R. Anand with his comteporaries,

particularly Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan, may not be altogether

fruitful or warranted. In point of fact, Anand himself

disapproves of assessing or judging a writer on the basis of

some pre-conceived ideas or theories or criteria, Anand asserts

in his "Reflections of a ~ovelist: Some Notes on the NovelH:

No critic can then, reproduce the essence of a

novel, through neat little theories of realism,

subjectivism, naturalism, social realism or

anti-novel-novel metaphysics. Because, the novel

is generally a whirlpool, in which we get

involved, and go round and round, being unable to

extricate ourselves until some startling event

restarts the flow. (in Amrrr (ed); 1985, 10)

Given Anand's avowal above, he can't be expected to

formulate a theory or code for writing a novel. Right enough

there are only fragmentary utterances and statements about novel

writing that convey Anand's preoccupations or professed fictional

strategies. Nevertheless from a study of his novels and short

stories, one can easily derive or arrive at a set of rules that

might have guided Anand. Although Anand may not advocate a

comparison with other novelists, it may not be altogether out of

place to study the relative merits of a few writers more or

less contemporaneous with M.R. Anand.

R a j Rao's novel has been termed as the "metaphysical

novelr1. His essential fictive matrix is the Indian view of

reality and he looks upon literature as "Sadhana", not a

profession. For him "SadhanaU is the consequence of the

metaphysical life. His fictional universe is universe as defined

by the metaphysical. We see a spiritual continuum in his later

novels beginning with The Ser~ent and the Rope and ending in

The Cat and Shakespeare. It is s and hi an strain that permeates --- the story, characterization, theme, and action of Kantha~ura. He

has fused poetry and politics, the perennial with the present, as

Dr.K.R.S. Iyengar points out in his chapter on Raja Rao.

( I y e n g a r , 1962: 394)

Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao differ in their fictional

strategies and approaches and to a lesser extent in terms of the

subjects they deal with. While commitment to the underprivileged

is the central quality of Anand, the metaphysical and

philosophical probing and analysis engage the attention of ~ a j a

Rao. Likewise R.K. Narayan has his own approach and subjects

that mark him out as a humorous writer, highly creative and

culturally rooted. He is a master of south Indian middle-class

psychology and manners. He is the father of the regional novel

in India, as his prime interest lies in the imaginary township

called "Malgudin inhabited by South Indian middle class gentry.

Among his numerous novels, The Guide is a tour-de-force of

technique. He is a serious artist like Raja Rao and pays

meticulous attention to smallest details of style, language,

strucutre, plot and characterization,

Among these three novelists, R.K. Narayan is probably the

most popular and enjoys the highest international renown as a

novelist. Nevertheless Raja Rao has his select readership as his

manner of writing evokes enthusiasm only in serious- minded and

philosophically or religiously oriented readers , Anand's appeal

is universal and for all time and categories of people,

His novel read like stories and therefore appeal to children and

adults alike. While the style of R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao is

urbane and elitist, Anand deliberately adopts a rugged and

colloquial style often marred by an excessive use of Punjabi

expressions and swear words transliterated into English. All

said and done, Anand outshines the other two by his inimitable

fluency of language. The flow and the force of his language is

almost proverbial.

Mulk R a j Anand is still engaged in writing. He has yet to

complete three more novels of his projected seven volume

autobiographical work, A s he has been writing continuously for

the last six decades, he has kept company with a whole gamut of

novelists. Apart from R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao, a host of

others like Ahmed Ali, K.A. Abbas, K. Nagarajan, G.V. Desani and

a few others belonging to the 30's and 40's have been Anand's

comtemporaries.

During the period between 1950 and 1979 some more new

novelists appeared on the scene. Sudhin N. ~ o s h , Bhabani

Bhattacharya, Khushwant Singh, Manohar Malgonkar, B. Rajan, A r m

Joshi, Chaman Nahal and a group of talented and versatile women

novelists like Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal, Ruth Jhabwala

and Anita Desai are quite active even today and are contributing

enormously to the growth and reputation of the English novel in

India. During this phase M.R. Anand came out with some valuable

collections of short stories. And others like Khushwant Singh and

Bhabani Bhattacharya have also augmented the repertoire of short

stories with their own colIections. Moreover Anand continued his

fictional vein and brought out four novels - The Old Woman and the Cow (19601, The Road (1963), The Death of 2 Hero (1964), and --

his largest novel porninq Face (1970). R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao

also came up with a few titles during this period.

The typical trend of this period was the abiding interest

in introspection arnd psychological investigation or probing into

the inner goings on of characters. While this is found to be the

principal and overriding concern of novelists of this period, it

must be acknowledged that various traits of the successive phases

were found to be overlapping in any one phase. Anand who is

essentially a writer of social themes with an undercurrent of

satire and critique aimed at the colonial masters and the feudal

and capitalist system, came out with a psychological novel

entitled The Private Life of an Indian Prince.

Mulk Raj Anand, like R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao, has made

valuable contributions to the growth of the novel in India. They

have experimented with different techniques in writing novel and

thus blazed the trail for innovations. Anand perfected the

Joycean art of the stream of consciousness in his Untouchable and

set an example for other younger novelists to follow. AnandJs

Coolie is a triumph of the picaresque genre in Indian writing. He

has made extensive use of the technique of interior monologue in

places where he is interested in laying bare the subconscious and

innermost movements of characters. While he owes a lot to his

Western education and to his readings in Western philosophical

systems including the Marxist one, it should be conceded that he

has always been committed to and interested in the social,

political, cultural and other realities of ~ndia. chief among

these was the all-pervading phenomenon of ~andhism or andh hi an

movement that beccarne AnandJs passion for many years. This was

the inspiration behind some of his novels.

All said and done, M.R. Anand occupies a unique place in

the history of Indo-Anglian novel, as one who originated the

novel of protest or the political novel centred on the uniqueness

of the human person and on the life and struggles of the

disinherited and the wretched of ~ndia, to rediscover their

identity as human beings and as Indians. It was a bold and

revolutionary step that met with a lot of opposition and critical

censure. Anand waged a relentless battle against all such

hostile forces and eventually triumphed and established himself

as a novelist par excellence of the oppressed masses, exploited

in the name of religion, caste, class and ruthlessly kept out of

the democratic process for ever.

Chinua Achebe is without doubt one of the highly regarded

of African writers in English. Achebe literally burst on the

African literary scene and in a sense put Nigeria on the world

map of English literature with his first novel, a classic in its

own right, entitled Thinqs fall Apart in 1958. He followed this

up with three other novels, No Lonser && Ease (1960), Arrow of

God (1964), and & Man of People (1966). It has taken nearly -

twenty long years for Achebe to produce his next novel,

Anthills of a Savannah (1987). He has two collections of short

stories namely, The sacrificial Eqg and Other stories (1962) and

Girls at War (1972). He has besides written some poems collected --- under the titles Beware Soul Brother and other Poems (1971) and

Christmas in Biafra and other Poems (1973).

Chinua Achebe was born in Ogidi, E. Nigeria on 16th

November 1930. After completing his secondary schooling at

Government College, Umuahia, Achebe graduated from University

College, Ibadan, in the year 1953.

He served in the Nigerian Broadcasting corporation from

1954 to 1966 and was in Nigerian government service during t h e

civil War (1967-70). We taught in American Universities after

war. Besides a chequered literary career as Founding Editor,

Hinemann African Writers Services, Director, Heinemann

Educational Books Nigeria Ltd., Editor, ~kike, a Nigerian journal

of new writing and Chairman, Society of ~igerian Authors, he has

the unique distinction of having been the recipient of an

impressive array of awards, prizes and fellowships from d i f f e r e n t

Institutes and Universities round the globe.

His merits and achievements as an African writer in English

are summed up in the following manner in The Oxford Companion

Enslish Literature:

.... Achebe's reputation largely rests on his

four novels which can be s een as a sequence,

re-creating Africa's journey from tradition to

modernity. Things Fall Apart (1958) seems to

derive from W.B. Yeats, its vision of history as

well as its title; it was followed by Longer

At Ease (1960) ; Arrow of God (1964) a portrayal --

of traditional society at the time of its first

confrontation with European society (a

traditional society recreated in Achebefs novels

by the use of Igbo legend and proverb): A Man of

the People (1966) which breaks new ground. - Bitterness and disillusionment lie just beneath

the sparkling satiric surface and the novel

provides further evidence of Achebe's mastery of

a wide range of language, from English of

Igbo-speakers and pidgin, to various levels of

formal English.

(Drabble ( e d ) : 1989)

By his own admission Achebe is a political writer. He

believes in the politics of human communication which is based on

understanding issuing from respect. According to Achebe, the

greatest casuality in the historic encounter between Europe and

Africa was precisely this human understanding and respect for

the human person. Achebe comments:

... Africa's meeting with Europe must be

accounted a terrible disaster in this matter of human

understanding and respect. The nature of the

meeting precluded any warmth of friendship.

First Eilrope was an enslaver, then a colonizer.

In either role she had no need and made little

effort to understand or appreciate Africa. Indeed

she easily convinced herself that there was

nothing there to justify the effort. Today our

world is still bedevilled by the consequences of

that cataclysmic encounter.

(Cited in Kirkpatrick ed. 1986; 6 )

Achebe derives his, literary and fictional goal from this premise.

In fact his first novel was a backlash against the traditional

European representation of Africa in fiction. He is at pains to

evoke the civilized values and recapture the egalitarian life

style of the pre-colonial Nigerian or Igbo sdciety in this novel.

He proceeds to establish his thesis that it was the colonial

regime with its missionary, political, administrative and

commercial imperialism that fractured and fragmented this time -

honoured unity and brotherhood.

Achebe looks upon the role of the writer as a teacher or

educator. The writer is committed to his society and therefore

it is his duty to tell his people, that their society had

poetry,philosophy, culture, literature and dignity before the

Europeans came into the picture. Thus it becomes incumbent on

the writer to restore dignity and self-respect to the African

people. It is the predominant duty of an African writer i n

today's context as spelt out by Achebe in h i s essays, lectures

and interviews :

In his "The Novelist as Teacher1', Achebe has contended:

Perhaps what I wri t e i s applied a r t a s distinct

from pure. But who cares? Art is important, but

so is education of the kind I have in mind. And

I don't see that the two need be mutually

antagonistic,

(Achebe, 1965: 161-162)

Achebe and probably many others of h i s contemporaries have

internalised this conception of a writer and have striven to

reflect public concern in their writings. In African tradition,

art has always been a public gift or exercise and therefore a

sense of social commitment has been considered mandatory for the

artist. This concept is so entrenched in ~frican culture and

psyche that a non-committal or uncommitted art is a contradiction

in terms.

Africa, and ~ i g e r i a in particular, had oral traditions or

orature from time immemorial. But the novel form took a l o n g time

to find a conducive climate for its growth and development.

Although the Africans had an ancient and rich heritage of

stories, legends and myths, nothing was committed to writing.

Thus it was the English novel form that was espoused and promoted

by writers like, Tutuola, Aluko, Wole Soyinka, Achebe, Ekwensi,

Ngugi, Ohot, Beti, Okara and Senghor. Although Amos Tutuola had

published his two most popular novels, The Palmwine Drinkard

(1952) and Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954) before ever

Achebe came into the limelight, it should be conceded that it was

Achebe who not only blazed the trail as an African novelist with

his all-time classic Thinas Fall A w a r t (1958) but drew

international acclaim as an English novelist with a rare native

charm and extraordinary commitment to his people and to his art-

Other great artists like Wole Soyinka, Arnadi, Armah, Awoonor,

Farah, La Guma and Ngugi commenced their fiction writing only in

the 1 9 6 0 s or after. Each of these writers h a s made his Own ,-

contribution to the African belles-lett*s and particularly to

the art of fiction writing in Africa.

It was in this decade that the so called novel of

disillusionment came into being with Achebefs publication of A

Man of the Peowle and SoyinkaJs The Interpreters. In other

words, this moment in ~frica's literary history was a significant

turning point, even as African writers were turning their backs

on a purely inward looking exercise of affirming the black race

and extolling the negritude or the virtue of being black. In the

newly independent African countries, writers and thinkers began

to sense the disillusionment caused to the people, by the failure

of the indigenous ruling elite. It was in this atmosphere of

disillusionment and anger that Achebe wrote his A Man of the

People which virutally became a prophetic foreshadowing of the

civil war that broke out soon after.

Like Achebe, T.M. Aluko has dealt with the subject of the

consequences of the collision of values that marked the

colonization of Nigeria in his One Man, One Wife (1959) and One

Man, One Matchet (1964). Nevertheless it should be added that

Aluko does not capture, as Achebe does, the complexity of this

historic conflict.

Armah is another of Achebe's better known comternporaries

whose commitment to the African past in terms of its influence

over the present or its role in the trnasformation of the present

is absolutely unmistakable. He reveals a quest for a new society

or a new alternative through history, myth and ideology. In his

The Beautiful One's Are Not Yet Born, Fragments, Why are We

Blest and Thousand Years, Armah is not only artistically

recreating the past, but is pointing to a resolution of the

present conflict and crisis through collective action.

Achebe's contribution, however, has been unqiue as he set

the tone for this literary reconstruction and retrieval of the

past in a bid to restore honour and pride and importance to

Nigeria's and Africa's traditional precolonial past and to expose

the havoc wrought by the colonial regime. Achebe is certainly

more sympathetic to the Western - educated elite who govern the

country. As an artist Achebe far excels Armah and his other

contemporaries in this that his novels, rich in historical and

anthropological details, do nonetheless have compact structures

and characters, who are credible individuals, and illustrate a use

of the English language so apt in the mouths of his Nigerian

characters.

Mary Ebun Modupe Kolawole has spelt out this common quest or

concerns of the Nigerian or African writers in the following

words :

Among other objectives, African novelists desire

to reflect the past as well as reflect upon it to

understand present. Existing socio-political and

economic set-ups in Africa call for concern.

Inchoate political systems create social unrest

and economic burden. So, writers assume the role

of social ventriloquists, exploring the historical

hindsight to explain the predicaments that exist

while searching for a future direction.

.... Grounding literature on concrete reality,

they explore the effect of colonialism

externalized and internalized as well as

neo-colonialists, on the contemporary set-up.

(Kolawole : 125)

Wole Soyinka is more a dramatist than a novelist.

Nevertheless he won international acclaim and attention with his

tour de force The Interpreters. Soyinka is a powerful artist who

commands extraordinary mastery over his language. He creates

characters who are all cynics or reactionaries, albeit good,

reflecting the creator's cynicism. Ngugi points out Soyinkafs

defect as a writer, in his essay "Satire in Nigeria":

Although Soyinka exposes his society in breadth,

the picture he draws lacks depth, it is s t a t i c ,

for he fails to see the present in the historical

perspective of conflict and struggle.

(Pie terse and Munro (ed. ), 1969: 69)

Ngugi Wa Thiongfo is counted among Africa's leading

novelists. With his first novel, Weep Not Child (1964), he

revealed his exceptional talent as a novelist. His other two

novels The River Between (1965) and A rain of Wheat (1967)

appeared in quick succession, and earned him the singular

distinction of a very young writer endowed with creativity and

linguistic ability. NgugiFs point of departure was, as with the

other ~frican writers, the clash of two cultures in the wake of

colonial confrontation. Neverthelss his third novel revolves

around the disillusioning developments in the newly independent

Kenya.

The pattern that we perceive in Achebe is discernible also

in Ngugk. Of course, Achebe has moved away from this bias with

the passage of time. His latest novel Anthills of && Savannah

is an eloquent testimony to Achebe's rich repertoire of

fictional strategies.

Among all the novelists of Africa, Achebe stands out as the

better known writer, with a universal appeal that transcends the

boundaries of Nigeria and even Africa, He is the major exponent

of the modern African novel imbued not only with the sense of the

value of writing in authentic English, acceptable to the native

speakers of the tongue but of the necessity of writing for a

global readership in the context of Africa's prestige, pride and

future. It should be asserted that Achebe has today become a

household name not only in the anglophone African countries but

in the English speaking countries all over the world. True to

his avowed aims, he has earned for himself a permanent place in

the English literary firmament. Perhaps, it is to a considerable

extent, thanks to Achebe's example, that no ~ f r i c a n writer has

sought the raw m a t e r i a l f o r his/her work outside Africa, or has

t u r n e d his/her back on his/her own culture. G.D. Killam sums up

Achebe's contribution to the African literary world thus:

Achebe is in the front rank of these writers and

h i s prose writing reflects three essential and

related concerns first with the legacy of

colonialism at both the individual and social

level; secondly with the fact of English as a

language of national and international exchange;

thirdly, with the obligations and responsiblities

of the writer both to the society in which he

lives and to his art.

(Killam, 1975: 3-4)

Both Anand and Achebe broke new grounds in using the novel

as a powerful means of educating the masses and specially the

intelligentsia concerning their national situations of injustice,

inequality and unfreedom, In this sense they are pioneers of a

new brand of fiction that is unorthodox and unconventional in its

subject matter and treatment. While Anand's realistic portrayal

often amounted to a commentary or documentary on social reality,

Achebe's accounts are a n o s t a l g i c and imaginative recreation of

the past in order to elucidate the present crisis and to

extrapolate into the future. Anand's novel is political as much

as Achebets is, as both these writers w r i t e with an e x p l i c i t aim

or programme. In this sense, both of them serve as models of

committed writers who for the first time in their countries took

a serious view of t h e writer's r o l e a s t h e voice of consciousness

and conscientization or education of the oppressed masses whose

power for societal transformation they recognised and wanted to

harness.

CHAPTER FOUR

--------------------------------------------------------- L l BERAT I ON MOT l F I N THE DEL l NEAT l ON OF PROTAGON t STS ------------- --- ----- -- -------- -- ------ ------------------

Liberation as we have already established is not just a

concept or merely an attitude that underlines the power of the

poor and the oppressed to emancipate themselves from their

dehumanizing situation, but is a praxis comprising a relentless

scientific analysis of the present socio-political reality geared

to positive action for transformation of unjust, unequal and

oppressive social structures. Liberation as collective action

for empowering the poor has become the hall-mark of all the

aspirations of the third world societies. As a collective search

or struggle for freedom from all shackles, economic, palitical,

social, religious and cultural, it is more pronounced and

articulated in some third world countries than in others. While

social justice for all, equality of opportunities and freedom

from all forms of exploitation, constitute the core of the

liberative movement all over the wrld, we should carefully define

the vital importance of the cultural and peculiar political and

historical dimensions of a country.

Hence the cultural heritage and political situation of the

Nigeria of Achebe and of the India that Anand is portraying have

a significant place in the liberation drama that is being

enacted. Similarly we should take cognizance of a very

fundamental postulate of the liberation thinkers. According to

it, man, particularly the dispossessed and disinherited man, is

the subject of his own destiny and history. In other words, the

perspective of liberation is not that of the elite classes, but

that of the proletariate, the poor, the commoners, the oppressed

masses. The belief or assumption underpinning this is

that the poor have been invested with a messianic mission for the

total liberation of the humankind. Therefore liberation is not

thought to be achieved by a handful of leaders or educated

intelligentsia alone, but by the self-redemptive action of the

masses.

It is from this premise of the liberation dialectics that

we proceed to evaluate Achebe's and Anand's delineation of the

protagonists of their novels. Both these third world novelists

are professedly committed to transformation of the unjust

structures operating in their respective countries. They have

enunciated very clearly the ideological framework within which

they function as writers and novelists. Thus it becomes

incumbent on them that they justify and legitimise tlfeir stand

vis-a-vis their social impulse on the one hand and their

fictional strategy on the other. As such we presume that both

Anand and Achebe are genuine searchers not only as social and

political thinkers but also as artists. In fact, this is the

acid test of their authenticity as ideologues and artists. The

hero of a novel occupies a central position in the action and

story, thereby determining the overa l l thrust and impact of the

novel. An examination of some of the protagonists of Anand and

Achebe should yie ld valuable insights i n t o the author's

perception in terms of liberation.

It is widely accepted that Anand as a novelist presents

powerfully his view of Indian society and its maladies through

his skills of characterisation, It is no exaggeration to say

that he is a character novelist. In all his novels we find

one or more leading characters who dominate the action of the

novel. His protagonists are invariably drawn from the underside

of society, the voiceless and marginalised sections of India.

It is interesting to learn from his article titled "The

Sources of Protest in my Novel", that Anand's spirit of protest

as a writer was aroused and inflamed by a statement of Edward

Sackville-West:

I made first conscious protest as a writer,

when I came away from Bloomsbury after hearing

the critic, Edward Sackville-West, declare:

"There can be no tragic writing about the poor

They are only fit for comedy, as in ~ickens

The canine can't go into literature."

(Contemporary Indian F i c t i o n in English : p.23)

And C.D. Narasimhaiah has paid a fitting tribute to Anandgs

brave innovation as a novelist saying that he introduced into

creative literature whole n e w peoples who have seldom entered the

realms of literature in India.

It is in this sense that we attribute wheroismn to the

central characters of his novels. Anand certainly made a

revolutionary departure from the existing practice and from the

principles laid down by Aristotle and other classical masters.

What is meritorious is that Anand has clung to his conviction

with great tenacity despite censures from all literary quarters

and marginalisation by critics and scholars in India and abroad.

In point of fact Anand was a pioneer in this type of fiction in

India. All his protagonists are tragic heroes in their own

rights, but their tragedy is not merely personal but symbolic or

typical of the tragic situation of large segments of 1ndian

population.

In his very first novel, Untouchable, Bakha the sweeper boy

is the protagonist. He belongs to the lowest rungs of the

caste-hierarchy that existed in the punjab. The higher castes

who had religious sanction for their caste superiority considered

these low-born untouchable. Hence, Anand in this navel has set

himself the task of exposing the darker, heinous and diabolical

aspects of the caste system perpetrated by the caste Hindus.

Anand does this by probing the consciousness of the half-starved

poverty-stricken sweeper boy, as he goes through his daily rounds

of sweeping and cleaning against the background of his family,

friends, playmates and the series of humiliations and insults he

is subjected to. Anand has achieved his purpose in a remarkable

fashion by observing and portraying Bakhafs acting and reacting,

in the short span of a day. Bakha may lack the maturity or

courage necessary for him to achieve the status of a protagonist.

But Anand has endowed him with a keen sense of his own personal

dignity and an irrepressible zest for the good things of life

aspiring to dress and behave like the sahibs.

While Anand has paid meticulous attention to every detail

of Balcha's life as he goes about his daily chores, he hasn't

failed to investigate and indicate his innermost anguish and

search for his own identity. Anand no doubt emphatically depicts

Bakha and his father Lakha, brother Rakha and sister ~ohini as

struggling to eke out an existence which is sub-human, confined

to their dreary and monotonous routine of cleaning latrines,

sweeping and begging for food which is their only reward for

their daily drudgery,

Anand portrays Bakha as a sweeper, untouchable with a

difference. There are a few subtle artistic strokes by which

Anand projects Bakha as a nimble and intelligent boy who was

discontented with his anonymous position. He wanted to better

his position and was unhappy about his status that merited only

contempt and ill-treatment from t h e caste people. He wanted to

d r e s s and l i v e like the Tommies. All in all, Bakha lived in a

world of phantasy and illusion. But in and through all t h i s we

ca t ch a glimpse of Bakhafs search for i d e n t i t y , or recognition a s

an individual, as a human. These comic and pathetic touches of

the writer enhance the poignancy of Bakhats consciausness as a

mere untouchable.

Bakha is torn between two worlds, one illusory, fashioned

by his acute imagination and the other the grim r ea l i t y of his

nameless ex i s tence . A l l t h e insults heaped on him, the

humiliations and harassment, mental, phys i ca l and even sexual

suffered by his sister Sohini notwithstanding Bakha is able to

retain h i s sanity and flare for life, thanks to the 'fire that

was a smouldering rage in his soul'.

The question he poses to himself in his depth of dejection

and depression is : "Why was all this?" Anand makes Bakha go

through a painful process of introspection and self-

confrontation. That is also a moment of truth, of illumination

that Bakha is afforded as a r e s u l t of his soul-searching. The

root-cause of all his agonising and tormenting experiences, it

now dawns on him, is the fact of his being an untouchable. He

finds himself imprisoned in this cell, for no fault of his.

Bakha is depressed, but not desperate. His consciousness

of his pathetic predicament strengthens his will to fight against

this oppression. He will not be a pushover. He is looking out

for a solution. He is not easy cannon-fodder for any demagogue

or orator or evangelist. Of the three alternatives proposed, he

is not fascinated by the Christian preacher, attracted somewhat

to Gandhi's charismatic personality but captivated by the third

alternative that promises immediate liberation from the filthy

and despicable work done by the untouchables.

Bakha is an individual untouchable, all right. He has his

personality, feelings, reactions, aspirations all very authentic.

Nevertheless Anandls delineation of Bakha leaves no trace of

doubt as to the formerr s intention that Bakha is a type of all

untouchables who suffer similar discrimination and have no power,

position or money with which to resist or protest. Bakha8s spirit

is protesting. His anger although ineffective in one sense, can

generate a strong determinatian to fight discrimination and

restore dignity and equality to the untouchables. He seeks

deliverance from a work that makes them contemptible and dirty.

Bakha is a symbol of the rage and indignation simmering in

thousands of untouchables. If thousands of Bakhas can channelise

their awareness and anger along positive, liberative action, one

could reasonably hope for a radical transformation of not only

the community of the untouchables but of the whole society.

It may be argued that after all Bakha too is a prisoner and

victim of his own self-pitying, self-recrimination and meekness

and therefore is not the subject of his own destiny. He is more

acted upon than acting, a passive victim of fate and of the

system that annihilates him and the likes of him. But one cannot

fail to perceive that Bakha is a die-hard optimist and warms up

to the teachings of ~andhiji and the poet Igbal Nath ~arashar.

He is disgusted and dismayed by the hypocrisy of the world he is

living in. But he doesn't give up. He is still confident of a

better future if only Gandhifs idealism and the poet's much

vaunted rnechanisation and modernization could eventually remove

the stigma and the social ostracism of the untouchables and

rehabilitate them as equal citizens of India. He returns home at

the end of the novel, not with a vacant mind OT a pervasive

feeling of desperation but with his mind and his whole being

echoing the fiery words of the poet, a harbinger of good tidings.

Bakha finds in the poet and to some extent in Gandhiji an

affirmation of his own deep-seated yearning for liberation. And

irvland has revealed in an unmistakable w a y his own predilection

fox mechanisation as a route to achieving a socialist democracy.

In Coolie it is Munoo's sojourn and travails that become

Anand's symbolic representation of the unequal class

relationships sharpened by the capitalist system with the

underlying hope of a crisis and an alternative. Like Bakha,

Munoo is a victim of hostile circumstances from his birth having

lost both his parents. He belongs to the Kshatriya caste but on

account of poverty and its attendant disabilities he is driven

from pillar to post in search of a better life.

The story is cast aginst the background of a capitalist

society ushered in by the colonial rule, where caste-hierarchy

notwithstanding, it is injustice and exploitation and cut-throat

competition that govern the relationships between the powerful

business class and the silenced and subjugated working class.

While Anand doesn't pretend that caste is no more a force to

reckon with, he turns his attention to another crucial problem. He

follows with compassion and concern the relentless battle and

struggle waged by a whiff of a boy barely fourteen years old.

But his delineation of the protagonist, though charged with

pathos, doesn't betray romantic idealism or threadbare

sentimentalism. Munoofs ill-fated odyssey started from his home

in the scenic Kangra Valley, wended its way to the household of

Babu Nathoo Ram, then to the warm and kind-hearted hearth of

Prabha, his wife and their pickle factory in Daulatpur, then to

the Bombay cotton mills and finally to Sirnla as a rickshaw-puller

for Mrs. Mainwaring.

The untimely death that Munoo faces as a consequence of

tuberculosis does by no means putthe lid on his ever vibrant and

patiently enduring spirit. The very flexibility and suppleness

of his youthful body lend strength to his character at once

dignified and proud of his caste and minimal education. Of

course he was an orphan whom nobody wanted except for the purpose

of exploiting him, He was literally hounded out by society and

driven mercilessly to his doom.

We certainly feel let down by the writer when Munoo

succumbs to a wasting sickness. What happens to his robust

optimism and positive outlook in the face of a relentless fate

not allowing him to enjoy the sunny side of life or the

legitimate pleasures accessible to a boy of his age? Munoo

achieves a heroic character albeit in a minor key or limited

sense, in this that we admire him more than we sympathise with

him, Moreover in Munoofs vicissitudes we are enabled to witness

with deep concern the tragedy that is the life of millions of

workers in our country. Anand has moreover portrayed striking

parallels and contrasts in his study of human nature under the

impact and onslaught of capitalist values of self-aggrandizement,

profiteering, selfishness and dishonesty. Anand has juxtaposed

the innocent hard working and basically contented coolies and

labourers and the unscrupulous, opportunistic, self-degrading

employers, traders and bureaucrats. Between the two, Anand makes

his judgement clear and unmistakable, It is a superb piece of

satire without a trace of contempt b u t compelling our acquiescence

to the moral judgement on the depravity and inhumanity of the

business class. Anand ratifies the central tenet of liberation

ideology that it is only the dispossessed masses who should work

out their own liberation and not expect any dramatic conversion

or change of heart on the part of the wealthy. Munoo finds

fellowshiup and brotherhood only in the company of coolies and

others in a similar predicament. The attitude of the rich people

is one of cold indifference or positive animosity.

There is one hint which Anand has consciously thrown about

Munoots awareness of the injustice of the situation and how the

trade union was one legitimate means of redressing the grievances

of workers and even sometimes of overthrowing an anti-labour

management. Just before the close of the navel as Munoo is

confined to bed suffering from the ill-effects of consumption,

Anand says:

When the haemorrhage occurred he looked

terribly frightened. But when the sun shone

and his breathing was a litle better he became

intent and absorbed in himself. He wanted to

get well. And he made plans in his head.

Ratan had written to him to come to Bombay to

a small job in the pay of the Trade Union

organising the fight against the Pathan money

lenders, the foreman and the factory wallahs.

Munoo felt he would go... .

(Coolie: p.326)

But it was too late, this enlightened resolve, Munoo fell

a prey to consumption not long after. Anand has made a subtle

suggestion about the inevitability of revolt and rebellion and

the necessity of struggle if such a dehumanizing system could be

dismantled and a more human dispensation has to become the order

of the day.

This and numerous instances in the novel where workers join

together to display their solidarity and collective bargaining

power and the attempt to forge and strengthen a Trade Union at

all costs and to demand their basic rights are an eloquent

testimony to Anandys unshakable belief in liberation, be it only

economic and social, of the downtrodden groaning under the weight

of an anti-people system.

Now let us examine Anandfs delineation of Ananta in The

Heart. Ananta a coppersmith of Billimaran Lane in Amritsar with

his

the

experiences

respect

working in cities like Bombay

most the thathiars but also

commands not only

their admiration

and fear. He is moreover a man of tremendous physique endowed

with endearing qualities such as deep concern for human beings

living in misery, starvation and squalor and readiness to extend

any help to them and a disarming simplicity that: appeals to

children. While Lalu of the village trilogy discovers that

harmony with oneself, self-control and self-renunciation are

prerequisites for success in any action for liberation late in

life, Ananta possesses it right at the beginning of the novel.

H e is convinced of the absolute need for unity and solidarity in

order to combat suppression and exploitation and of the truth

that the destruction of the machine that is threatening to ruin

the coppersmith class is not a solution to the problem. Instead

he vows to engage in concerted and positive action in order to

bargain from a position of power with the factory management.

Anpnd has sought to find a solution to the question of man

or the machine or tradition versus modernity in his fictional

context. In this endeavour Ananta, the protagonist, becomes his

powerful spokesman and an inspiring symbol. Ananta advocates a

middle path of accommodation but not at the expense of human

values but in a bid to master one's destiny. And in this he is

not just a passive spectator or a demagogue indulging in radical

rhetoric.

His life depicted by Anand in the space af a day, shows him to

be a man of action, of optimism and hope and above all of warm

humanity. Probably it is this last trait that has blinded him to

the social stigma that is attached to his living with Janki, h i s

mistress. This is disapproved by the thathiars who are champions

of tradition and conventions and vehemently opposed to

mechanisation and modernisation.

Anantats efforts to moblize the thathiars for collective

action to help all the coppersmiths thrown out of job to secure

employment in the factory are finally doomed to fail because of

Anantafs association with Janki and of the unfortunate incident

wherein Anantats receipt of the balance of his wages from the

younger brother of the factory owner is miscontrued by his

thathiar brethren as a bribe. The narrow outlook and the

prejudiced views of the coppersmiths stand in the way of their

unanimous approval of his proposals. S t u d e n t Satyapal and his

crew mouthing some Marxist slogans and indulging in inflammatory

and emotion-charged rhetoric prevent the people from listening to

Ananta. Finally madness and mob f u r y get t h e better of wise

counsel and more planned a c t i o n . In the orgy of violence and

destruction let loose by Satyapal and group after gatecrashing

into the factory, Ralia runs amuck and in the act of mindless

vandalism, murders Ananta who tries to dissuade him from

destroying the machines.

The death of Ananta at the hands of a fellow thathiar in

the very act of preventing anti-social and mindless violence and

vandalism from destroying the cause of thathiar unity and

solidarity is significant, In other words the pathetic death of

Ananta although paradoxical, becomes a martyr's death,

spbolising the sacrifice demanded of any grass-root leader in

the cause of liberation of the working class. Ananta is first

and foremost liberated from the curtain of suspicion,

insinuation, jealousy and mudslinging that separated him from his

people when he was alive. In this violent death, Ananta shines

as a hero and champion of the coppersmiths even as the poet Puran

~ingh Bhagat articulates a rare insight while pay ing a tribute t o

Ananta's indomitable spirit :

"All stories end in death, Jankain the poet

s a i d . "But childling, even i f one is given a

short life, it becomes shorter if it is

guarded selfishly. On the other hand, think

of the joy of living for others, of helping

others.

(The Big Heart, p. 229)

Anand sums up the essence of what it is to be committed to

the cause of liberation. Ananta had earlier spelt out that it is

not by- just one instance of rebellion that change can be realised

but by a many a conflict between the employers and workers in

several places, at different times, all this having a cumulative

impact of making a dent in the system that is oppressive.

Anantafs death is a triumph of such faith, signalling the beginning

of the end. The remorse-filled thathiars mourn the death of Ananta

as an irreparable loss but translate their anguish in a

determination to carry on his fight, the struggle. Above all,

the single most striking result of Anantafs death is the dramatic

transformation that takes place in Janki after manta's dea th ,

Janki vows to practise bhakti and, to organise the women comrades

in future.

W e hear Anand's voice when t h e poet Puran Singh Bhagat

utters these words:

"You must not be afraid, JankaiM he s a i d .

"You are so sens ib le and have such

understanding. What a great thing it would be if

women like you who possess such gifts of

sincerity and grace, give yourselves to

'bhakti', devotion, to working for othersn.

(The Big Heart , p-229)

Janki has begun to respond t o the cal l t o become a new

woman, to overcome fate by daring all criticism and provocation

and taking risks in order to make Anantafs dream come true.

Anand's heroes are tantalizingly complex. There is a

certain flatness and static quality about them given their

predisposition to love, compassion, suffering, endurance and

sensitivity. However, they don't stagnate but have the capacity

to relate their own personalities to the realities of the world.

Speaking about an ideal of man in Anand's novels

Mr.D.Riemenschneider asserts:

Munoofs intellectual capacities, for instance,

are f e w and he is purely a suffering human

being; BakhaJs rebelion is almost likewise

limited by his little education and Lalu lacks

the sense of proportion in his struggles.

Ananta, on the contrary, represents a

harmonious balance between sensitivity and

intellect though t h e final test of his strength

occurs at a t i m e when he himself cannot grasp

its significance. In Gauri we face a

repetition of the whale development from a

slightly different aspect because she is a

woman. In Naqbool, sensitivity, reflection

and action combine in such a perfect way

that they triumph over the absolute challenge

of annihilation,

(Riemenschneider: p. 24) ,

This concept of self-effacing sacrifice echoes the teaching

&G of Jesus as propounded in: ... unless a grain of wheat falls into

the earth and dies, it remains alone:." A. ~hepherd~in his essay

''Alienated Being: A Reappraisal of Anand's Alienated Heron

reiterates:

Anand believes in the values of unrelenting

struggle despite all obstacles, real or

imaginary; there are really no other

alternatives. It is t h e untriurnphant hero

whom he celebrates in his novels: Kanwar

Rampal Singh, La1 Singh, Ananta , Maqbaol,

men whose good intentions are exceeded only

by their personal limitations in a struggle

based on the ideal of right: "It must be

remembered that the literature of each age

becomes significant through the confrontation

of the hero of the opposing death forces and

by showing through his struggle, even if he

fails, the possibilities of a nobler, bolder

and near superhuman destiny - the

affirmation of life itself against death in

all f omsn (Anand) . (Shepherd in Perspectives on M. R. Anand: p. 151)

Anand has wittingly or unwittingly hit at the central

paradox of the liberation praxis. A E ~ irmation of l i f e for the

suffering masses underscores the need for sacrifice and struggle

aimed at eliminating all forms of death, liberation . from a l l

forms of death-dealing forces and establishment of a new society

upholding life and pro-people values. In and through all his

novels and protagonists Anand has tried to scrutinize and explain

this paradox. All his heroes are caught in this paradoxical

predicament at the end of the novel. It is when they come

closest to success that they meet with apparent failure or

disillusionment. His characters, especially the central

characters, embody the contradictoriness of human nature in its

extent and depth. After all, the gap between the real and ideal

in life is what spells the difference between successful men and

others who face apparent defeat. If it is an inseparable part

of human life, it is also an intrinsic element in the whole

logic of liberation praxis.

Chinua Achebe's portrayal of characters, specially the

major characters, is consistent and convincing. In all his five

novels we perceive his stamp as a creator of authentic

protagonists. In Thinss Fall Awart Achebe has skilfully drawn

the character of Okonkwo on whose fortunes revolves the fa te , the

rise and fall of the ~ g b o clan of Umuofia. His death at the end

of the novel signifies the death of the old traditions and ways

of life. This is how Achebe has depicted the symbiotic

relationship between Okonkwo and the people, culture and fortune

of Umuofia.

Achebe presents Qkonkwofs character as self-willed,

self-opinionated, proud, courageous and power-conscious as well

as human and expansive. People fear him as much as they respect

him and admire him for his valour, wealth and other achievements,

Although he is a character of intense individuality, he is also

one in whom the values most admired by the Xgbo peoples are

consolidated* His stature is heroic as presented by Achebe at

the beginning of the novel. His heroic nature is flawed because

of certain shortcomings and deviations apart from the inexorable

element of fatality symbolized by the 'chif that seems to work

against him in the final analysis. His impatience and irratianal

rage elicit from him rash responses ta situations. Above all h e

was a man tormented by a nagging fear of failure and weakness

that characterised his father Unoka, who incidentally had been

nicknamed "agbalaW (woman) as he had taken no title.

T h e r e is a clear split in Okonkwofs personality between his

strong and positive qualities and the weaker side dominated by

excessive ambition. The final catastraphe, that seals the process

of destruction of t h e old values and symbolises it, is sharpened by

Okonkwo's obstinate refusal to accept t h e unsettling changes

brought on by the advent of the white administration, religion and

trade. His suicide is certainly a desperate act but not done out

of cowardice. It was prompted by a sense of helplessness and

rejection by his clan. It knocked the bottom out of his personal

view of his clan's right response to the current phenomenon. He

was a man totally frustrated as he saw his best hopes dashed to

the ground. The refusal of the kinsmen to stand by him when he

attacked t h e white authority's messenger was an insult and shame

he could not bear, Hence he took the most extreme step- But

protest he did. He disapproved of his clansmen's meek

submission to a foreign power and foreign religion that

undermined the traditional fabric of the tribal society and

culture. Even in his ignoble death by suicide, considered to be

an abomination and unworthy of a burial by his kinsmen, Okankwo

doesn't lose the tragic eminence. W e don't despise him in his

death, but we sympathise with him and in fact feel inclined to

admire him. Okonkwo achieves his tragic status by rising above

the sceptical relativism of his'people and by standing for the

essential values of the community. His death is an assertion

that there are certain things which are absolute. But the irony

is that the same attitude is a denial of the basic tenet of Igbo

reality which finds stability in flexibility and relatedness.

Achebe projects the classic dilemma of open, flexible societies

encountering powers, monolithic and unscrupulous.

His death only heightens t h e irony of t h e final scene where

the novelist holds up to mild ridicule t h e 'civilizing missionr

of the colonial masters. The total lack of understanding

displayed by the British of the native social and cultural

heritage is highlighted in the last paragraph, although, a mild

ironic strand runs through the whole novel. The death of Okonkwo

and the general falling apart of all cultural and social customs

and values are symptomatic of the colonial notion o f a divine

mandate given to it for civilizing the Africans, at the cost of

destroying the indigenous system. The process of liberation

commences here even as Okonkwo teaches his clansmen what it is to

lead a dignified life without losing one's self-worth. The white

man's wiles, subtle and sinister designs and hypocrisy should be

exposed. This seems to be the message that Achebe delivers

through the principal character's death. It is hoped that even

Okonkwols death by suicide could serve as a historic reminder of the

colonial rulersf apathy to the Africansf predicament and the

traumatic psycho-social wounds suffered by the natives.

In Lonaer & =seAchebe1s central character is Obi

Okonkwo, the grandson of Okonkwo, the protagonist of his first

novel. He is son of Nwoye who betrayed his father by deserting

to the new religion, Nwoyers experience of the brutality of his

father Okonkwo in murdering Ikemefuna the boy-hostage who became

attached to him, forced him to become a ~hristian. obi has

returned from England with a B.A. degreee full of an idealism to

rid his country of corruption and to create a new nation. He

starts well enough. He is appointed to a responsible post as

12 1

Scholarship Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education. But

Obi's affair with Clara an a8~su1~elonging to an inferior

caste, a descendant of slaves, complicates the situation as

his family and kinsmen vehemently disapprove and oppose this

relationship as unbecoming foreign educated young man*

O b i , who is an idealist and sets out to root out corruption

and establish a model of clean and upright public life, runs into

rough weather as conflicting demands are made on him. While he

is asked to pay back the loan given him for his studies abroad,

he is expected to display a standard of living appropriate to his

"European" rank. This is a severe test to his security and

integrity. Obi is no longer at ease. He is pulled by

conflicting demands and pressures. He is in a state of confusion

reflecting the contradictions that characterize his society in

the wake of a new order and a new set of values as a natural

outcome of it, Obi is shocked and stunned by the contradictory

values and opinions held by his contemporaries and his own

parents. Achebe leaves no doubt about the truth that this state

of affairs was caused by the import of Western value-system,

life-style, habits and customs that upset the traditional

balance. In ather words, materialism and its twin

acquistiveness, have become the modern day monster that is

ruining the Nigerian body politic, corruption is the logical

extension of acquistiveness which was released in Nigeria by the

forces of colonialism. Obi is a victim and product of this

situation.

The opening scene wherein Obi is convicted of taking bribes

is certainly powerful and subtle indictment in Achebe" idiom of

the moral and ethical decadence set in motion by the colonial

ethos. But the interesting point is the irony that is underlying

the whole scene, The Urnuofia men are distressed not because Obi

indulged in corrupt practices but rather because he was 'caughtr

accepting bribes.

Obi's strength is his moral consciousness but unfortunately

it is not supported by an equally strong moral courage. A s a

result when he has to take a stand he falters and fails

miserably. Moreover he lacks the capacity for consecutive

serious reasoning. This twin inadequacy ultimately let him down

and led him to h i s doom.

Achebefs ironic vision reahes a poignant stage in the story

as Obi's trial and conviction take place even as he is beginning

to realise his moral guilt and his responsibility to turn over a

new leaf . But Achebe has succeeded superbly in asserting his

moral vision and his historic perspective through the skilful

delineation of his protagonist.

Obi's characterization has helped Achebe in masterfully

probing a moral problem and an ethical question with astute

intellligence and great objectivity and detachment. He neither

condemns outright Obi nor does he exonerate him. While taking a

rigid traditional line with regard to public morality, he points

his finger, very subtlely through an ironic-cum-satiric mode of

writing, at the real perpetrators of such an ambiguous situation.

In fact by the end of the novel Achebe wins our sympathy and

admiration for Obi who is a transformed person.

Obi is a type of a host of educated new elite in Nigeria.

They are well-meaning and intelligent and determined to rid

their society of rampant corruption and other evil

practices. They may be for a while rattled by the contradictions

thrown up by a polity that is no longer at ease. They may be

victims of this.predicament. Nevertheless they axe the hope of a

young nation like Nigeria, The educated new elite are a single

most talented group that can catalyse the movement for change of

structures and establishment of a more humane and fraternal

system. This, in effect, is a definite programme in view of

liberation. of course, no nation can pin all its hopes an its

intelligentsia. But it is a group that cannot be ignored or

marginalised in any liberation package.

In Arrow of God Achebefs interest is ostensibly to evoke

the glorious and col~urful Igbo-past by elaborately describing

the rituals, customs, historical happenings, beliefs and

The ultimate victory is an affirmation of the wisdom

contained in the saying, "no man however great can win judgement

against a clanN. The power of the people in liberative praxis is

brought out by Achebe in the way he has delineated the character

of Ezeulu. Between Ezeulu and the people, it is the people's

power or grass-root struggle that will ultimately triumph.

In Anthills a the Savannah where Achebe further probes the

function of power and particularly of military power, his

literary form has been dictated by his political vision and the

subject he is dealing with. He breaks new ground by not only

making a departure from his own practice but by striking a

posture altogether different from other African practitioners

faced with identical socio-political situation and rage. The

triumvirate at the helm of affairs in the fictional African State

of Kangan are Sam, the General and His Excellency, the Head of

State and h i s two friends and rivals, Chris, the Commissioner for

Information and Ikem Osodi, the editor of the National

Gazette.1t is through the observations and articulations of Chris

and Ikem that Achebe mainly develops and portrays the perversion

and corruption of power, herein typified by the person and

functioning of the President. These two have their own theories

and views and share and discuss these in the company of Beatrice

Okoh, Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and

the fourth major character in the novel.

Of the four, Achebe has drawn in detail only the characters

of Ikem, Chris and Beatrice, giving very little attention to the

depiction of Sam's character, probably indicating his inevitable

failure as dictator and the irrelevance of dictatorial regime in

the African context. Of the three, it is Ikem Osodi who is also

poet, novelist and playwright who gets, the most extensive

treatment. He is a crusader against the abuses of power and uses

his editorials to ridicule, parody and disclose such

malpractices. He is a fiery character, a young Turk possessed of

an anarchic spirit coupled with a determination to prevent any

further corruption by unquestioned power. He believes, "Only

half-wits can stumble into such enormitiesN speaking of the

hazards of power. Achebe however decides to reeducate him as he

does the other main characters. In the novel we observe how Ikem

turns from a passionate xadical and freelance theoriser to a

prospective martyr, a model of a new leadership role.

Innes C.L. has noted with perspicacity in her book Chinua

Achebe :

It is Ikem who begins to articulate both an

alternative political creed, a new radicalism

in defiance of the President, and a mythic

account of what is happening to Kangan. In

bath of these roles he seems to speak more

directly than anyone else on behalf of the

author, His radicalism is sceptical,

opposed to the present orthodoxies of

deliverance of all kinds: ttExperience and

intelligence warn us that man's progress

in freedom will be piecemeal, slow and

undramatic," he writes in an essay on

oppression. Millenarian solutions Itwill always

fail because of man's stubborn antibody

called surprise," Society, like the

individual, must be reformed around - "its core of reality; not around an intellectual

abstraction^..,.

( I n n e s 1990: p. 173)

One can't easily miss the voice of Achebe in these

words.Ikem, as Beatrice foretells, has to die but his death just

as he begins to translate his convictions in his life situation,

violent and premature and tragic, has all the grandeur and

solemnity of a martyr's death. Achebe places this at the

threshold of a n e w awakening in the masses of the people of their

own power and responsbility to react and protest which in turn

provides the necessary environment for re-education of Chris,

Ikem and Beatrice.

As the political crisis deepens Ikem sets his political

credo and activity in motion and Chris resigns in sympathy. The

plotting and counterplotting and the attendant everyday

occurrences of life under a military rule are all powerfully

projected by Achebe as taking place in Bassa, the Capital city.

The focus of the various episodes is the way in which the masses

react to the machinery of oppression.

Ikem now realises that the root cause of the failure of the

Government is the failure of the rulers to re-establish vital

inner links with the poor and dispossessed of the country, with

the bruised heart that throbs painfully at the core of the

nation's being. He, in a moment of illumination, abandons his

editorship of the National Gazette. Later he addresses the

students at the University of Bassa in defiance of the

government. Echoing Achebe1s favourite aphorism, 'where

something stands, something else will stand beside it', Ikem

adopts the dialectics of affirming and contradiction. He

unleashes an attack on half-baked orthodaxis of all kinds and

their provision of easy answers. He believes in a

self-transcending and self-perfecting ideology that eschews

self-righteousness and extremism.

Shortly after his inspiring speech to the students he is

accused of inciting the students and of engineering a conspiracy

to overthrow the government. While he resists arrest he is

fatally wounded. Thus Ikem fulfils the prophecy that he would

d i e a martyr's death.

In fact Ikemfs life, activities, theory, ideas and views

and finally his heroic death for a cause underline h i s life-long

yearning 'to connect his essence with e a r t h and earth's people'.

Achebe has emphatically and artistically resolved the

question of the solution or alternative to the present

oppressive, military or civilian rule. Ikem articulates it not

only when he places the cause of the failure of the government in

its failure to re-establish vital links with the poor and

dispossessed of the land, or when he composed the meaningful

"Hymn to the Suntf but more emphatically by his death precisely

while trying to make real this dream of his. He doesn't build

his dream on hope of a millenarian but by initiating a piecemeal

reform of society around its 'core of reality'.

Achebe has propounded through a fascinating web of

incidents and episodes woven round the triumvirate against the

background of a despotic regime, his own perception of an

alternative to social and political chaos which has been the

actual scenario in Nigeria since Independence. He has

aesthetically concluded the novel by harping on the concept of

eschatology, reincarnation and resurrection in the person of

Beatrice who is the biblical remnant to carry on the task of

linking up not only with the present generation but also with the

past precursors such as Ikem and roadmakers such as Chris.

Elewafs daughter who is Ikemrs 'living speck' is named Amaechina

(May-the-path-never close) signifying the beginning of this

process ascribing a crucial role to women as never before done in

Nigerian history.

Achebe in a way celebrates the convergence of the women

Beatrice and Elewa and the people at the syncretist naming

ceremony. It is his tribute to the new alliance of people guided

by enlightened and committed women which i s a symbol of people's

struggle that will remain reincarnated in this story to be

repeated generation after generation. Achebe has convincingly

reiterated his hope in same kind of renewal and regeneration

through an engagement with the oppressed as both Ikern and Chris

embody in their lives and deaths. Ikemfs "Hymn to the Sun" is

Achebe's perspective of creation and decreation, ultimately

emerging in a world of dialectic and mediation as against the one

of unilateral power throwing up monsters of leaders.

There are strong similarities and subtle differences in the

manner both these novelists approach characterization. While it

is easily perceptible that Anand is a character novelist by and

large, it is difficult to assert this of Achebe. Nevertheless

charcterization is a strong point of both the writers, And it is

quite evident that both Anand and Achebe depend on their

characters, mainly the principal ones, in order to narrate the

story and to build the plot and action with the cause-effect

logical structure.

Anand's protagonists are drawn invariably from the

oppressed sections of society and are therefore types of a

particular segment of class of society. While individuality is

not sacrificed,one cannot miss out Anand's intention of

projecting them as types of people whose lives and struggles he

was determined to give artistic expression to. Even as types,

Anand's protagonists have their individual personality which

makes them credible and real. Achebe on the other hand,

delineates his protagonists as strongly personalised individuals

more often than not idiosyncratic and therefore differentiated

from the rest in the novel. While Okonkwo and Ezeulu are highly

individualistic and even unparalleled in their own clan Obi of

Lonser Ease and Odili of A Man of the People are certainly

representatives of a particular segment of Nigerians. Obi and

Odili are drawn from the sophisticated educated, town-bred

Africans who are the cream and hope of Africa or Nigeria.

Nevertheless their individuality is not sacrificed and they

exist, act, react and interact in their rights as individuals.

While there is an unavoidable ring of sameness or monotony

in the types of protagonists chosesn by Anand, Achebe delights

the readers with a refreshing range and novelty in choice of

protagonists. Anand's Bhikhu of The Road, is Bakha of

Untouchable. Of course Anand is constrained by his fictional

purpose to confine himself to a narrow spectrum of individuals.

But Achebe, although limited by his deliberate choice to the Igbo

tribe and its pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial

experiences, has nonetheless produced characters who move, live

and have their being in the artistically evoked Igbo milieu of

the particular novel. However Anand displays his creative

fecundity in filling his canvas with myriad minor characters.

In Anand and Achebe the characters inevitably become the

spokesmen of the novelists. Nevertheless, it should be conceded

that Anand whose protagonists in effect become vehicles through

which he conveys his views and voices his protests, has used

extreme caution and subtle literary narrative techniques in order

to perform the task. His method is not crude preaching or

sermonising or exhorting except in some places, where

propagandist intent mars the aesthetic and artistic finesse.

Achebe has his share of the propagandist mechanism subtlely

pressed into service through the narration or commentary of

characters. He has in particular a wise man in every novel who

affects the authorial voice that presents a sane view-point,

offers wise alternative or drives home a traditional saying or

proverb or aphorism in order to instil a sense of the clan into

some key characters,

Achebe escapes critical censure for doctrinaire or

propagandist approach by allowing his protagonists to a

considerable degree, to develop on their own without making them

his mouthpieces or spokesmen. He has circumvented this pitfall by

creating s p e ~ f a l characters in the clan who are recreations of

the traditional wise men or elders of an Igbo clan. The

protagonists however grow in an organic fashion, given their

qualities good and bad and the milieu of the clan. The author

hardly intrudes into the growth process of or imposes his

viewpoints on his protagonists.

Anand however tends to impose his opinions quite overtly on

his central characters thus doing harm to their authenticity and

credibility. Mrs. Meenakshi Mukherjee has severely castigated

Anand, in an exaggerated fashion, for this defect thus:

... But when his convictions are imposed

upon his heroes, who are usually countrybred

or unsophisticated people the characterization

fails. Anandfs characters are lonely misfits - not lonely in the tradition of the modern

European protagonist of fiction, whose

loneliness is a form of intellectual alienation,

but lonely because Anand has transferred his

own loneliness to them. They lack the necessary

background, are thereby rootless and mythless

and appear somewhat unnatural.

(In N a i k et a l . 1977 : p. 245)

While the accusation that Anand interferes in the organic

growth of the protagonist with his personal views and conviction

is real, it is not tenable that his characters are all rootless.

In fact the disarming innnocence, unmerited suffering and

breathtaking naivete' of protagonists like Bakha and Munoo far

outweigh this defect. In fact one never for a moment suspects

the reality of these characters. His other protagonists such as

Bhikhu, Gangu, Ananta and even Gauri exhibit characteristics of

maturity and adulthood which balance the novelist's occasionally

inordiante intrusion or pulpit-preaching at the cost of their

individuality.

Another charge levelled at Anand is that his characters are

either good or bad lacking the real life mixture of good and

evil. While this allegation may apply to a host of his minor

characters, his heroes are not all paragons of virtue or

incarnations of evil. Munoo and Bakha barely out of their teens

are represented as free from adult vices or inclinations.

Nevertheless Anand adds a comic touch when he endows them with a

flare for some outlandish or exotic adventure. Bakha, for

instance, likes t o imitate the sahib$ in the way they dress and

behave and in playing hockey like them. Munoofs irrepressible

yearning for life and good things of life including his sexual

maturation and misadventures, nevertheless adds a new dimension

to his characterisation. Ananta is a judicious mixture of good

and bad qualities with his innate goodness outweighing his moral

deviancy. Gangu and Gauri strike us as perfect individuals who

are more sinned against.than sinning.

Achebe avoids this pitfall and therefore his protagonist

cannot be put into neat categories. Achebe's heroes are all

life-like and real and almost defy the illusion of fiction. The

way Achebe has painted Okonkwo, or Ezeulu or Obi or Odili,

precludes any danger of the characterization becoming

melodramatic or stereotypical. They are products of a society

and culture which had its legitimate share of the good and the

bad, of nobility and meanness, of openness and

narrow-mindedness, idealism and corruptibility and all

shades of spirituality and materialism.

All said and done both these novelists with their

characterization of the protagonists have sought to drive home

their own perceptions of liberation and societal transformation

conditoned by their own socio-political and cultural backgrounds.

And both have exercised caution and restraint in not overdoing

this and in allowing this motif to operate as an undertone and as

a subtle, and subdued aspiration simmering in the subconscious of

the heroes. Certainly this unconscious yearning for liberation

at different levels can be interpreted as the partially

internalised and articulated aspiration in the race, caste,

class or tribe for which Anand and Achebe have become spokesmen.

CHAPTER F IVE

------------I---- - --------- TRAD I T ION VERSUS MODERN I TY ---------------------------

That the colonial intrusion brought about changes sometimes

drastic, sometimes superficial, in the social and cultural

structures of both India and Nigeria, is an irrefutable

historical datum. The British brought with them an alien

religion and a western system of education that opened up new

visctas of knowledge and a whole new world of ideas and values.

A hitherto unalphabetical African society turned into a literate

one. In India, the western ideas and values equipped the people

with new tools for thinking and analysing and in fact provided

the educated people with new opportunities for furthering their

own prospects and expanding the horizons of their knowledge and

awareness.

With the British came the novel i n t o ~ n d i a and Nigeria.

Although the Indians with their ancient literate background were

able to make a creative use of this literary genre in t he

nineteenth century, t he Nigerians arrived at the scene of

literary creations only about five or six decades ago. Thus ' the

emergence of the novel in India and ~igeria is related to t he

advent of the agents of colonialism.

This explains why the colonial writers have predilection for

portraying the consequences of the clash of two cutlures or two

different worlds. The colonial writer is overtly conscious of the

irreconcilable divergences between the two worlds and of the

damage wrought not only to the country's economy and politics,

but also to the psyche of the people, their culture and vision.

In other words, writers in Nigeria and India have always

displayed an abiding interest in this sphere of cultural

confrontation between the East and the West and the inevitable

and logical con~eqz::,ce of the infusion of modern values and

modern ways of living and thinking, into societies which were

predomiczn:klt,. traditional, rural and conservative, Anand and

Achebe are typical examples of this trend in India and Nigeria

respectively.

The novel , as it has been creatively employed by Anand and Achebc, nas a close affinity to the social processes, which it is

trying to depict. It could also be maintained that the novel

form assumed greater power and thrust as it became an instrument

for expressing the inner dynamics and contradictions apparent or

hidden when two cultures encountered each other. O.P. ~oneja

expresses this concept in these words in his essay, llFictional

Strategies for colonial consciouness: An African PerpectiveN:

Novel is that bright book of life which is basically

rebellious in nature and reflects fragmentation and loss of unity

implicit in the movement of the society from traditional to

indutrial, rural to urban, collective to individualistic and

colonial to noncolonial. It flourishes particularly wherever

there is a change in the social structures, as there exists a

close relationship between the internal structure of a literary

work and the social structure, Goldmann calls it a ,homology of

structures'.

(In Gowda 1983: 187)

Both Anand and Achebe are addressing themselves to the

unsettling consequences of the imposition of the colonial rule

each in his own country. Thus the conflict of cultures, values,

attitudes and interests is focused in most novels of Achebe and

in some of the novels of Anand. If there is one dominant theme

in Anand's novels it is tradition versus modernity. In other

words Anand attempts to artistically project the contradiction or

antinomy between the values mediated or advocated by the Western

culture and those of the indigenous culture. In a broad sense

these two variant cultures are indicated by the term tradition

signifying the sum total of practices, values, ideas, attitudes

and interests of the colonised country and the term modernity

signifying the more open, urbanised, industrialised values of the

colonizer. The question of tradition versus modernity has engaged

the attention of scholars, writers and philosophers ever since

the dawn of the era of science and technology. Although it has

been a problem faced by advanced countries of the first and

second worlds, the third world countries with a colonial history

have also been faced with this problem. While modernity has been

held up as an ineluctable option for any developing country, the

target people were never involved in the process, as the

decision-making was always in the hands of the colonial rulers.

This is precisely where the process of modernisation or progress

ran into rough weather.

Anandrs The Biq Heart more than his other novels portrays

the struggle between the forces of tradition and modernity in a

dramatic and realistic manner. Ananta, the protagonist is

Anand's own alter ego in so far as he professes a pragmatic

approach to mechanisation and modernity and becomes eventually a

martyr in the cause of disseminating the inevitability and

indispensability of machines for progress. Through Anantars

frequent harangues and discourses, Anand lashes out against the

narrow, myopic perception of life and progress by people who

blindly swear by the past and defend all that is old and time

honoured. Poet Puran Singh sees in Ananta the foundation and

prototype of a modern Indian who eschews all cultural prejudices

and superstitions and bravely crosses hedges laid by an

obscurantist religious and caste dogma, in a bid to usher in the

era of prosperity and modernity.

Anand gives sufficient indication of his intended theme of

the conflict between tradition and modernity right at the

beginning of the novel as he paints the setting of the novel:

It must be remembered, however, that Billimaran is

not a blind alley. Apart from the usual mouth,

which even a cul de soc keeps open, it has

another which makes it really like a two headed

snake. With one head it looks toward the ancient

market, where the beautiful copper, brass, silver

and bronze utensils made in the lane are sold by

dealers, called Kaseras, hence called Bazar

~aserian. with the other it wriggles out towards

the new Ironmongers' bazar where screws and bolts

and nails and locks are sold and which merges

into the Booksellers' mart, the cigarette shops

and the post office replete with the spirit of

modern times. (Pp. 16-17)

The Ironmongersf Bazar stands for modernity symbolizing

the advent of industrialization and mechanization while the

'Bazar Kaserianr signifies tradition. Images by which modernity

is connected- screws, bolts, nails and locks-show the author's

partiality for tradition. Bookshops, cigarette shops and

post-office are certain ingredients of a modern setting,

juxtaposed deliberately in an awkward manner to highlight the

inexorability of modernity. A s if to mark its measured and

inescapable march, Anand has placed a clock tower with a

fourfaced English clock at one end.

Anand is ostensibly biased in favour of the coppersmiths

and their traditional or hereditary occupation displaying

tremendous skill, artistry and finesse, The Kali temple and the

Golden temple represent the traditional religious values and the

magnificent architectural skills of the traditional artists,

artesans and architects. But Anand is not a blind extoller of

the bygone age of obsolete traditions and values. While he is

not for throwing overboard ancient values, traditional skills and

practices, for the sake of appearing to be modern, he advocates a

properly perceived and assimilated modernity, which will be at

the service of human being particularly of the poor, oppressed

masses. As Ananta time and again declares, machines we need, but

man must master the machines.

Anand has a fine perception af the slow but sure collapse af

the old order and old way of life in India in the throes of a

vast, engulfing, social, economic and political upheaval. His

protagonist is a man of this world, not a paragon of virtues,

but with an unmistakable grasp of the changing scenario. Just

like Anand, he is not a dreamer or a utopian theorist. Ananta is

painted as a spontaneous roguish Adam whose large heart and

sympathies are evident in his favourite refrain", There is no

talk of money, brother, one must have a big heartc. The slogan

is obviously anti-capitalistic and pro-people in its core. The

people of Billimaran Lane call the age that is bygone, the age of

truth and the new age 'the iron ager . There is a sense of the

existential entrapment among the people at large in the narrow

confines of the Billimaran Lane. Anand has this to say:

Caught in t h e nousetraps where they are born,

most of them are encaged in the bigger cage of

fate and the various indiscernible shadows that

hang over their heads. And they do not know the

meridian beyond the length and breadth of

Billimaran until the day when they are carried

out, feet first, to join t h e elements. (P-17)

Anand has artistically and realistically recreated the

life, experiences and struggles of peaple living in a corner of

Arnritsar with their age old beliefs and superstitions and

primitive lifestyle and approach to work. It is into such a

milieu of self-enclosed traditionalism and conservatism that the

new culture irrupts causing violent upheavals, factions and

internecine quarrels. The most serious consequence was the gap

between the coppersmiths steeped in ancient traditions reluctant

to change and the other of the same community typified by the

hero Ananta who, while being open to change, to accept the

machines, are prepared to pay the price by mobilising and uniting

the workers and weld them into a union for the purpose of

negotiating with the management on equal footing.

In the process of unfolding the character and attitudes of

Ananta, Anand exposes some more chinks and flaws in the same

people who pride themselves on their religiosity and morality.

Anand tears down their mask of hypocritical morality when he,

by his refined techniques of subtle irony, brings on the

censorious critics of Ananta" alleged illicit liaison with Janki,

discomfiture and embarrassment by almost apotheosizing Ananta in

his martyrdom and by idealizing Janki as a potential liberator.

In fact the life, behaviour and activities of Ananta which are

cast in the mould of a self-effacing hero are a cohstant reproach

to his carping critics. Anand uses mild irony in these scenes,

but his hidden sympathy for their outmoded way af thinking and

behaving is quite obvious,

All said and done, Anand's hero is apparently vanquished

because of his own shortcomings,moral weaknesses and agnosticism.

As a militant thathiar committed to the cause of the

deliverance ofhis fellow thathiars from the fetters of ignorance,

traditionalism and conservatism, he ought to have been more

sensitive to the religious and ethical expectations and

prescriptions of his community,

Anand, in this struggle between two world-views and systems

of values, is able to discern, with his uncanny sense of truth 1

and justice, that a convulsive overthrow of all long cherished

ideals or an instant solution to all social ills through

revolution or bloodshed, is misplaced and misguided enthusiasm at

best. Ananta fails, when chips are down, to deliver the right

result and therefore he jeopardises his worthy cause. He is

unable to see his ideas through by offering a concrete tangible

solution.

Sawos ~owasjee has captured this point effectively in h i s

essay, 'The Big Heart: A New Perspectivef in the following

words :

But above all, he (Ananta) is unable to

dramatize his cause and he is hence unable to

offer an immediate remedy for the misery of the

unemployed. To the strircing workers, who want an

immediate return for joining the Union, he offers

a post-dated cheque for a better life in the

distant future:

The Revolution is not yet. And it is not

merely in the shouting. Nor is it in this single

battle in Billimaran, brothers. It is only

through a great many conflicts between the

employers authorities and the workers, in a whole

number of battles which our comrades elsewhere

are fighting, that there will come the final

overthrow of the bosses (p.194). Sound Logic, but

not to the hungry (In A C L Z S , 4-2: 89)

Anand while portraying the conflict between tradition and

modernity has highlighted, with subtle strokes of his genius, the

different aspects of this question. He has created t w o characters

in Ananta and poet Puran Singh Bhagat who are crusaders, each in

his own way for the adoption af a pragmatic and realistic

approach to the phenomenon of modernity in the form of

mechanisation. While Ananta is more practical and action-

oriented, the poet is more abstract and out of touch with the

ground reality. However it is the poet who articulates the

approach and the thinking that underpins it. But Anand has

brought out very emphatically and artistically the twin aspects af

his humanism, Ananta signifying the qualities that should form

part of the personality of a social reformer and the poet

standing for the need to articulate the facets of reality and the

mechanics of the reformation to be undertaken.

S.C. Harrex has expressed this aspect af Anand's creative

humanism thus:

... The poet sees in Ananta the foundation of the new modern man. However, it is the poet who

articulates the humanism which the hero enacts:

I believe in the restoration of man's

integrity..,. the reassertion of man's dignity,

reverence for his name, and a pure love for man

in all his strength and weakness, a limitless

compassion for man, an unbounded love especially

for the poor and downtrodden. (PO 142)

Thus, Ananta emoodies those qualities of the

heart and the poet, those of the head which in

combination will create the new Adam of Anandrs

future society, The Poet's discourses at the end

of The B i q Heart are not merely a choric comment

on the tragic action, they are intended to leave

the reader with the image of a desirable social

form for which Ananta is a noble sacrificial

prelude. (in Guy (ed. ) 1982: p. 155)

Anand is aware that India needs both the types of people

who, in tandem, can c a t a l y s e a conscientizing movement among the

masses to channelise the unbounded energy available for

constructive purposes. Committed individuals like Ananta have a

very crucial role to play in spearheading purposeful action

against the impersonal and d e s t r u c t i v e p o t e n t i a l of t h e machines

and the modern trends and value-systems. The role of t h e

enlightened and educated individuals in a nascent democracy is

also being emphasised by Anand. They provide clarity and

necessary pieces of information to the people, apart from being a

prophetic voice furthering the cause of change, protest, struggle

and liberation,

The error in approach or the lacuna in Anantars thinking is

his failure to offer an immediate relief to the jobless and

starving thathiars. To that extent, his programme of

amelioration of the workers' lot, was defective and ineffective.

Anand wants us to take notice of this possible limitation given

the existential situaion of the people under the yoke of poverty,

ignorance, superstitious beliefs imposed by the capitalist system

and legitimised by an obscurantist religious leadership. Anand

will have no part in philosophy as professed and preached by

Satyapal, the student militant and his extremist comrades. Anand

has, however, not offered a solution to the unresolved and

contentious question of the justifiability of the use of violence

in any revolution or reform package. He seems to leave it to the

dynamics of the process of change to deal with violence not

pre-planned but unforeseen.

In Gauri Anand has once again dealt with this theme

although not in an extensive fashion as in The Biq Heart. In the

latter, the theme of tradition vs modernity runs through the

whole narrative and is woven into the structure of the action of

the novel. In ~auri the theme is implicit and highlighted

towards the end as the action reaches a climax. The protagonist

of this novel is a woman and therefore Anand has taken immense

pains to draw her in vivid details. She is a creature of the

culture and milieu in which she has grown, and which she has

imbibed. There are clear signs of her self-effacing 4s eaccep&

h @ p h~.5h3*84ard live$ with him despite his insolence and sadistic

treatment. She even submits to the humiliation of being sold to

an elderly banker and of returning to panchi who had thrown her

out.

Though Gaurits journey towards her self-knowledge and full

realization of her inner reserve, forms the substance of the

novel, the tragic experiences of Gauri stem from the woeful lack

of enlightenment on the part of her folks, including Laxmni her

mother- Anand endows Gauri with an innate awareness of the world

and the dynamics of life which contrasts sharply with the total

absence of it in her kinsfolks and others.

Alastair Niven sums up Anand's presentation of Gauri in

these words:

.... The girl herself has no idea of the full

reserves of her character and the reader only

gradually sees them as she suffers one rebuff

after another to emerge with knowledge and

assurance at the end, Her cow-like qualities

remain - Anand may not be conventionally religious himself, yet he defers to the symbolic gentleness

of the sacred animal-but her humility is

fortified by an awareness of the world and some

sense of its future which the other women in the

community totally lack. The 'fullr Gauri,

educated in a vision made practical, does not

emerge until the last page of the novel. Anandrs

command of his narrative never slackens and he

leaves off the novel at exactly the moment that

Gauri8s knowledge of herself and of her

responsibilities has crystallised

(Niven 1978: p.107)

The tragic finality of the action of the novel is such that

Gaurifs ultimate maturation and her intimate self-realization

coincide with the still stagnant and static civilization of the

people of her environment. Mellowed and stung to the quick by

some of the terrifying experiences in the hospital, she agrees to

return with Lami to panchi and resume her life with him. But

Gauri, albeit a devoted and caring wife, is not free from the

influences of modern life as experienced in the hopsital. She is

a liberated woman and therefore tends to display signs of modern

womanhood, her habit of lowered dupatta and using sweet-smelling

soap being singled out among them by Panchi for harsh

remostrations and abuses. This shows the utter lack of sympathy

orsensitivity on the part of panchi, who is a rabid

traditionalist, to the changes wrought in ~auri by her

experiences as a working woman.

Anand highlights another negative aspect of the process of

human liberation when he constantly refers to the habit of gossip

and character - assassination indulged in by the villagers. his

orchestration of vicious vilification of persons has a

demoralising effect and detracts from the constructive moves

geared to social change.

In this context Dr. Mahindra becomes Anand's powerful

spokesman. He tends to become didactic and even monotonous and

artificial at times. But his central message is clear. He pleads

for a world made free of prejudice and meaningless traditions

that only stymie positive and change-effecting actions and

processes. With his broad liberal principles and humanistic

values Mahindra enters the life of Gauri just at the moment when

she is dismantling form the altar of her life and belief system,

the traditional gods occupying high pedestals. She exclaims in

utter despair and anger, 'May the Gods die if they favour these

dogst, a half-suppressed blasphemy in the context of her

recent revolting experiences.

Mahindra is not only Gaurirs idol but the powerful exponent

of Anand's ideology. In delineating the basic principles of his

own vision Anand has insistently stressed the need for courage

and daring. The woes and failures of characters like Panchi,

Laxmi and Dr. Batra are compounded by a fear-psychosis of 'What

people will think'. Mahindra proposes the antidote, 'We must not

be afraid and weak and cowardly and small-minded. We have to

reform the whole of our country, every decaying part of

it* ' (p. 242)

A certain fearlessness and scant respect for what people

say or think is a necessary concomitant of a meaningful human

life based on a universal human love. This once again focuses on

the conflict between values and perceptions that are traditional

and modern. Gauri f i n a l l y bids goodbye to her traditional

meekness and conformity and turns her back on the maligning

crowd and marches into a brave new world of freedom and

self-determination. She wants to shape her o w n destiny without

being bothered about what the v u l g a r crowd has to say about her

standards.

Anand's fictive representations of his perception of the

conflict between tradition and modernity, or the clash between

values associated with indigenous culture and those associated

with the west, can be counterchecked with his own writings

pertaining to this area. In his Anolosv for Heroism Anand

expresses this conflict in different ways:

But I believe that the decay of values arises

primarily when the myths which clothe the desires

of men, which embody in the form of art, the

inner aspirations of men to grasp the realities

outside them, become outworn, and inept prophets

go on using the old legends, catch words and

cliches without making any attempt to reinterpret

values in the light of fresh knowledge ...(p. 143).

. . .That is a task which wif l require all the energy, intelligence and devotion of men. Only,

they have got to be new men, whole men, who have

the critical spirit to see the machine age for

what it is worth, to distinquish technology with

it, to sift grain from the cha'ff . And they will

have to be men who are sincere, disinterested and

free, men who are willing to save the world so

that they can live in and through it, men who are

human, who represent humanity everywhere and seek

a new way of life in freedom. ( ~ 9 1 4 5 )

From the standpoint of his comprehensive historical

humanism Anand has found it necessary to have a modern outlook, a

weltanschauung that accommodates a critical openned to the

necessity and inevitability of science and technology and a

possession of the scientific rational temper shot through with

profound sincerity, real freedom and human interest.

Achebe, being a highly motivated writer who looks upon his

role as a crusader with missionary zeal, has used the navel as a

medium to project the Igbo society before and after the colonial

encounter. He uses the Igbo past, traditional culture, religious

beliefs, ceremonies and rituals as the r a w materials for

fashioning out his fictional narrative, action and plots. The

anthropological density that is found to overabound in Thinss

Fall Apart and Arrow of God, is a clear proof of his keen

historical sense, interest in the past and involvement in the

present and future of Nigeria. Of course the first navel

projects the colourful Igbo world in all its richness, simplicity

and ingenuousness. The contradictions and commotion resulting

from the descent of an alien rule and culture form the substance

of No Lonser Ease, Of course a consummate artist that Achebe

is, he does this by a meticulous analysis of the protagonist

Obi's character, his rise and fall, his intellectual and moral

strength and weakness. It is set in modern Nigeria in the day

immediately before Independence. The novel opens ominously with

the hero on trial for accepting bribe as a civil servant.

G.D. Killam maintains that this novel is an effective

fictional representation of Achebe's view of the conflict between

traditional values, beliefs and structures on the one hand and

the modern western values imported into Nigeria by the colonial

rulers on the other. He asserts:

, . , . Obi is a modern man and his story comprises a modern tragedy. In this novel Achebe provides

a record, transmuted by his personality and

personal vision of, on the one hand, the nature

of 'modernityf - in terms of its social,

political and economic impfications - imposed

through colonial action on Nigeria, and on the

other, t h e price Nigerians have paid for it.

(Killam 1975: p. 37)

Achebe deals with this question in Obif s efforts to face

t h e pressures, brought on him by the expectations of the Lagos

branch of the Unuofia Progressive Union on the one hand and the

parSentsf irrational and hypocritical demands on the other. His

idealism gets a battering and crude shock when the Umuofia

Progressive Union, both wants him to repay the loan they had

advanced for his studies, and to improve his standard of living

in accordance with his foreign education and social status. This

becomes a severe test of his integrity by threatening his.

security and by eroding his equation with his kinsfolk.

In addition to paying back the eight hundred pounds to the

tagas branch of the Umuofia Progressive Union, he feels obliged

to buy an expensive automobile and to lease and furnish a posh

flat, merely to keep up his veneer of Europeanness, conferred on

him by his foreign education and his job as scholarship secretary

at the Federal Ministry of Education. He has moreover to send

hone money every month for the education of his brothers.

Obi is presented as an educated Nigerian with a keen sense

of moral right and wrong and idealistic at the beginning of his

career. He resists temptations to bribe and maintains a clean

record. But the milieu in which he lives is vitiated with all

sorts of venal practices being the order of the day. It can be

termed as a venal era of ethos, He is exposed to constant tests

to his moral uprightness even as he strives to keep himself at a

safe distance from such morally reprehensible practices or

offers. He is even capable of resisting an occasion that came

his way of taking advantage of a girl.

But the atmosphere is so morally perverted that Obi is

unable to withstand the pressure for too long. The maral laxity

is all too pervasive and the culture so permissive that his

moral consciousness gets a rude jolt. His friend Christopher who

almost holds a brief for endemic corruption and venality, is a

real representative of the contemporary culture and philosophy of

life. According to him corruption or taking bribes is part of

the game and has come to be accepted as a way of life. Much

worse, he justifies having sex with a girl as it is not doing any

material harm to her, as taking a bribe which makes the man

poorer.

Achebe portrays the gradual perversion of the mind and

moral consciousness of o b i , hemmed i n by enormous expenses

entailed by his high style of living and the luxuries imposed by

his status. Obi is shown as waging a two-fold battle, one

against his people represented by U.P.U. and the other against

parents. While the former pits him against the slow erosion

of moral values symbolised by bribe and graft in return for

services rendered, the latter involves him in a more personal

kind of wrangle as his parents oppose his affair with Clara as

she is an "Osu". Here Achebe deftly uses his ironic power in

this that although Obi's parents are Christians, they are not in

a position to discern the unchristianness of this discrimination

and condemnation of an individual only because she is an outcaste.

Achebe is sharp enough to expose the dichotomy between the so

called modern views and values of the Christian dogma and faith

and the die-hard ancient social practices espoused by the

Christians. Even the Christians become victims of this

contradictions resulting from the clash of two diametrically

opposed world views.

While Achebe does not justify all that is modern or western

uncritically he does not advocate a blind adherence to some

traditional practices, beliefs or superstitions that stand in the

way of the African society coming to grips with the modern

trends and values. He disapproves of O b i r s parents' and his

village people's stout opposition to his marrying Clara, a member

of an accursed slave community. Moreover Rchebe is critical of

Obi's inconsistency and lack of guts in the act of repudiating

Clara, using her lowly and indefensible pasition. In the same

vein he assails the hypocrisy and double standard of Obi's

community.

Achebe's interest centres around the confusion and

ambiguity caused by the colonial rule. The one case in point is

the life of Obi, a determined, enlightened and conscious young

man, who is unable to sustain his moral rectitude in the midst of

a society that is no longer at ease. The people at large are

going through a process of moral degradation and decadence,

initiated and precipitated by the lack of clarity or confusion

that prevails in the wake of the intrusion of the westerners. On

the one hand the Nigerians are entering a new phase of

development symbolised by new education, job opportunities,

access to money, power and other luxuries and opportunities.

Neverthelss, the ancient and traditional, moral and religious

values are the first casualty even as material welfare and

acquistiveness become the be-all and end-all of the present

society,

Obi's life ends in a tragedy made more poignant by the fact

that he is candemned and humiliated just as he is realising his

personal guilt and immorality and is ready to turn his back on

his former unethical ways,

Achebe pleads for a basic sympathy and broad vision on the

part of his people who, flush with the sudden acquisition of

wealth and power, make, in their over enthusiasm, unrealistic and

impracticable demands on the newly educated, young elite. In this

they are liable to forget that in their culture and tradition

they have more lasting values. Achebe deplores this tragedy. It

is this tragic irony that he focusses in all his novels and

particularly in this novel. According to him young idealists

like Obi are the backbone and future of an emergent Africa. It

is all the more important that the elders, leaders and people at

large should exercise greater patience and understanding without

expecting dramatic improvement or miracles from them.

Nevertheless, it is imperative that the elders guide the young

intelligentsia of Nigeria,

Another notable feature of this unease and confusion is

that people are loath to disabuse themselves of some of the

regrettable elements of beliefs and practices of the past, while

repudiating the more positive and community building values. It

is probably a sociological phenomenon occuring in any society on

the threshold of a modern epoch. Nevexthelss, this dangerous rot

should be stemmed lest it endanger the whole society-

The point af view as expressed by Christopher and Joseph on

two different occasions in conversation which obi is symptomatic

of the time and symbolic of what Achebe predicts for a country in

the thraes of a new birth. Christopher says to Obi:

. . . You may say that I am not broadminded, but I do not think we have reached the stage where we

can ignore all our customs. You may talk about

education and so on, but I am not going to marry

an l0suf, (P- 1301

Joseph addresses Obi in these words:

Look at me Obi.., what you are going to do

concerns not only yourself but your whole family

and future generations. If one finger brings oil

it soils the others. In future, when we are all

civilized, anybody may marry anybody. But that

time has not come. We of this generation are

only pioneers, (P-68)

While Achebe is not for compromise, he certainly advocates

moderation in ushering in changes and reforms where it conerns a

very stable, cohesive tribal society rocking under the impact of

an avalanche of an alien culture, religion, administrative

system, education and trade.

At this point one does see the appropriateness of the

quotation from T. S. Eliot from which the title of the book is

taken:

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no

longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods,I

should be glad of another death.

( T h e Journey of the Magi)

While Anand becomes didactic in his fictional

representation of his perception of the conflictual nature of the

encounter between tradition and modernity, Achebe maintains a

rational and emotional detachment in portraying the same

intensedrama in his novel'. The latter scrupulously avoids long

harangues which are common in Anandfs Biq Heart, while at the

same time, eminently succeeds in building up the tragic theme and

tempo by creating events and sequences that are lively and human.

While there is no dearth of human warmth and passion in Anand's

portrayal, he is time and again carried away by his ideological

convictions and humanist zeal. However, Anandrs success as an

artist in this novel as in some other, consists in the compact

structure of the novel, providing just sufficient space for Anand

to spell out emphatically his theme. He has achieved his

thematic end by laying greater stress on the rhetoric of Ananta

and Puran Singh than on the characters or their interaction.

Achebe has skilfully interwoven his fictive purpose into the

story and plot with the result there is no trace of didacticism

or monotony in the manner of rendering. The titanic conflict

between the world that is struggling to be born and the one that

is vanishing, is masterfully presented as taking place in the

miniature intersection of these two forces in the life of the

hero.

CLASS WAR AND CASTE POLITICS -----1- ---- -----------------

The word 'exploitation' sounds the keynote of the themes

that Anand and Achebe proceed to examine in their novels. In

fact, the processes unleashed in the socio-political and cultural

realms of a country as a consequence of colonial intrusion, are

marked by an overwhelmingly exploitive character. It will be nQ

exaggeration to affirm that Anand and Achebe have consistently

investigated the theme of exploitation. Exploitation in Marxist

jargon, signifies the iniquitous relationships that prevail in

the economic sphere only.

It is again from the Marxist perception of poverty and

exploitation at the micro and macro levels that we have

inherited terms such as class, proletariat, labour, surplus,

means and mode of production, used to analyse a capitalistic

system. According to Marx, a society is diviaed into two classes

the poor and the rich, also called the ruled and the ruling

classes or the dominated and the dominant classes.

Marx predicted a class struggle consequent upon the

appropriatcon and accumulation of surplus value in the hands of

owners of capital and the deprived proletariat becoming poorer

and poorer. In his views, the history of modern society is the

story of the struggle between these two classes. The phenomenon

of production of extremes of poverty and wealth, pauperism and

luxury will sharpen the class-struggle until it breaks into open

revolution. The end-product will be a stateless socialism

wherein production will be carried on for the good of all and

bring about the classless society.

No wonder then that Anand who came under the influence of

Marx's writings and was fascinated by Marxist theory of social

change and revolution, set out as a writer to expose the evils of

a capitalist society divided into these two polarities or

classes. In particular Anandgs attention is focussed on the

aftermath of the colonial imposition of an alien world

order.Margaret Berry sums up Anand's method of attacking the

capitalist system in this manner:

Anandfs attack on the capitalist system is

executed in the novels by direct and indirect

presentation of the evils of private

ownership, private enterprises and the profit

motive in business. Even in the first

novel, Untouchable, Sasshar the socialist

calls f a r a casteless and classless society.

In depicting the road to such a society,

Anand does more than dramatize the issues with

plots, themes and settings. His %approved'

characters boldly expound the socialist

program and with dialectic and oratory,

compound their opponents - villains,

'respectable8 compromisers, and sincere but

unenlightened men.

(Berry, 1970: p.63)

Anandrs Coolie (1963) and Two Leaves and 2 (1937)

portray the scandalous gulf existing between the rich and the

poor in pre-Independence India. Hence Anand aims at highlighting

the role of the British in bringing about this unfortunate

situation. Industrial capitalism was imported from the West by

the Colonial rulers. This upset the applecart of the 1ndian

social and cultural relationships and polity And this

development was made possible by the ~ritish who introduced

Commerce and trade based on mere profit-seeking and cut-throat

competition. And it should be noted that the Indian soil was

just ripe for accepting this western product as it had been

preconditioned by forces such as mechanisation, industrialisation

and scientific materialism.

As a direct result of the interplay of these forces,

Indian society of the thirties was losing its cohesion and

stability, the hallmark of its social fabric before the onset of

industrialisation, Money became the principal symbol, measure

and means of well-being and happiness, Moreover all

relationships and interactions began to be scrutinized and judged

by the criterion of possession or non-possession of money.

Munoo, the central figure of Coolie and Gangu the hero of

Two Leaves and q Bud are both Kshatriyas, the second highest in --- caste-hierarchy. But they come of an indigent background and,

therefore, become victims af the cruelty and marginalisation that

are associated with the upper classes.

Munoo and Gangu are represented as labourers or coolies who

depend for their livelihood on the wages paid to them for selling

or hiring out their labour. Munoo is driven from his home in the

sylvan setting of the Kangra Valley merely beause, "my aunt wants

me to begin earning moneymf. Anand makes sure that we are briefed

about the havoc played by the landlord in his fatherfs life by

seizing his five acres of land in return for the interest on

mortgage not paid, Munoo's family was a hapless victim of an

U ~ S C ~ U ~ U ~ O U S landlord, Thus Anand underlines the role of

feudalism in wrecking the lives of innumerable, unlettered,

ignorant, unwary villagers who sought the help of the land-lord

money-lenders for loans. Munoofs plight is symbolically

presented by Anand as he makes his child-hero wander from place

to place in search of a job, a livelihood,

Munoofs experiences in Sham Nagar in the family of Babu

Nathoo Ram are evidence enough to bring out the kind of

ill-treatment meted out to a poor wretch just becuase he is

destitute. He is told clearly that he is no more than a servant

and hence cannot hope to mix with people of the rank and dignity

of Babu Nathoo Ram's family. His sojourn in Daulatpur, working as

a labourer in the pickle factory owned by Prabha, a former coolie

and Ganpat a crooked and villain~us partner who eventually

swindles him, has been described by Anand with a keen eye for

details of Munuafs psychological reactions, revulsions and final

disillusionment. He is made to realise that it is only the likes

of Ganpat and Sir Todar Mall who have access to big money and

therefore to influence and power, who can lead a comfortable,

easy-going and pleasure-seeking life while honest and hard

working poor have no chance of survival.

Anand further pits his waif-hero against the powerful and

U ~ S C ~ U ~ U ~ O U S world of the rich mill-owners in Bombay. Here again

Munoo wilts and withers under the heavy oppressive weight of a

system biased in favour of the rich and powerful. The strike

organised by the workers is put down with an iron hand and the

revolt quelled mercilessly by the unilateral decisions of the

British management aided by their 1ndian henchmen. The worst

irony of it is that the whole strike is undermined and debunked

as sparking off communal clashes. In point of fact, communal

riots were engineered by the anti-worker lnanagement in orderto

*-:blacklist and denigrate the striking workers and the labour

union leaders.

Finally we see a hunted and hounded out Munoo seeking

asylum in the household of a half -caste, scrupulous and

over-sexed Mrs. Mainwaring at Simla. Here again Munoo becomes a

victim of all the whims and fancies of this rootless caricature

of an Anglo-Indian woman. The last days of Munoo as he wastes

away under the effects of consumption are one long night of

sorrow and pain only terminated by his untimely death.

Anand contrasts solidarity, endurance and friendliness of

the pavement dwellers in Bombay and the paar coolies in Bombay

and other places with the sordidness, complacency,

.self-righteousness and superciliousness of the rich. The novel

is a severe indictment of the capitalist system that spawns such

inhuman monsters without a trace of concern for the deprived,

side by side with hosts of workers, coolies and destitutes like

Munoo whose life is one long nightmare of thwarted ambition,

unrewarded honesty and hard work and unrequited love and service-

They are condemned to a life of slavery and abject poverty with

no way out, however much they may struggle and strive.

Sauda in the Bombay phase seems to have penetrated into the

mechanics of a class society when he echoes Anand's ideas:

nThere are only twa kinds of people in the

world: the rich and the poorn, Sauda

continued, "and between the two there is

no connection. The rich and the powerful, the

magnificent and the glor ious , whose opulence

is built on robbery and theft and open

warfare, are honoured and admired by the!

whole world and by themselves, You, the poor,

and the humble, you the meek and the gentle,

wretches that you are, swindled out of your

rights, and broke= in body and soul, you are

respected by no one and you do not respect

yourselves. l1

(Coolie, Pp. 265-266)

Child labour is one of the evils of the capitalist system as it

provides the factory owners with cheap labour in most inhuman and

abominable conditions. Anand's description of this most heinous

practice endorsed by the rulers is as pathetic as it is

mind-boggling.

Two Leaves and g Bud is another novel that is devoted to

the theme of exploitation built around cash-nexus of the

capitalist mode of economic organisation. This novel is more

concretely about the class of coolies represented in the novel by

Gangu the central character, who is a hapless peasant lured

to the plantations of Assam with false promises of better

material prospects. The irony of it all is that apart from being

cut off from his roots, losing his freedom and self-dignity in

serfdom and bonded labour, he eventually dies at the hands of his

diabolical boss, Although Gangu is sceptical of the exaggerated

overtures of Buta, he is finally beguiled by Buta who uses the

peasant's strong love of land as a decoy.

Gangu's destiny is inextricably wedded to the plantation

from now on. He will lose his wife after an epidemic of cholera

takes a heavy toll of the coolies. The filth and squalor of the

coolies' lives defies description. As if these hazards at the

work places were not sufficient, the coolies and their children

are exposed to untold health hazards. The British overlords have

not an iota of sympathy or concern for the workers.

Anand analyses the relationships existing between the white

masters and the coolies. It is a condescending and contemptuous

attitude with no concern whatever for their well-being, safety or

happiness. The coolies are herded together in plantations as if

they were cattle and have no need for the higher pleasures of

family life and human solidarity.

Reggie Hunt, the assistant planter is an embodiment of the

cruelty, heartlessness, and frivolity of the white planters and

the class of planters as a whole. He prowls around the

plantations seeking for a prey to devour. He is not only brutal

in terms of his treatment of deviant coolies but a sexual wreck

who seeks to satiate his lust by preying on any coolie woman. H e

has no moral qualms about his unethical behaviour and immoral

exploitation of t h e plantation workers.

De la Havre is an exception to the general apathy,

inhumanity and ruthlessness associated with the planters. He has

a different perception of the deplorable plight of the coolies

and the injustice and sinfulness of the system that is operating.

However he is powerless and finally deported after being labelled

as a non-conformist, anti-British humanitarian. He is not only a

compassionate doctor but a champion of the cause af the coolies.

Coming to the coolies, we find them averse to any protest or

reaction. They are illiterate and ignorant and it is their crass

stupidity that makes them resigned to their inhuman situation.

They are incapable of making a protest, leave alone mobilising

the group to wage a battle against the consistently anti-labour

policies and practices of the British planters. The mild protest

organised by the leaders of the group ends in a fiasco as they

are overawed by the presence of the white masters, particularly

Reggie Hunt. Gangu is a typical character belonging to this

group. He is fatalistic when it comes to the crunch, be it his

wifef s death or his daughterf s narrow escape from the rapacious

grasp of Reggie Hunt syrnbolised by her escape from the python.

The climax of this story of subtle satire on the white bosses

in relation to the natives is achieved when the court finally

acquits guilty ~eggie. This, in other words, is symbolic of the

ultimate triumph of evil in the capitalist world of the ruling

class suppressing the working class and treating them as the scum

of the earth.

Anand8s portrayal is grim and is a vehement plea for the

subverting of this system so that the workers will not only get

adequate wages and recompense but will come in possession of the

means of production. This is what is declared by Anand through

his mouthpiece de la Havre. As perpetrators of an unjust

system of capitalist exploitatan and the resultant furtherance

of social stratification, the British administrators have no

right over the land of the Indians.

The Biq Heart is another novel where Anand has addressed

this question from the point of view of mechanisation. Clasg

consciousness can eventually overtake caste which as of now is a

powerful factor in all human commerce and relationships. The

coppersmiths who have attained to wealth and prosperity and a

better social position in the caste hierarchy, look down upon the

others and forge new ties with their business counterparts.

Murli Dhar who excludes this thathiar brotherhood from his

sons's betrothal ceremony is made to rue his decision by the

thathiars who boycott the function, The thathiars may be poor.

But caste should be respected. Murli who asserts his class

superiority at the expense of caste unity is taught a lesson.

Gokul Chand regrets to have formed a partnership with a man of

lower caste at the risk of losing his own. Ananta takes a middle

position while the ather thathiars reject the machine and

mechanisation altogether and uncritically. Ananta stands for a

rational approach and wants to eschew violence and vandalism.

Machine is the sign of the advent of the capitalist mode of

production. The thathiars resist it as they sense a threat to

t h e i r profession. But Ananta is able to perceive the wisdom of

accepting t h e machine. But he believes in the solidarity and

unity of the workers which alone can achieve the desired goal.

Paradoxially, Ananta dies at the hands of a frenzied Ralia

in the very act of dissuading him from mindless violence.

Ananta's death is not t he end, but t h e beginning of the new

alliance of workers and women to be forged by Ananta's friends

and admirers t o g e t h e r with Janki who vows to carry on the

struggle, launched by Ananta.

Anand has masterfully laid bare t h e mechanics of a class

society marked by greed, acquisitiveness, jealousy, rivalry and

fissiparous tendencies. The cause of the workersf unity is

thwarted not only by the relentless strangle-hold of the owners

of the factory but also by the fatalistic, unenlightened

approach of a section of coppersmiths themselves. Moreover t he

presence of different ideological postures within the group

accentuates the division and polarisation. Anand in this novel

pleads for unity and solidarity of workers in the larger interest

of securing their rights and privileges and of eventually

mastering the machine and owning it.

Anand moreover emphasises the principle that money should

not rule the mind of man, and what is essential is possessing a

'big heartr. This is the refrain af the protagonist which falls

on deaf ears- And his heroic death stings their simmering

consciences and rouses them to the reality of multiple

exploitation they are victims of.

Dr. Rengachari has effectively summed up Anand's fictional

goal in these novels thus:

Coolie is concerned with a different social

aspect. The treatment of the caste system is

turned upside down in this novel.

Caste-hierarchy dwindles into insignificance,

for Mammon is represented as the undisputed

ruler in the world of Coolie, Money is the

summum bonum of human existence. It can

catapult a pariah to a respectable position

and Dr. Merchant is a case in point.

Indigence can plunge the high-caste Munoo

into the ignominious depth of obsequio~sness .... . . . .The Bi_s Heart highlights the inbuilt

irritants in relationship between the

different strata of higher castes, among

the kshatriyas, kaseras impelled by a

sense of superiority stemming from the

assumption that they have descended from Lord

Rama, become snobbish and supercilious and

look down upon the thathiars.

.... he chastises their inherent shopkeeper

mentality, the mercenary motive of the

Britishers in Leaves and 3 Bud. The

British never do anything, he says, without

trying to extort the maximum advantage out of it.

(in Polymeh 1989: p , 9 9 ) .

A dispassionate analysis of the situation of the

unbridgeable gap existing between a small group of the wealthy

and the overwhelming majority eking a subsistence level ox below

poverty line existence, unfolds the undeniable fact that the

British were the prime cause as they introduced the capitalistic

form of trade and commerce. of course later it became an

unavoidable and inevitable phenomenon any country or society has

to reckon with. Saros Cowas jeee in his ,Coolie: An AssessmentJ

remarks :

But the plight of Munoo and his kind is the

direct result of the British rule and the

industrial revolution they introduced without

paying sufficient heed to social reforms,

Munoofs position in life raises the question of

freedom in a capitalistic society. A s Anand

sees it, freedom to Munoo, as to millions of

others, means no more than being beaten from

pillar to post.

(Cowasjee 1976 :17)

And Margaret Berry seems to agree with Anand's point af

view vis-a vis the role of the British when she comments:

For pre-Independence India, capitalism was

identified with colonialism: the great

political enemy was the British. Anandfs

pre-1947 novels quite naturally attack the

English Sarkar at every turn, as the major

source of India's ills, the preserver of

corrupt social institutions, the exploiter of

Indian labour and wealth, the tyrant over

civil liberties.

(Berry, 1970: P. 67) . Anand's spokesman de la Havre in Leaves and a Bud

verbalises Anand's own perception and anger in the following

crisp woxds:

"And when, after enjoying the monopoloy af

Indian trade for generations, our Britons, who

never, never shall be slaves, found they had

cut their own throats by introducing the steam

engine into India, not only because their home

manufactures competed with their colonial

manufactures, but also because the Indian

moneyed classes were pressing for a share in

the industries of their country, they began to

bully the coolies and bleed them as much as

they could before the judgement day arrived."

" . . . But what is a contract with a slave? Less than a scrap of paper: And that is yaur

Empire. (P. 1106-107)

de la Havre seems to have gone to the root of the question

of exploitation and squarely placed the blame for it all, on the

British colonisers. His perceptive insight is not altogether

bereft of a sympathetic concern for the s w e a t and toil of the

condemned coolies. He says that 'a single cup of tea contains

the hunger, the sweat and the despair of a million Indians'.

If this was true of India during the British Raj, it is

more poignantly descriptive of the contemporary Indian

predicament.

Achebe hasn't explicitly addressed himself to or dwelt

on, except in passing or by implication, the whole area of class

distinction or class-consciousness in the aftermath of the

tribe's encounter with the colonial world in his novels,

Thinss Fall Apart and Arrow of God. Of course in his other

novels he is specifically probing the political situation in

Nigeria before and after Independence. In Anthills of the

Savannah, there is a systematically worked out anatomy of power

in all its dimensions, manifestations, functions and

corruption, Achebe has exercised his social and artistic

conviction bearing on the conflicts and contradictions resulting

from Class-distinction, an off-shoot of capitalism.

In Thinss Fall ADart, Achebe has made an allusion to the

colonial trade or market based on money introduced by the British

into the tribal milieu. In chapter twenty nine, there is a

reference to this:

"The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he

had also built a trading store and for the first time palm-oil

and kernel became things of great price and much money flowed

into Umuof i a m (p. 161) . Achebe is perceptive enough to p o i n t to the capitalist

trade or market system as one of the two major changes that began

to challenge the vitality and the relevance of the traditional

f oms. The t rauma that the tribal economy suffers i s

dramatically expressed in the most essential commodities like

palm-oil and kernel becoming dearer and the whole market system

dominated by money. This is the beginning of the capitalist

economy making inroads into a primitive tribal economy. The flow

of money into Umuofia suggests that trade and commerce based on

cash had become a regular and predominant feature of the economy

of the clan,nay of the whole of Africa.

Achebe is quick to point out that erosion of traditional

values because of the western patterns imposed on the tribe, had

begun to show unmistakable symptoms, the most glaring one being

corruption. He makes only a mild reference to it in chapter

twenty where Obierika and Okonkwo are engaged in a conversation

and Obierkka seizes him of the latest happenings in the world of

their clan. Speaking about the land dispute which resulted in

the hanging of Aneto, Obierika alleges that the white man's court

decided it should belong to NnamaCs family as they had given much

money ta the white man's messengers and interpreter. This 2s as

shocking as it is revealing. But in the context of the new form

of market economy that is functioning, it is quite understandable

and in fact to be expected,

In Arrow of God Achebers interest is focussed, on the

conflict between the forces of oppression and the traditional

structure that is showing signs of breaking up. Nevertheless he

has made sure to direct his ire against the third enemy the

economic system, the white administration and the religion being

the first two, In this novel he has created several characters

who listlessly flit between the two cultures in a bid to

assimilate the new values without being alienated from their

cultural roots.

Nwodika is one such character whose ambition

is to reconcile the two opposite or contradictory cultures and in

the process to earn money. He starts a trade and joins the

market for the sole purpose of making a prof it. Nwodika is a

prototype of the new class of rich businessmen yet to emerge on

the horizon of Umuaro, He is shown as a precursor and the voice

of the future. While he testifies to the Igbo flexibility and

adaptability, he is unwillingly hastening the breakdown of

traditional Umuaro, cutting across its time-honoured loyalties

and allegiances. The class system just originating in the

terrritory of Umuaro is an offshoot of the capitalist market

economy introduced by the British for the purpose of augmenting

the profits accruing to the mpire.

No Lonsar At Ease narrates the story of Obi the grandson of

Okonkwo, his ups and downs as a western-educated, idealistic

young man who eventually succumbs to the pressures of a modern

Nigeria under the colonial regime. It has a very ominous opening

with Obi being convicted for taking bribes. Achebef s satire is

quite penetrative and subtle as he probes the political and

economic conditions that mark the Nigeria of his novel.

Obi's failure is in one sense attributable to the

irresistible attraction and temptation of material comforts and

riches chracteristic of the urbanisation and industrialisation

that were overtaking Nigeria. The modern Lagos is a melting pot

of cultural and social values emanating from the West. It is to

this Lagos that Obi comes armed with his western categories of

knowledge, values and principles. In Lagos however the emphasis

is on money, success, luxury and class distinction, While this

development is inevitable in the context of advance and progress

sweeping through the entire universe, Achebe regrets its

supplanting the traditional spiritual values.

Corruption has become the way of life of the people so much

so, they are not distressed about Obits accepting the bribe as

much, as about his being 'caught* by the police, It is a sad

commentary and a satiric narration of Achebe. Obi wants to root

out corruption by sticking to a rigid code of public morality. I

But he belongs to the new elite class. He can't afford to dress,

live or behave differently. Thus he is torn between the ~ W Q

pulls. To make this worse for him, his own village people who

advanced a laan far his studies abroad demand the loan to be

repaid while at the same time placing very high expectations in

terms of his external appearance and overall life-style. In

other words they want him to be a foreign educated man of the

world. This pushes him against the wall and his resistance fails

and he becomes corrupt.

With the onset of capitalistic system of business, the

temptation to conform to oners class at all costs is great. It

is important to note that this moral decline or decadence is

itself a symptom of the fundamental changes occurring because of

the colonial rule, The whites pride themselves saying that they

have outgrown bribery of the overt kind. Anne Tibble in her

essay "Chinua Acheber puts it this way:

First Obi gets into debt over taxes, then over

his new car, then over sending money to his

people. Next he takes bribes. The white

leaders are not free from using personal pull

in well-diguised or civilized 'innocent~~forms:

such as that you're most likely to gain

promotion if you go to church and say you are

a Christian, if you let it be known that you

have been t o a well-known school, or even if

your aunt slept with a king . . . As if unaware

that any of these things are not in the

deepest sense corrupt, they are supremely

critical of the African new officials' form of

corruption, their addiction to stark bribery,

by money or gifts.,..

( T i b b l e , p. 127)

A Man of the Peowle analyses Nigerian politics after

Independence and with a prophetic foresight foredooms Nigeria to

coups and counter-coups resulting in a military dictatorship.

Odili the principal character is originally in league with Chief

Nanga . The struggle between the profoundly religious and

spiritual values of the old world and the pursuit of material

things flaunted as a value by the new order is further explored

and sharpened. As G.D. Killam avers:

The emasculation of traditional religion is

complete by the time of the action of & Man of

the Peo~le. Achebe conveys this powerfully in - a very brief scene. The brevity of the scene

and the nature of the religious comment made

186

offers an exact ironic reflection of the

efficacy of the restraining force of the

traditional religion in the contemporary

social situation, It is Christmas time and

the hero of the novel, Odili, is visiting the

wife of Chief Nanga M . P . Among other things,

comment is made on the new house which is

being built for Nanga. One townsman says:

"Look at the new house he is building.

Four storeys: Before, if a man built two

storeys the whole town would come to admire

it, but today my kinsman is building fourH.

(Killam, 1975: p. 35)

It is later announced that the house was being built free

of cost by the European building firm of ~ntonio and Sons to whom

Nanga has given the half million pound contract to build the

National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The casual and ironic way of providing this information is

sufficient to underline the rampant corruption in high places

which was corroding the very fabric of Nigerian society. The

novel is a telling comment on the degree to which materialistic

values, acquistiveness, general moral decline and unrestrained

corruption have come to be syonymous with the way of life of

Nigerian politicians and the uppish new elite. It is ultimately

the capitalist system which has thrown up people like Nanga and

Koko and seeks to suck in well-meaning people like 0dili and Max.

Odili though an idealist has a desire to create a better

country than that he lives in. Nevertheless Odilirs idealism is

tempered by an awareness of the pragmatic realities, assisted by

a capacity for decisive action, unlike Obi the hero of Lonaer

At Ease. Max who is a rebel and a dreamer is nevertheless quite

practical and does not hesitate to accept a bribe from Koka and

to use it for his own capaign.

Nanga, with his uncanny ability to get closer to the masses

and to get away with anything, is presented almost as a mafia

leader indulging in thinly disguised system of bribery,

corruption and nepotism in order to keep his position of power.

His style of living and functioning is an eloquent testimony to

the callousness, unscrupulousness, corruption scams and

scandalous deals that were the order of the day in ~igerian

government circles.

From Achebe's narration of the story it is quite obvious

that he was pinning down all the woes and ills of the Nigerian

political situation to the excessive love for money among the new

elite of the country and the crucial role money played in all the

political transactions. Even Odili and Max who eventually

becomes a hero and a martyr by his death are not altogether free

from 'corruptf practices albeit for a cause. In fact even

Odili8s father who is otherwise a good man asks his son if his

party C.P.C. has provided h i m with sufficient money to conduct

his campaign. And he has no scruples about using his son's car

for h i s personal requirements. Of course Nanga's misuse of power

and his strategy of wooing voters through bribes, his control of

the media of the government and employing hired thugs

masquerading as policemen are the very epitome of the moral

degradation and erosion that has taken place in the wake of the

capitalistic made of production and the central place accorded to

money in the country's economy.

Achebe squarely places the blame for all this anarchy on

the economic system based on competition and profiteering and

acquisitiveness, which was at least originally introduced by the

colonizers. Of course the system functions now, quite

successfully, as the moral base of the Nigerian society has been

already knocked out. And the new elite, educated, idealist youth

of the country are victims of this system and not all

perpetrators or supporters of anti-people, anti-social

activities,

In his latest novel Anthills of the Savannah Achebe continues

the same theme but declines to predict any viable form of

government or any alternative to the present malaise- The

polemical tone of A Man of the Peowle is softened to a

considerable extent as the omniscient narrator is missing. The

very form and structure of the novel are understandably tailored

to promote Achebets pluralistic vision of the future of Nigeria.

AIL said and done, Achebe's investigation of the theme of

power and its manifold revelations and corruption, centres round

the moral decadence that has crept in, after the onslaught of the

powerful capitalistic system and values. The triumvirate ruling

the fictional African state of Kangan, namely, Sam, Chris and

Ikem are friends and rivals at the same time. They are products

of the interplay of the oppressive colonial system and the new

independent Nigeria still struggling to find its moorings, to

settle down in the context of new found freedom and its

concomitant of irresponsible leadership. Sam metamorphoses into

a dictator ruling the country with a sycophant cabinet unwilling

to displease the President. However, Chris and Ikem have

different notions about power and policies and ruling. Once they

are disillusioned with the Presidentfs authoritarianism,

neo-colonial mentality, susceptibility to flattery and

hero-worship, they turn sour and resign from their respective

posts in the government and take to meeting the challenge in the

midst of the masses.

Achebets disaffection with the excesses of the military and

dictatorial regime and the vagaries of the political leaders of

the young independent Nigeria is powerfully expressed when,

abruptly, he introduce the myth of Idemili and the formal

structure and the theme of this myth and the hymn to the Sun,

focus on the theme of creation and de-creation. Achebe blames

the African leaders for causing a rupture with the religious and

moral past of the people and far their subservience to foreign

manipulationsr and adoption of 'inherited second-hand

capitalism'.

MarSy EPlun Modupe Kolawole recapitulates Achebets concerns

as projected through this novel in the following words :

Achebe therefore dwells on the past to

identify the root of current problems, in a

search for social rehabilitation and

transformation. He considers the present

society too gullible and susceptible to all

forms of orthodoxy. But the social X-ray is

comprehensive as he asserts that the past and

colonialism are not the only forces that have

caused the present predicament. He blames

African leaders for ' the subservience to

foreign manipulation' and for adopting

'inherited second-hand capitalismy. But he

goes beyond this to .highlight the role played

by corruption, repression, intimidation,

neglect of the poor majority, insensitivity .

and inefficiency. He also blames the present

leaders' mediocrity, parasitism, and fraud

cover-ups.

(Kolawol e, p. 125)

From a reading of Achebe's Anthills of && savannah, it

becomes obvious that Kolawolers analyses are objective. The

novel is commentary on the unprincipled and egoistic lives of the

political leaders of past Independence Nigeria, and a timely

caution that the common people are going to call their bluff and

expose their knavery whatever sacrifice and struggles it may

entail

All in all Achebe's analysis of the present societal malady

yields this precious insight that an artificially and

uncritically transplanted capitalist mode of production and

market and the attendant cut-throat competition and

acquisitiveness are at the root of the present predicament. Of

course Achebe refrains from going into a full-length

investigation of the class-system as it operated in Nigerian

society. It doesnot mean that class is not a reality there. On

the contrary class consciousness and class formation in ~ f r i c a n

society are a reality that has come to stay in Nigeria.

Modernization or modernity is one facet of the capitalist system.

And the traditional tribal society of ~igeria has undergone a

sea-change specially after the advent of the Western trade and

capitalist modes. The tribal economy and social life are marked

deeply by the consequences of the capitalist system as understood

and developed by the business class and the ruling elite.

While Achebe is interested in the ethical crisis and

political instability that have been caused by the capitalist

system and not in its external manifestations, Anand is an angry

man and seized with a righteous indignation and determined to

expose the seamy side and the horrendous injustices and

oppression unleashed by the class distinction and consciousness,

an intrinsic part of the capitalist world. Hence, we have some

moving, pathetic, gruesome, mind-boggling and tragic scenes and

details of the social underdog's experiences at the hands of the

rich and powerful people who call the tune in a capitalist set

up. Anand is out to denigrate not only the system as a whole but

also the individuals and groups that manipulate the system in

order to orient it in favour of their personal aggrandizement and

profit-seeking. Anwd is realistic in his approach to this

theme, often reminding one of ~ickens. Nevertheless his purpose

is first and foremost to expase the insincerity and one-sidedness

of this class character of a capitalist society. In order to

highlight the inhumanity and injustice of it all he sometimes

exaggerates the cruelty and barbarity of individual

capitalists, particularly the British colonial masters in

relation to their lowly subjects or employees.

Achebe doe&nft dwell on these aberrations at any length,

probably his fictional matrix comprising the colourful

precolonial past and the subsequent contradictions and

confrontations does not really admit of such a treatment. Achebe

is faithful to his avowed goals in his fiction writing even as

Anand is true to his proclaimed social convictions.

Now we turn our attention to the caste system which has

been instrumental for so much of exploitation in India and to a

lesser extent in some other countries. It is believed that caste

as it is today, is a remnant of the varnasramadharma. a

differentiation of castes made on the basis of one's occuption

for the common good of a given society. However, there is another

theory which maintains that the Hindu religion originated the

caste system as it favoured the so called ruling caste.

According to this Hindu belief the four different castes emanated

from the Brahma but from his different parts. The Brahmins, the

highest in the caste hierarchy were said to proceed from the

forehead of the Brahma, the Kshatriyas from the shoulders, the

Vaishyas from the stomach and the sudras from the foot of the

Brahma . While the division based on the kind of work performed by a

particular group is quite agreeable to reason, the theological

explanation offered is an outrage to human dignity and becomedthe

basis for the ignominious and iniquitous social evil called

'untouchability1.

For Anand casteism and untouchability are two great wounds

in the Indian psyche that need to be healed or two cankers in the

body politic of our society sapping its very vitality. In this

Anand is a fervent disciple of Gandhi. Anand had first-hand

experience of this insidious practice of untouchability as his

childhood was spent in the midst of children of all castes

including the untouchables, His Bakha of Untouchable is but a

fictional recreation of Bakha, h i s childhood friend. His

experience in Gandhifs ashram had instilled into him an

abhorrence of this social taboo which is a sin against man and

God according to Gandhi. Gandhi is said to have advised Anand on

the manuscript. His own segregation and isolation on board a

ship by some westerners left an indelible mark an him and a

realization of the humiliation of being treated as an

untouchable.

Hence Anand took it as a challenge to depict the lowly and

colourless lives of the untouchables in his novels. 1n

Untouchable obviously and in The Road Anand has created two

immortal heroes drawn from the scum of the so called casteist

society. Bakha of Untouchable has a perennial appeal as a child

hero who grows from innocence to maturity and as a celebration in

fiction of a sweeper boy, the likes of whom never entered the

realms of literature before Anand's bold venture,

The sweepers* colony is described at considerable length by

Anand, thus underlining the fact that they have an existence of

their own, if it may be called an existence, about which the

caste people, whose dirty jobs these untouchables do, have no

concern or knowledge. It is a symbol of the filth and squalor

that mark their persons and their lives, This is the paradox

that the persons who are responsible for maintaining the hygiene

and cleanliness of the high caste people are systematically

deprived of their basic rights to hygiene or cleanliness.

But this is just one level or kind of discrimination. But

the belief that their proximity or their touch or contact can

pollute and contaminate a high caste person is an outrageous

denial of the basic humanness of these men and women. It is a

contradiction in terms as thase who practise it take it as a

religious mandate and the untouchables themselves have

assimilated it i n t o their psychology and being, as their fate and

as ordained by God Almighty. The privileged caste Hindus

proclaim in a11 sneer and callousness: "They ought to be wiped

off the surface of the earthM(p.54).

Bakha's insignificant daily life is filled with insults and

humiliation. The climax occurs when he is said to have

inadvertently touched a caste Hindu and is slapped by him. Being

a sensitive and smart lad Bakha could not brook the injustice and

shame of it. Anand makes this the moment of truth in Bakha8s

life as he has an unprecedented illumination and clarity as to

why he is being hated, and maltreated. He realizes painfully

that his status of being an untouchable makes him a sucker, a

pushover, a good for nothing in a caste-ridden society.

Apart from exposing the absurdity and stupidity of caste

consciouness Anand also probes the different levels of casteism

practised. In this novel he is able to point out the degree of

caste among the low caste groups. There are castes and

subcastes. Bakha is a sweeper or scavenger belonging to the

lowest sub-caste. It is this that makes Gulabo a washer-woman

look down upon Sohini who is a sweeper girl, This is

untouchability within untouchability, if one may say so. K . R .

Srinivasa Iyengar observes:

.... there are degrees of caste among the tlow-caste8

people, there being none low without one being lower still.

(Iyengar, 1962: p.337)

Anand has a cool dig as it were at the practice of touching

a Mohammedan to neutralise the pollution caused by an unholy

touch. The irony is that the high caste Hindus ordinarily regard

the Muslims as outcastes.

Anand takes pains to uncover the ridiculousness of this

system while at the same time castigating the high caste people

and the Hindu religion which are repsonsible for the perpetuation

of this unholy practice. He points out the several myths that

have grown up around this system. He reproaches the

untouchables for their sense of inferiority and self-effacing, of

course a patrimony of thousands of years of serfdom and

servility. He ridicules the high caste superciliousenss that

thinks that it is presumption on the part of the

plebeians to smoke like the rich. He is angry with the

high caste housewives who favour the lazy sadhus with hot

vegetable curry and rice while they fling stale bread at the

untouchable. He is irritated by the segregation of the

untouchables in hotels by allotting separate tumblers.

Bakha is created by Anand as a sweeper with a difference,

He is endowed with a keen sense of his own lowliness and the

possibility of his escape from this sordid reality into a world

of the tommies. This opportunity is provided him by some of the

babus and sahibs who are more friendly towards him. His

make-believe world consists of his occasional puff at a cigarette

thrown by the high caste people, his sporting the clothes of the

white man and his fondness for hockey. These are little details

that work up to give a credible and authentic picture of Bakhats

genuine aspiration to transcend his own limitations.

Anand after providing three different alternatives for

Bakha8s liberation leaves it to him to choose one. But Bahkha

doesn't find any of the three solutions too enchanting. He is

nevertheless fascianted by Gandhiys suggestion of liberation from

their inferior status by their refusal to accept the 'leavingsf

from the plates of high caste Hindus and by seeking free access

to wells and temples. He is moreover attracted by the poet' S

proposal to end their drudgery by adopting flushout system and

mechanisation,

Anand's approach to this problem as manifested in the

novel is one of actions done for the amelioration of the

untouchables and a corresponding distrust of abstract propositions

and solutions. He steers clear of any intellectual or

philosophical approach to this problem so entrenched in the

culture and psyche of our people, Anand finds it a moral

obligation to respond to this human problem not only on the part

of individuals, but society as a whole, In this it is not so

much Anand the Marxist, as Anand the Humanist wha is grappling

with this ancient problem that has defied solution till today.

His socialism is not revolutionary or violent but well grounded

in ethical principles and rooted in India's cultural values. His

approach is existential, viewing the pernicious practice of

untouchability from the victim's situations and perspective. The

perspective of the subaltern is a necessary pre-condition for any

objective analysis of their situation. Anand moreover brings to

his job an artist's detachment as he by caste is a Kshatriya and

not an untouchable. However he is able to strike a sympathetic

chord as his heart vibrates with the untouchable's abject state

and his artistic genius finds the fictional correlative to make

the story and plot convincing.

His novel, The Road published in 1961, is again a

reaffirmation of Anand8s emotional involvement in the problem of

untouchability, Anand created this 'enchanted mirrorf primarily

to illustrate to Nehru that untouchability is still a reality all

the government's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

Fourteen years of independence had done nothing to remove this

social stigma from them but in fact had intensified the

opprobrium of being an unwanted segment used as a mere tool.

Bhikhu the protagonist is a road-worker who has to contend

with the ideology of a power structure that tolerates no change

in the status quo. The road also symbolises the road to

emancipation from an inhuman situation. And this is going ta be

an arduous and well-nigh impossible task given the

socio-political situation today.

Anand, by means of a deft handling of irony and mild

satire, reveals some of the psychological forces that operate in

both the high caste Hindus and the untouchables in their inter - relationships in the context of a changed socio-economic

situation. With the introduction of certain reforms in the

village administrative set up and village economy, the government

of an independent ~ndia, has paved the way for a slow

amelioration of the condition of the untouchables. They can work

and earn moeny as their wages. Thus the control hitherto

exercised by the upper caste Hindus over the life of the

untouchables is slowly disappearing. Hence they are stricken

with fear coupled with jealousy that a progressively liberated

and independnet untouchable community may attain to the status of

the 'twice born1, A sense of insecurity has been generated in

the high caste Hindus as the outcastes are climbing up the social

ladder helped by government's economic and poverty alleviation

programmes.

Anand uncovers the hyprocrisy and double standards involved

in the high caste Hindusr attitude to the untouchables. They

refuse to touch the stones touched and 'pollutedf by the

untouchables. Nevertheless they have no shame about enjoying the

yield of the fields tilled by them. Pandit Suraj Mani who swears

by the Vedas and demands a high standard in observing the

prescriptions of religion and caste dharma, is an embodiment of

this contradiction. He has to carry with him a little earth to

avoid treading on what has been 'soiledt by the untouchables but

he finds nothing wrong in eating the mangoes plucked by the

untouchables.

The repeated and almost nauseating allusions to the divine

origin of caste and duty of everyone to fulfil its obligations in

order to work out one's salvation put in the mouth of landlord

Thakur Singh and andi it ~ u r a j Mani are a powerful critique of the

hollowness of such a theory and its hypocrisy. Anand is not

sparing the chamars either. He presents them as socially

aware and better off and bold enough to withstand the opposition

of Thakur ~ingh, Lachman and ~ajnu. But their self-awareness

though better, is not deep enough to stand them in moments of

crisis. They are unnerved and defeated by their own sense of

inadequacy and inferiority. While Anand wants to shake the high

castes out of their spurious sense of superiority and

complacency, he also attacks the lack of self confidence,

self-awareness and courage of the chamars, of course

sympathetically and with concern.

Dhooli Sinqh who belongs to the majority high caste and is

Lambardar is an interesting portrayal of the change that can come

about in a high caste Hindu who realizes that 'no one can enter a

little door seated on a camelr. He is convinced that the road to

progress and prosperity lies in casting off the shackles of

orthodoxy and in building a broad alliance with people of

all kinds including the untouchable chamars. Modernity cannot

become an actuality if one is too conservative or closed in upon

oneself.

Anand makes the character of Dhooli Singh quite credible as

he strives to show that although he has a reformist fire in him,

he is not altogether free from his traditional mental-sets and

attitudes to untouchability. He wouldn't want his daughter to

set her affections on the mean. But his son Lachman's puerile

incendiarisrn that consumed in a fire all the huts of the chamars,

helps him to overcome such reservations and ambivalence. He

stands up courageously for the victimised chamars and offers his

land and valuables to them as a compensation for their loss. He

not only cuts across caste lines here but identifies himself

totally with the pathetic situation of the chamars. No doubt

Dhooli Singh is Anandrs vision of transforming the caste-ridden

society into an egalitarian one.

Bhikhu is a mere symbol. He seldom reacts or retaliates.

He is neverthelss a leader of his group deeply involved in

bringing the fruits of modernity to his village. Of course he is

up against a massive road-block, the curse of untouchability.

However he is determined to lay the road which alone can aid his

people to move into the mainstream of national life, destroying

in the process, the barriers laid by caste and pride of wealth

and power.

The conclusion of the novel is hazy and ambiguous leaving

the reader to keep guessing. But one thing is clear that caste

discrimination and untouchability, though legally abolished in

India, continue to bedevil our so called modern democracy. The

likes of Bhikhu have no other alternative but to escape into

anonymity and die a slow death in the darkness of their

loneliness. Bhikhu is a frustrated individual even as his

superhuman efforts to construct the road, Anandfs symbol for

eventual progress and modernity, fail to elicit appreciation from

his high caste brethren, He feels rejected and betrayed. Anand

in this novel has mounted a bitter but ironic a t t ack on the

contradictions and hypocrisy t h a t mark the attitudes and

behaviour of the ostensibly superior castes. He lashes at their

complacency and issues a stern warning that this caste system

will not stand the test of time as the so called low caste

people, thanks to widespread availability of education and

opportunities for employment, are slowly shedding their complexes

and are aware of their inhuman situation and their responsibility

to pull themselves out of this pathetic situation.

Anand has treated the same topic in his The B i q Heart but

from a new perspective. He examines the snobbery that marks

inter-high caste relationship. The thathiars and Kaseras are

sub-castes of the Kshatriya community, the second and highest in

the branch of castes. The orthodox Kaseras look down upon the

thathiars as low and have only contempt for their people and

culture. Murli Dhar, a thathiar and Gokul Chand a Kasesa are

partners in the factory management. Nevertheless Gokul Chand is

in no mood to accept the invitation to attend the betrothal of

Sadanandrs son as he is a thathiar. He is frightened of the

consequences of associating with the thathiars as his own

brotherhood would frown on it. Although in business they are

partners, in social relationships and functions they prefer to

keep their caste identity and distinction.

Another interesting sociological development very

artistically expressed by Anand is the tendency of the rich and

business calss of the low castes trying to move out of their own

caste identity by striking alliances with the high caste. In

this manner they feel their stigma as untouchable is removed, and

they come to be regarded as members of the affluent business

class. Here is a very interesting and comical scene described

with Anand's typical eye for the humorous and the ironical

wherein the betrothal of Nikka, grandson of Murli Dhar takes

place. He has invited only a few important Kaseras like Gokul

Chand and a few Arya Samajis and some leading thathiars. The

rest of the thathiar brotherhood is not invited by Murli Dhar for

he considers them 'low'. But at the ceremony Gokul Chand is

horrified not to see Murli Dhar's kin, This is a moment of utter

confusion and discomfiture for Murli Dhar. He is emphatically

told that he can't afford to ignore the kith and kin, just

because they are poorer.

Anand's perception of class being more powerful and

exerting greater influence than caste in the long r~n~contradicts

the theory of Periyar, E.V.R. who held that caste is not going to

be altogether eradicated given our religious and cultural

traditions, Not that caste is going to be

altogether eradicated. But caste differences can be sunk and

forgotten if the class association or alliance is strong.

Achebe evidently has not touched on caste as it is not to be

found in his country in the £ o m in which we find it in

1ndia.While class plays a rather serious role in the action of

Achebe's novels caste is not mentioned at all. However, if caste

has to be broadly defined it could include distinctions of groups

of people as undeeirable or outcaste or ostracised,

It could be by extension applied to a category of people

referred to as 'Wsuu" specifically mentioned in Lonser

Ease where the protagonist Obi Okonkwo is in love with Clara who

is an 'Osu' . In fact the conflict in Obi's life commences when

this truth is revealed to his Christian parents who vehemently

oppose this move. His whole village is against his marrying an

"Osu" girl. Osu is an outcaste traditionally treated so by the

Igbo tribes. Probably the real reason for this is hidden in the

misty past or shrouded in mystery just as their many other

beliefs were.

Anne Tibble explains the significance of this practice in

the following manner:

Presumably 'Osu' are outcastes because of some

crime or social misderneanour one of their

ancestors has been guilty of. The village

elders attempt to identify themselves with

relentless 'national' laws of punishment:

they the guardians of the community's morals,

cannot trust to present mercy and forgive the

innocent descendant of an offender- They must

hold to implacable logic of judgement.

Simple human forgiveness would be thought weak

and sliding.

(Tibble p t in Cooke, p.125)

It is undoubtedly a clear case of social ostracism which

brands a whole section of people, generations of a family as

outcaste, Although the concept of caste cannot be applied here as

it is, it can be extended ta it. Achebe disapproves of this

'caste' division within the same tribe. The fact is that such a

distinction however limited it may be, exists among the tribes in

Nigeria.

The scandalous side of this story is that Obi's parents who

are Christians and profess and preach equality, are most

inflexible in holding on to this discirrninatory practice. The

deepseatedness of this prejudice in the minds of the people is

thrown into bold relief by the reply phrased by Obi8s father

Isaac to ObiFs first announcement of his affair with Clara, the

'0su8 :

I know Josiah Okeke very well,. . . . I know him and X know his wife. He is a good man and a

great Christian. But he is "OsuW, Naarnan,

captain of the host of Syria, w a s a great man

and honourable, he was also a mighty man of

valour, but he was a leper ..... " 0 s ~ ~ ~ is like leprosy in the minds of our

people, I beg of you, my son, not to bring

the mark of shame and leprosy into your

family. If you do, your children and your

children's children into the third and fourth

generations will curse your memory . . . ( p . 121).

And his mother literally shattered the fervent hope he

nurtured by swearing that he would marry Clara only at the cost

of her life. Unable to bear this, Obi decided to repudiate

Clara. It was an astounding decision on Obi's part but it

expalins the pressure brought on him by his parents.

There is a reference to HOsu88 the outcaste in T h i n s s Fall-

Apart, where a dispute arose in the young Church of Mbanta about

admitting wOsu'l into the church. The new converts vehemently

oppose the idea of receiving 1rOsut8 into their midst. The Osu is

said to be a person set apart, a taboo forever, a slave who

always carried the mark of his forbidden caste-long tangled dirty

hair. The collective and ancient wisdom of the clan could not

prevail against the force and vigour of the new faiths preached.

Though one may not insinuate there was 'caste' in the

social structure of the Nigerian tribes, we are sure there were

outcasteand the taboo was quite widely accepted and passionately

adhered to.

Anand and Achebe are equally aware of the overwhelming

power that class system can command, given the capitalist mode of

production, distribution and consumption, The class division

which is inevitable will spawn conflicts and struggles. The real

problem of the third world is that of the gap between the rich

and the poor. And the gap has been widening over the years

as the inherent logic of capitalism dictates. The continued

pauperisation of the poor will escalate the conflict between the

rich and the poor classes. This conflict cannot last long.

Anand and Achebe advocate different approaches to solving

this impasse* Anand believes in action of 'bhaktif which means

selfless action for the betterment of society, Anand expects

every oppressed individual and group to engage in affirmative

action for social transformation or universal liberation. He

believes in a socialist, egalitarian, fraternal and

caring society to emerge from the embers of the vanishing

society. The writer or the intellectual has an important role

toplay in exposing these contradictions, in clarifying

alternatives. He/she has to be the spokesperson or the 'fiery

voicef of the voiceless. In other words he has to play a

prophetic role.

Achebe too believes in the unique role of a writer or

intellectual in the emerging social change. He/she acts as the

privotal point in the process of education and liberation.

Therefore the writer becomes a teacher or educator according to

Achebe. Achebe proposes struggle as the only way out of the

Present political and social muddle, He assigns a specific and

important role to the new elite of ~igeria in this process of

liberation. They need to be reeducated and regenerated. They

should not be swallowed up in the rat-race for money and power

and popularity. The writer becomes the conscience of the people-

They have to educate and pull up the drooping confidence and

2 09

morale of the people. Struggles at all levels need to be carried

on if the ultimate triumph has to be a historical reality.

Anand condemns caste discrimination as a pernicious,

shameful and inhuman practice. Caste consciousness and casteism

are so much a part of our cultural and religious heritage that it

devolves on every Indian particularly the victims of this system

to raise their voice of protest. Anandfs commitment to humanism

shines through every one of his novels and underlies his powerful

indictment, in some of his novels, of the atrocities perpetrated

against the untouchables in our country.

Neither Anand nor Achebe is an obscurantist. They both

appreciate and welcome the revolutionary changes in life-style,

modes of thinking and relating, introduced by the processes of

modern scientific and technological development. ~achines are

useful and are in a way indispensable. However man should master

the machines. Human values cannot be sacrificed, Machines are

good slaves, but bad masters. Therefore it is necessary to have

machines for the purpose of making progress, But human dignity

and respect for the human being as a person should be at the core

of any programme for social change or liberation. Anand's and

Achebe's ideas of social transformation seem to echo the

following words of Aime Cesaire in t iDiscourse on colonialism"-

It is n e w society that w e must create . . a society rich with all the productive power of modern times, warm with a l l the

sharing of olden days.

(Cited in Caspersz , 1992).

CMWIPUiER SEVEN

L l BERAT i ON FROM THE FEM i N l ST PERSPECTI YE -I-------- ---- ... ------- - -----------------

In the context of the ancient Indian classics, social and

familial structures and customs, and cultural images and concepts,

what is imperative today is a de-mythologising, demystifying,

deromanticising and in short, a radical overhauling of the

understanding of Indian women. The conventional images t o

typify women a r e those of Sita and Savitri as perpetuated by

the ancient Indian classics and the one t h a t equates her with

t tSakthi", the goddess Durga and Kali. The male-dominated,

male-defined Indian society has laid down rules and norms,

customs and rituals that make women inferior to men, forced to

live in self-exile and self-imprisonment, subjected to life-long

servitude and self-sacrificing sub-ordination to man. She is

conceived both as a goddess and property to be sold and bought.

Both these concepts successfully continue t o keep her out of the

mainstream.

In Childhood a woman must be subject t o her

father, i n youth to her husband and when her lord

is dead to her sons. A woman must never be

independent.

(Quoted in Krishnaswamy, 1984: 9 )

This has been the traditional attitude to women in India as

embodied in the epics and vedas and other ancient classics, given

the official seal a of approbation by Manu, the Hindu law-giver.

As several scholars and social commentators have pointed out, the

worst tragedy of the Indian woman is the fact of the women

acquiescing in the conceptual framework, conforming to these

self-defeating and self-demeaning norms and images and

internalising them. In other words, the woman is a perfect foil

to the chauvinist Indian male who wants her to be a paragon of the

virtues traditionally associated with her. She has to be

patience, love, purity, docility and gracefulness personified.

Nevertheless, there is a silver lining in this dismal

scenario and that is the voice of protest or revolt that is being

raised by groups of women in India as elsewhere in the world. The

women of pre-independence India or of Gandhi's struggle for

freedom sought to break out of their solitary confinement by

making their presence felt in public life. Just as in the

Western hemisphere, in India too, women's education, franchise

and participation in public life and national self-determination,

promoted and passionately advocated by Gandhiji, paved the way

for the resurgence of Indian women. It should further be noted

that women's liberation movements and feminist approaches in art

and literature have gained ground in the post-independence India.

of course Western ideals and practices that were disseminated

through Western education played a crucial role in preparing the

ground for such a revolutionary point of departure.

The women's liberation movements or the feminists worked,

or rather clamoured for the emancipation of women, not on

sufferance but by right. The extent and the nature of the

freedom or emancipation demanded were the same as those of the

men. In other words, they condemned subjugation and

discrimination of women based on sex and demanded equality of

the sexes. Both the early and contemporary feminists have

engaged in a radical re-appraisal of the role of women in all

spheres of life and in the area of relationships between man and

woman in all national insitutions. While one should admit the

political and often polemical slant of the women's liberation

movements of the West and even those of India, w e need not be too

apologetic about it. Pheextreme shades assumed by the feminist

phenomenon are common knowledge. Nevertheless, one should be able

to critically probe the historical and sociological reasons for

such extreme developments, and appreciate the balance or

equilibrium that is being achieved today by most exponents or

spokespersons of feminism. The stigma attached to the lable of

"feminism" is slowly being given the go-by, even as male

chauvinism and the macho ideal are being frowned upon by writers.

It is very gratifying to note the emergence and ascendancy

of a host of women novelists in India over the last four decades.

Nay, what is more, a number of men writers have espoused the

cause of women and have voiced their aspirations and yearnings

for freedom and equality. While novelists like Raja Rao, Bhabani

Bhattacharya, R.K. Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand manifest the

sensibility towards women, they cannot be labelled as feminists.

The women characters in their novels, at least some of them, have

been drawn with such great care and tremendous sympathy, that one

cannot fail to perceive the author's deliberate intent behind

such portrayals.

The image of the new Indian woman, a by-product of a modern

civilization began to exercise the minds of Indian writers. The

traditional or mythic images such as Sita and Savitri or

pativrata disappeared giving place to more enlightened and

liberated types of women. The roles of women have changed in the

family, in public life and in society at large. The novelists in

India and Africa have been influenced by such developments and

changes and therefore they have tried to project either women in

their modern roles or educated or enlightened girls facing a

trditional or conservative household or husband or society. It

is this latter dilemma that is frequently encountered in novels by

Indian writers in recent times.

Mulk Raj Anand himself has successfully portrayed the

conflict arising out of the imcompatibility between a woman's

individuality and self-awareness and the traditional views of her

husband and her kinsfolks in his novel Gauri. The protagonist of

this novel, Gauri, the first and probably the only female

protagonist of Anand, is a welcome and revolutionary departure

from the novelistic tradition for him, as for many other

contemporary novelists. For S. C. Harrex, Gauri is "the modern

Mother Indiatf.

Shantha Krishnaswamy in her comprehensive study titled The

Woman in Indian Enslish Fiction has the following to say about

this novel:

Gauri breaks away from t h e established pattern of

saved males and doomed females. At novel's end

she had been rejected by Panchi her husband, on

the standard Hindu charges of inauspiciousness

and impropriety, She acquires enough

self-assertion to take the road to the town

towards t h e hospital of the humanistic Dr,

Mahindra. It is panchi who now stands doomed in

the slough of rejection and existential ,

loneliness, (Krishnasvamy 1984: 26)

Anand has, in his novel taken a bold stand on behalf of

millions of Indian women tortured and hounded by unsympathetic

husbands, crafty in-laws, fault-finding and censorious kith and

kin and above all, by deepseated guilt-f eeling and self -accusing

remorsefulness on the part of the woman, born out of centuries

of psychological subjugation and bombardment. Gauri by her

attitude of mature revolt and defiance when the chips are down,

delivers a lethal blow to the machismo ideals of a male-dominated

society. Gaurifs experiences as a daughter, a wife and an

employee are all marked, by a shattering sense of the futility of

expecting her husband or the other males and females around her

to vibrate with her predicament. Although Anand draws a parallel

between the cow of the story and the meek cow that Gauri is he

nonetheless presents her as a modern day Sita, who is undaunted

in the face of traumatic and humiliating experiences at the hands

of an unsympathetic and money-minded Lakshmi, her mother. Her

anger and resentment, although unexpressed, keep swelling to a

point when Gauri can no longer bear it. She has the courage to

walk out of her husband and his egocentred world, into an

uncertain future, but with a gritty determination to shape her

future and that of her child to be barn.

Anand focuses his attention and the reader's, on the

fortunes, the stress and strain and the psychological and

emotional respones of Gauri. There is a very slow progression in

her self-awareness. The ~auri of the first half of the novel is

a perfect replica of her mythic counterparts. She is tolerant,

self-suffering, self-sacrificing even to the extent of allowing

herself to be sold as a concubine to a rich old merchant. She

suffers enormous injustices and exploitation at the domestic

level. She almost allows herself meekly to be manipulated by her

mother, uncle and otherg* Nevertheless, Anand has shown uncanny

and keen interest in Gaurifs inner development, growth as a

persan from being a near non-person. It is on this growth

process that Anand focuses his attention and ensures that she

develops into a strong person endowed with moral courage,

intellectul clarity and awarenss of the reality around.

Marlene Fisher has this to say about Anand's effective

manner of expressing Gaurifs growth juxtaposed to Panchi's lack

of it:

The fullest fictional expression of Anand's

advocacy of freedom for women is his novel, The

Old Woman and the Cow, published in 1960. This - narrative is convincing and effective, in part,

because, the sympathy Anand evokes for young

Gauri is not at the complete expense of her

husband Panchi. The latterfs inability to keep up

with his wife in her growth into selfhood is due

to his own immaturity, his blind, orthodox Hindu

views governing the relationship between husband

and wife and the pressures of earning a

livelihood in a period of drought and famine. An

orphan brought up by his aunt Kesaro, Panchi is

hard put to deal with Kesaro8s jealousy of Gauri

or with an effort to retain her own hold over her

nephew. (Fisher 1985: 99-100)

Thus Gauri becomes a fascinating study of a woman in

travail and despair, of how she faces the challenge of a moronic

and sadistic husband and comes out of this crucible, chastened,

purified, enlightened and emboldened. The weight of meaningless

traditions and values that bends her down for years is cast off

by Gauri, the moment she realizes her own inner potential and

reserves. Her final act of departure from her household is the

death-knell she rings, for all the customs, rituals and

structures, legitimised by religion and glorified by ancient

literature as absolute values, while they always militated

against basic human dignity, personhood and sanctity that inhere

in the woman as a human being. Anand questions the values of

female inferiority, subjugation and dependence underpinning some

of the gruesome traditional practices such as sati and dowry,

outmoded marriage and family laws, inheritance rights and

atrocities such as abortion, rape and many other. If Dr.

Mahindra is his mouthpiece for proclaiming his revolutionary

counter-ideology, Gauri is his objective correlative, a symbol of

his protest against social and sexual inequalities and

discrimination. The following words of Shantha Krishnaswamy seem

to mirror exactly what happens in the action of this novel,

specially in the elaboration of the theme in and through the life

of the central chracter:

The awakening of the woman's consciousness

establishes a new set of values in the fictive

system. The typological experiences of these

women have constant elements like an abrupt

awakening, intense introspection, a s t a s i s in

time and action, and an abrupt ending with a

conscious decision. The ending does not lead to a

resolution of her problems, but the fictional

shaping of a very specific kind of crisis seen

through her eyes is rewarding, for it leads to

inner enrichment, a sense of exhilaration and

vicarious achievement as we see her battling

through harsh reality. (Krishnasvamy 1984 vii)

Anand has successfully resolved the binary opposition, of

woman as subject versus woman as object in this novel. While most

of the women characters, including Gauri of the earlier phase,

function as objects, passive participants, it is only Gauri who

emerges as a subject of her own life and destiny. She is unable

to stand the injustices heaped on her for too long. Therefore

she decided for herself and becomes her own saviour without

depending on or expecting her husband or other male champions to

defend her cause. She conducts her own defence and doesn't allow

anyone else to interfere with or intervene in her life. Although

Dr. Mahindra has played a conscientizing and ennobling role in

her life, he is no more than a mentor or guide. It is Gauri who

makes the decision to quit her legitimately-wedded husband.

Thus Anand emphatically portrays Gauri as a subject of her

own destiny. Anand's intention of making the woman a subject is

very clearly observed in Gaurifs arbitrary and almost non-chalant

exit from her husband's abode. Indirectly Anand has denounced

male dominance, as a value that should be eschewed by Indian

society. Anand richly deserves the encomium paid to this work by

Meenakshi Mukherjee in these words.

This novel is unique among Indian novels, in

rejecting rather than extolling, the time

honoured womanly virtues of patience and

submission. (Hukherjee 197,k 159)

In point of fact Anand has done much more by creating a

character like Gauri and making her a ficitive prototype of a

modern Indian woman of the village, whose institution as a woman,

more than her education, had led her to a stand that changes the

face of the women's situation in India and signals the

changed roles of women, not only in fiction but in reality.

Anand, being a social realist and a committed artist, is

able to perceive Gauri as, not just an individual radical or

revolutionary, but as a focal point between the growing and

expanding human consciousness and the fundamentalist and

obscurantist walls and blocks that prevent human solidarity or

stall progress. Anand believes in universal human solidarity and

salvation or liberation in which the woman has a crucial role to

play. As an intelligent student of social dynamics, societal

change and transformation Anand knows that such a process sans

the enlightened and self-determined woman is bound to be lopsided

and abortive. The woman can be and is a potent rallying point

f o r all the forces of liberation. I£ continuous on-going

struggle on all sides and at different levels is the only answer

to today's multifarious societal problems and questions, the

woman can never be ruled out as an active agent and catalyst of

social transformation. She represents an oppressed section of

humanity endowed with remarkable qualities of endurance,

acceptance and compassion, so very essential for human

liberation. Anandfs Gauri constitutes a singular impetus to the

liberationist zest and trends found in the Indian sub-continent

and its literature, and is a boon to activists and literary

men/women committed to the cause of liberation of all oppressed

peoples and of women in particular. While it cannot be labelled

as a handbook for liberation activists, it is without doubt a

magnificent clarion call of a committed novelist to his

contemporaries not to ignore the silent half of ~ndia, the women,

without whom the process of liberation can never succeed. It is

a superfine novelistic affirmation of the crucial role that women

can play in actualising the dream of visionaries like Anand for

the total emancipation and real freedom of the teeming millions

of India.

The situation of the women in African societies has been an

altogether different story. As the colonial encounter upset

the applecart of the traditional harmony and egalitarian

political, and social structure, the reality of women did

undergo considerable change. The woman in the tribal society

did not suffer much discrimination or exploitation although her

role was more confined to the domestic world. W i t h the advent of

western education and western political and other structures,

women had greater access to modern values and ideas. A

reawakening of a sort must have taken place among ~frican women,

a new awareness of their capabilities and potential. What is of

importance or relevance to us here is the perception of Achebe

relating to women's role in his society. Achebe s

women,specially in the precolonial or colonial society are quite

independent and mature, of course within the limited sphere of

the home or the household or clan. Equality of the sexes among

the tribals was never questioned or jeopardised. Functionally or

occupationally they are subordinate to the man, the husband or

the father. Nevertheless, none of the ugly forms of repression

and subjugation still extant in India or elsewhere is found

prevalent in any African society. In Achebe8s novels we are

presented with a picture of African womanhood that is quite

liberated, uninhibited, assertive and dignified. It is in his

novels about independent Nigeria and her indigenous leaders that

Achebe has tried to portray some full-blooded women characters*

If at a11 there is a feminist strand in Achebe's works, it

is evident only in his latest novel Anthills of the Savannah.

Here Achebe has created women, who are intelligent, reflective,

radical and bold. The part played by eatr rice in the plot pnd

action of the novel is quite significant, specially viewed from

the context of ~frica's post-independent history and from the

Perspective of feminism in African creative writings.

Achebe is quite critical of the inferior status accorded to

women in Nigeria's present scheme of things. Through subtle

portrayals of the attitudes of the male characters to women and

by employing the ironic and satiric mode in delineating the

chauvinistic postures taken by the sycophantic group around the

dictator, Achebe has laid bare the hidden sentiments of the

dominant male vis-a vis their female companions. Achebe doesn't

hesitate to expose the hypocrisy of even the highly educated,

enlightened and motivated characters like Chris and Ikem, where

it concerns their attitudes to or relationships with women.

Chris, in spite of his loudly-asserted passion for cleaning the

augean stables of the body politic of Kangan, is guilty of a

condescending attitude to his fiancde Beatrice. The latter time

and again points to this weakness in his personality as also his

generalised reluctance to listen to others' opinions or to be

open to other alternatives, alternative subjects, alternative

motives or alternative audiences. In fact, it is only when Chris

is declared an enemy of the leader that he will begin to listen

to his fiancge Beatrice, to ~raimoh and his fellow taxi

drivers, and to Emmanuel the student leader. Thus the

reeducation of Chris, incorporates his outgrowing the

unwillingness to accept and appreciate women's role in

liberation.

There are many other instances of male chauvinist

attitudes displayed by the chief characters of the novel. The

president-turned dictator, Sam's smug celebration of a cynical

refernce to 'African Polygamy', the invasion of the Women's

Hostel by soldiers quelling a student protest and the attempted

rape of a girl by a po&cp-officer even as Chris was fleeing Basso

for safety, are all so many cases in point to underscore the

prevalent attitude of scorn and condescension towards the

womankind.

Beatrice is an ambivalent symbol of female oppression on

the one hand and female resurgence and resilience on the other.

She pensively recalls some of her childhood memories, such as,

her given name Nwanyibuife meaning, "A female is also something",

her mother's painful narratives of her father's ill-treatment and

beatings, and her father's angry out-burst whenever she behaved

as a I1soldier-girln. Beatrice's past childhood experiences are

replete with images of male-superiority and male-dominance.

Neverthelss, in the final stages of the novel she becomes the

concrete embodiment of Achebe's views on women's specific role in

Africa's reconstruction and the indispensable and unique part

that women should and can play in Africa's and Nigeria's search

f o r a better political alternative. Beatrice becomes a lone

warrior for the rights of women and refuses to admit that she is

ambitious- She holds a brief for Ikem and Chris and defends

their activities and posture. She champions their cause not

always for egotistic reasons. However, a streak of the feminine

fear psychosis is not altogether absent. Innes C.L. has made a

very perceptive assessment of Beatrice's character and

typological role in this novel:

She too has changed by the novel's end, so that

she has become the focus of a new nucleus of

hope, providing a place and an intellectural

testing ground for the discussions of Emmanuel.

Captain Abdul, Braimoh, Elewa and even Agatha a

group significantly more varied in class and

ethnic origin than the gatherings to which, she,

~ h r i s and Ikem had formerly been accustomed. In

a metaphor carefully chosen to subvert its usual

connotations of gender role, eatr rice is

described as "a captain whose leadership was

sharpened more and more by sensitivity t o t he

peculiar needs of her companyw.

(mnes 1990: 158) (AS, P.229)

The last chapter wherein the naming ritual of ElewaCs

daughter takes place is certainly a masterpiece of Achebe's

creative imagination and artistic verve. eatr rice becomes the

village priestess combining in herself the mythological past and

role of a modern prophetess. After the death of the triumvirate,

it is her responsibility to symbolically enact the eschatological

times in apocalyptic terms. Achebe skilfully weaves this

fantastic climax by introducing the female myth of Idemili and

the male myth or the prose-poem of Ikem, the lVHymn to the Sunn,

the mythical version of the realistic aspects of the political

situation. The destructive and creative dimensions converge in

Beatrice as she performs the naming ritual, assuming the

traditionally male prerogative and making the entire ceremony a

colourful, collective, symbolic and effective sign of the birth

of a new awakening, new hope, a new generation, a regeneration

and reincarnation.

Elewa's daughter is given a male name, Amaechina, which

means, "may-the-path-never-close". This group becomes the

biblical remnant in effect, anticipating the eschatological

regeneration after death and destruction. Ikem and Chris become

part of the process, a necessary and inevitable, vicarious

sacrifice in the cause of the nation's metamorphosis. The w h o l e

ritual, the language, the conversation, the dialectics, the

spirit and the people, are shot through with an extraordinary

sense of solidarity, vibrancy, and above all hope. It is an

amalgam, nay, a fusion, of the past and the present, the mythical

and the

realistic, the male and the female, the Christian and the

Mohammedan creeds, a rare intimation of the eschatological

reality.

In this vision, the role of women is ernphasised and

Beatrice, Elewa, Agatha and the elders together form the remnant

which has its links with the past through Chris and Ikem and look

forward to the future as if in a continuum. The birth of a child

and the presence of the young and the old, the men and women of

different creeds and socio-econmic and educational backgrounds

unite to create a new myth or image of human solidarity and

ongoing struggle with the women in the vanguard. The creative

rondo, encapsulated in Achebe's line "Stories create people

create stories" has been passed on by Ikem, the male story-teller

to Beatrice, the female story-teller. The torch of hope is being

handed on to the people. The triumvirate is dead. The remnant

represents not just one section of people, but all peoples who

are engaged in the struggle. The struggle is important; equally

important is the story-telling. Both must go hand in hand. In

this process the role of the enlightened and committed women like

Beatrice becomes electrifying, imperative and crucial.

Both Anand and Achebe lay great store by the liberational

potential of the women, committed to the cause of social and

political emancipation. While neither specifies or explicitates

the nature or dynamics of the would be struggle, they are both

positive about the direction it will take, its outcome, above a l l

about the role of women in the struggle. Anand focuses Qn t h e

agony and the injustices experienced by a vast majo r i t y of Women

in India and voices their protest and demand for justice,

redressa l and rehabilitation. Most of his characters a r e silent

s u f f e r e r s , symbolic af the masses of women in India, who suffer

ignominy, humiliation, violence and marginalisation simply

because they belong to the feminine gender. The gender-bias in

Indian culture, religion, society, politics and even in law has

been imbibed by both men and women as a matter of course. Anand

portrays it, in its naked reality, in the poignant tragedy 9f

Eaur i . Gauri triumphs i n her moment of discomfiture and

ostensible rebellion against the accepted norms of religion and

Society. Anand has given a superb artistic expression to h i s

vision of a free, liberated and self-determining womankind- It

is not only Anand0s dream but he projects it as the unarticulated

aspiration of millions of the oppressed and exploited warnen-

Gaur i stands for these awakening and ques t ion ing women, who evoke

sympathetic responses from c r e a t i v e artists like Anand, who

declare themselves as committed to a new society where a l l

discrimination and exploitation based on sex, race, caste, class

or creed will be rooted out.

Achebe, when compared with Anand, appears to be a champion

of total emancipation of the African society in which the role of

women is crucial and strategic. Achebe stresses the

irreplaceable service that women, specially educated women, can

render to the cause of social transformation. Achebe1s women,

particularly in Anthills of the Savannah do appear to be victims

of a male-dominated political structure. Neverthelss, they are

in the thick of the battle, as confidantes and one, a topnotch

official with a measure of independence. The marginalisation

occurs notwithstanding the fact that the elite group at the top

goes through a process of disaffection, disillusion and eventual

rebellion in the context of the president of the state

metamorphosing into a tyrant. eatr rice, for example, observes

the political trends and events, comments on the course or

direction that the country is taking and, in fact, critiques

every move, plan and idea of Ikem and chris who are the top t w o

ideologues reflecting and reflecting on the sad plight of the

masses resulting from Sam's despotic rule.

While Anandfs Gauri enacts a revolutionary and symbolic

protest against all conventions, Achebe's Beatrice gathers around

her a remnant group and performs an apocalytic ritual replete

with gestures, symbols, words, myths and responses all indicative

of a nationwide movement for the emancipation of women from the

man-made yoke of obscruantism, and culture of silence and

subordination. While Anand expects individual women to revolt and

express their indignation and frustration, Achebe welds

the enlightened and battered women and galvanizes - them

i n t o a c o l l e c t i v e force t o make a dent in the male-citadel,

nay, to rock the ship of the state and cleanse it of all

undersirable people and ideas.

Both these aspects are important. Individual realisation

and conversion of the kind portrayed by Anand are necessary

however difficult it may be. The collective act of struggling

on a political platform with a well-thought out programme of

strategies so admirably depicted by Achebe, is the other side of

the coin of liberation. In short, liberation is a process that

has to be commenced both at the personal and collective levels.

In other words, it is a process of re-education and regeneration,

initiaed and operated by the people with the intellectual elite

playing the key role of giving the movement, the thrust forward,

the intellectual stamina and dynamism without which it may not

survive till the last. Achebe's accent on the story-telling

aspect of the struggle supplies the latter dimension. It is the

collective consciouness, historic memory that uphold the sagging

morale and spirit of the people.

Anand and Achebe have touched reality i n the raw, each in

his own inimitable way and in the context of his own peculiay

national situation and cultural heritage. From a feminist angle,

both Anand and Achebe have scored remarkable victories, as their

portrayals can serve as potent starting points for further

elaborations in creative parlance, of a social reality, which is

still very depressing, mind-boggling and defying solutions.

ART AND COMMITMENT

"Commitment1I understood in its broad moral and religious

connotation was the underlying concept in Horace, Plato and

~ristotle as each of these classical exponents, tried to define

the nature, extent and aims of literature in general or of

different genres of literature. Spenser down to Dr. Johnson

in England spelt out the purpose or aim of writing in terms of a

concrete moral or spiritual or intellectual or behavioural change

to be achieved in human beings. Invariably every one of these

writers emphasises the pragmatic view of art as a means to

achieving either pleasure or instruction. According to M.H.

Abrams, it is this manner of viewing art as an instrument for

getting something done and of judging its value according to its

success in achieving that aim, that has been the principal

aesthetic attitude of the Western World from the time of Horace

to the eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson's following statement

almost approximates to the notion of commitment as understood

today. "It is a writer's duty to make the world better, and

justice is a virtue independent of time and place?

(Raleigh, 1908: 16, 20-21J

Commitment took on a social and political hue with the

emergence of the Romantics burning with a passion for the dawn of

a new humanity and new society free from corruption and

injustice. They were poet-prophets steeped in t h e "politics of

vision". Being rooted in the mundane realities of existence they

envisioned and proclaimed liberty and equality as ideals to be

cherished and fostered. The Victorian Age witnessed the

emergence of a new literary genre - prose of thought perfected by

Carlyle, Ruskin, Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill. The

Victorian novelists such as Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte and Mrs.

Gaskell with their eloquent and vivid portrayal of contemporary

social evils and iniquities allied to poverty and social

disparity, were admired by even Marx. The political novel became

a powerful tool for expressing social commitment in the hands of

Disraeli, George Eliot and Trollope. The Victorian Age also saw

the growth of the ~eligion of Beauty and the aesthetic doctrine

of laart for art8s saken.

The Marxist writers' thinking is founded on two basic

postulates, both stated by Marx. The first, stated in E

contribution ta the Critique of political Economy, says: "The

mode of production of material life conditions the general

process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not

the consciousness of men that determines their existence but

their social existence determines their consciousness8~.. The

second constitutes the eleventh of the Theses on Feuerbach: 'The

philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways8

the point however is to change it8.

Jean-Paul Sartrefs What is Literature? (1947) made a

vehement plea for "engagedl1 , or committed literature. Sartre

wrote of "titterature-engaggg' in the after math of the years of

German occupation in France, recapturing and reflecting the

disillusionment, indignation, despair and pessimism of a defeated

nation. Sartre underscores in this treatise the social

responsibility of the writer and demands that the writer must be

at pains to discover the work within his unique historical

situation. Commitment is a translation of the French word

''engagementfB used by Sartre. The central theme of What is

Literature? is that the writer should propose, in each work, a

concrete liberation on the basis of a specific situation.

Sartre being an Existentialist philosopher proclaimed man

as freedom and regarded liberty as an integral feature af human

condition itself. He declares:

The writer, a free man addressing freemen, has only one

subject - freedom. (Sartre, 1947: 46)

For Sartre this preoccupation with freedom is not a mere

attitude. It needs a political purpose. Literature must be

subservient to a political cause, For him literature, truth,

liberty and other human values are bound up in a kind of

programme.

This brings us to the current debate on the question of

propaganda and literature. Accusation of propagandism is thrown

at any writer taking the side of the poor and the downtrodden or

speaking on their behalf, no matter what forms or techniques

he/she may employ. It cannot be denied that every writer has a

belief or doctrine or a point of view which helshe is trying to

put across through the particualr work of art. Does it mean then

that he/she is trying to impose a point of view on the unwary

reader or advocating a specific ideology? To a large extent

writers are doing this in one way or another, according to

several critics. But then this is what is expected of them after

all. Writing is an outcome of their commitment to a concept or

cause with or without a particular political affiliation or

programme,

But those who equate 'propagandisml with commitment are

labouring under the notion that commitment is another form for

the political assault on the freedom of the writer engendered and

engineered by the Marxists. Thus a sinister eft-wing plot to

impose on the artist hard fetters of doctrine is suspected by

such critics. John Mander has reformulated the whole question

thus :

. . . . But is there no more to be said on the subject of commitment? Is not rather more

implied in 'tcommitting onself" to a concept or

cause than merely showing the flag whether red,

white or blue? Is it not in the first place,

a moral rather than a directly political

question? But is it not, also a question to

be asked of an artist's work rather than his

life? And could one not reverse the question

and ask whether, since every artist is

committed to something (even if only to the

significance of his own art), the idea of a

wholly uncommitted art is not a contradiction

in terms?

(Mander, 1981: 7)

Thus commitment can be contra-distinguished from propaganda

and accepted as a multi-faceted concept signifying not just a

political stance but a moral responsibility of the writer

vis-a-vis his existential sitaution and his society. The writer is

not only committed to his belief or point of view or vision of

society but also to his art. Thus it becomes a two-fold

commitment. While propaganda in the right persepective is

~ennissible and at times inevitable, one cannot by the same token

assert that propaganda is necessarily conducive to great

literature. What matters is the way in which a writer conveys his

message: is it too overt and explicit or subtle and

imperceptible? Ezekiel Mphahlele has this to Say regaxding the

issue :

Propaganda is always to be with us. There

will always be the passionate outcry against

injustice, war, f a s c i s m , poverty etc. It will

keep coming at us, r e m i n d i n g us that man is as

wicked as he is noble and that the mass

audience out there is waiting to be stirred by

passionate w o r d .... It was Brecht who said:

' I have noticed that we frighten many people

away from our doctrines, because we appear to

have an answer to everything. Should we not

in the interests of our propaganda, draw up a

list of those problems that we consider

totally unsolved?'

(Brecht : Keunerareshichten)

Indeed in great literature propaganda cannot

be easily separted from the way thought is

conceived by the author and the manner in

which he presents it.

(Mphahlele : Villi)

While it becomes obvious that commitment in literature

need not lead to propaganda it may not be all too crudely

Propagandist if the writer can make his stand known without

advacating it openly. Nevertheless people tend t o suspect

political commitment. The underlying fallacy in this general

attitude derives from the misplaced concept of politics as narrow

or partisan loyalty to a party. This fear or misunderstanding is

based on a false dichotomy of 18politics1t from other human

activities. As John Mander points out, Is... this is a heresy

peculair to our age; it is not the traditional view!'

(Mander 1963: 13)

In Ancient Greece and in the Middle Ages there w a s not this

dividing line between politics and other areas of human

activitity. Thus it follows that there is no criticism of life - and literature is in the Arnoldian sense "criticism of life" - that does not have both 'social' and 'politicalf implications.

Therefore political commitment need not be misconstrued as a

left-wing plot to deprive writers of their freedom or to impose a

party line of thinking on innocent readers. It is well within

the framework of a work of art arising out of a given

socio-political milieu and addressing specific issues confronting

contemporary society.

One will do well to remember in this context that contrary

to what the so-called vulgar Marxists declare, both Marx and

Engels took a highly complex view of literature, marked by a

sensitive response to literary works. Nkosi Lewis asserts:

There was never a crudely reductionist view of

literature which merely means reducing poem to

the political conditions of its existence.

"In no sense" wrote Marx in the manuscripts

"does the writer regard his work as a meansH.

They are an end in themselvesa. Neither is

art reducible to ideology, although it enjoys

a close coexistence with ideology. Art

continually undermines the ideology of the

author himself. This is what enabled Lenin to

call Tolstoy a ngreatw writer in spite of his

connection with the landed Russian aristocracy.

"Indeed, art is so ideologically powerfuln,

writes a latter day Marxist critic, Terry

Eagleton, "precisely because it isn't just

Having cleared this misapprehension and misplaced fear, the

crucial question of whether commitment of any artist must be

sought within the work itself or in his/her views about the work,

has to be squarely faced. There are critics who favour the idea

that the writer's commitment should be sought in the work itself

and not in his other writings or pronouncements. There are

others who categorically maintain that in order to understand or

assess the commitment of the writer it is useful and often

necessary to know hisJher views on the work and on hislher

Perception of commitment and literature in general.

In this connection it may be helpful to take a look at the

poetry and belief debate involving great literary luminaries like

T-SI Eliot and I.A. Richards. T , S . Eliot has formulated the

problem clearly in his essay "Goethe as the Sage" in the

following manner:

The question is as to the place of ,ideasr in

poetry and as to any 'philosophyf or system of

beliefs held by the poet. Does the poet hold

an idea in the same way that a philosopher

holds it; and, when he expresses a particular

philosophy in his poetry, should we be expected

to believe this philosophy or may we

legitimately treat it merely as suitable

for a poem? And furthermore is the reader's

acceptance of the same philosophy a necessary

condition for his full appreciation of the poem?

(Eliot, 1957 : 222)

The first aspect of this question relates to the basic

honesty or veracity of the writer, while the general opinion

maintains that no poet will commit to verses an idea in which he

doesn't believe, it is common knowledge that certain poets have

made such attempts at least in some poems.

The second and probably the more crucial aspect of this

Westion is, if the reader should have faith in the doctrine or

belief system embodied in a poem or work or art in order to

appreciate it fully. While numerous critics in the past were of

the opinion that a corresponding belief on the part of the reader

was essential, the same is disputed given today's culture of

pluralism in the sphere of knowledge and belief. While Coleridge

advocates a "willing suspension of disbeliefN, Matthew Arnold

argues for an objectless religion which can give us the

emotional satisfaction without demanding the commitment.

I.A. Richards in his Principles of LIterarv criticism.

Science Poetrv, and Practical Criticism has posited t w o types

of knowledge or truth. He distinquishes between scientific truth

which is empirically verifiable and the Ittruth" of poetry which

he calls tlpseudo-statement". According to him the poem's worth

is to be found in the nature of the right reponse to it. It can

be inferred from this that it is not what the writer says that

makes it great but the manner in which he/she says it.

Eliot's views on this question traversed a whole spectrum

till at last he settled for a very flexible and broad perspective

including the possibility of poetic inspiration, the

indispensability of religion to art and the extreme position of

considering doubt and uncertainty as a variety of belief.

Between the two extremes of Mongomery ~elgion's "I like

Poetry merely for what it has to sayu and of I.A. Richard's "1 like

the poetry because the poet has manipulated his material into

perfect art", T.S. Eliot has posited a middle position. He saw

the possibility of a continuous range of appreciations each of

which having limited validity. Eliot has remarked that 8tpoetry

is not the assertion that something is true, but the making that

truth more fully real to us". Thus Eliot has indirectly

commented on the relationship between commitment and art or

belief and form. While belief or commitment need not

distortthe art form or expression, the formal side of the work

enhances and enriches the content. Eliot in a sense touches the

core of commitment when he asserts that belief has infinite

gradations from doubt to assent, concerns all activities of life

at a given time, comprising thought, feeling and will. He

moreover, hints at the intrinsic relationship that should exist

between commitment and art when he points out that this belief

system depends on the emotions of the reader and therefore a

matter of sympathetic understanding, not of mere rational

demonstrability, Here T.S. Eliot has instinctively arrived at a

sharp perception of the essence of art and its relationship of

mutual enrichment and transformation to commitment.

It is in the light of this brief analysis of the debate on

Poetry and belief that one should examine the premises and

arguments of those who criticise committed art as being entirely

content-oriented.

According to some critics commitment seems to be at odds

with modernism on the one hand and formalism on the other.

Marxist critics have accused the modernists of being isolationist

and defeatist despite their avowed espousal of the cause of

society in general. Lukacs has gone so Ear as to equate realism

with the forces of peace, and modernism with those of war in the

post-war world. He has paid a rich tribute to the great

bourgeois critical realists such as Anatole France, Romain

Rolland, Bernard Shaw, Theodore Dreiser, Heinrich and Thomas Mann

for their effective contribution to a progressive rearguard

action against the dominant forces of imperialism and war.

Perhaps the more interesting literary wrangle that should

engage our attention is the one between the avant-garde and the

committed writers. The former have severely censured the

committed writers as biased in favour of content and theme to the

total neglect of art and form. With its insistence on the primacy

of form it questions if the so-called committed art has a right

to call itself art.

Several critics are inclined to agree with this view as

they find most committed writers, the ~arxists in particular, not

interested in literature as art. while there is some substance in

the above criticism, the fact that a considerable number of

Marxist writers and committed writers in general display keen

interest in art and form makes such a sweeping generalisation

untenable and unfounded. Moreover Marx and Engels have expressed

themselves very clearly on the autonomy of art and its potential

for social transformation.

The prejudice against all committed art seems to stem from

a misplaced belief that literary commitment is the preserve of

the Left. Matei Calinescu contradicts this position when he

observes :

"The first advocates of the idea that writers

should commit themselves politically and use

the aesthetic means at their disposal for the

achievement of a political goal were

representatives of reaction during the period

that followed the French Revolution of 1789.

(Calinesdu, 1982: 126)

The strange irony of it all is that the same censorious

critics not only accommodate but single out for exceptional

eulogy writers of the ~ightist line who are ultra-conservative

and even reactionary. The answer to this is not far to seek. It

is their ideological stance vis-a vis the E s t e r n bloc and its

system of Government that warps and distorts their critical

Perception. David Caute, expresses the same view when he asks:

"Could it be that Sartre, rather than Camus,

provides the whipping boy for nine out of ten

critics hostile to commitment, because,

Sartrers commitment tended in one political

direction and Camus in another?"

(Caute, 1971: 37)

Brecht was by his own confession a committed writer, who

neverthelss respected his art and its inner dynamics. He was

wedded to the concept of 81~itterature-engagt$11 and in fact

perfected this art by his deft, intelligent and innovative

handling of his artistic tools, forms or models. Thus Brecht

provides us with a model wherein the content and form or

commitment and art fuse into one whole, interlocked unit. While

his commitment or responsible writing is lent credibility and

respectibility by his artistic expression, the latter get a

polished and perfected as a fit medium for committed writing.

John Mander has not only paid an extraordinary tribute to

Brechtfs commitment as an artist, but has moreover highlighted

the paramount value of an artist's handling of his medium in

relation to his content in the following words:

... the biographical fact that Brecht never became a member of the Communist Party does not help us to decide the important

and difficult question of how far Brecht realised his Marxist

ideology in his dramatic work. Brecht s commitment like that of

any other artist, must be sought in the work itself, not in

Brechtfs views about his own work.

(Mander, 1961: 13).

Likewise the real reason for ~olstoy's greatness, as G.

Lukacs has it, has nothing to do with the eternal verities of the

human condition, but to his having given coherent expression to

the world-view of the peasantry.

Thus it becomes clear that any committed writer worth his

name does not have to depend for his credibility on props such as

his speeches, letters or lectures or other writings for

vindicating his bona fides or honesty as a writer. One need not

seek his/her ideology or belief outside his/her work. Instead

the work of art itself bears sufficient testimony to his

authenticity and commitment and carries indeaible marks of his

creed as a writer and his attitude to art and aesthetics.

Now we are in a better position to situate the third world

writers vis-a-vis commitment or committed literature. First of

all it is imperative to remember that any literature emerging

from a third world country is ipsa facto conditioned by the

environment social political and cultural, peculiar to that

country. The overriding concern of the third world writers has

been with vindicating their own native culture and restoring it

to a position of pre-eminence, autonomy and dignity. In other

words, the committed writer of the third world wants to be

recognised as a third world person and therefore strives to

identify himself with the most oppressed people of his country

and to be their spokesperson. In the words of Peter Nazareth,

commitment for the third world writer "is to accept an identity,

an identity with the wretched of the earth.. . (and) to determine

t o end a l l expolitation and oppressionw.

It moreover can be perceived in Achebets cultural assertion

and cultural reconstruction. Almost echoing Sartrets verdict

about a writer that HWillynilly he is involved in his time;

impartiality is impossiblett, Diana Brydon says that the idea of

the uncommitted writer, like that of the totally objective

scientist is a myth. Of course she is referring to the third

world writers.

With this background knowledge of the nature of commitment

and its relationship to art and its scope and sweep w e come

to the study of Anand and Achebe as committed artists of the

third world. While both these writers have the reputation of

being writers of nlitterature engagglt, they are also known as

writers of political engagement or of revolt or of dissent,

Anand for one has been in the centre of a storm of controversy

over the nature of his commitment and has been severely

crit icised and hostilely reviewed over the years by partisan

critics and academics who charged him with tt~ropagandism".

Probably it is this trend among critics both Western and

~ndian that has been the stimulus to Anandrs apologies including

his work titled Fpoloay for Heroism. He has, besides, a score of

other articles and speeches that constitute in effect, Anand's

'apologia pro vita sua'. More correctly this corpus of writing

should be termed as Anand's defence of his literary creed and his

Weltanschaaung. In Anand's Credo as a novelist the content or

sensibility has the highest priority. According to several

critics and in Anandrs own admission, he attaches greater

importance to content than to form. Saros Cowasjee one of the

better known and more objective critics and commentators of Anand

has this to say of Anand's creed as a novelist:

Marxian dialectics, the social impulse is as

with the writers of the thirties, at the heart

of his writings. A work of art, be it a novel

or a painting or a play, is first of all a

social event. This explains why he gives

maximum emphasis to the duties of a novelist

(and what a good novel should be), and very

little to the tools at his disposal. In his

dozen or so articles concerned with the novel,

he has to my knowledge only one comment an

the need fox a style. "Of course it is not

enough to want to say something. Everthing

depends on how one says - how the imagination

of a writer can transform the various

realities, inter-penetrate characters with

insight and connect the poetry and prose. And

certainly there has to be some kind of styleq1

(Creative writing is the Present crisisw in

Indian Literature, VI, No.1, 1963, p . 7 4 ) .

This is a half-hearted acceptance of the

importance of style, almost a concession,

since there seems no way out of it. However,

Anand seems to leave the impression tha t

neither style nor form is basically fundamental

to the novel. "What is the use" he wrote to

me angrily, 'of keeping the f o r m , the kerb and

t h e edge all right and destroy the bloody

horse - R o y Campellfs phrase, not minet. This

outburst is not without its irony, for his

novels are not formless nor is he a writer

without style.

( C o w a s jee, 1976: 10)

Cowasjee warns us against being taken in by

the specious arguments Anand advances in his

F n o l o q for Heroism in disapproval of

propaganda. At t h e same time he states that

Anand "is no facile propagandist; he is what

George Orwell was, an expositor, a political

novelist, one who sees his characters and their

actions in relation to the social, economic

and political upheavals of his timew.

(Cowas jee, 1976: 11)

Although Cowasjee himself employs considerable quotations

from Anand's non-fictional writings, letters and lectures, he is

not in favour of simplistically accepting his ideas and comments

without critical scrutiny . ~lthough he discourages such

uncritical or unquestioning attitude, he is not averse to using

Anand's writings where necessary in order to clarify a point or

affirm an opinion. His own essays on Anand are studded with a

string; of quotations from Anand1s essays and lectures. B u t

Cowasjee is able to approach Anand's works of art with an

extraordinary detachment and objectivity.

S.C. Harrex takes an altogether different approach to

Anand's works and particularly to the formal and technical

aspects of his fiction. He goes to the extent of asserting that

a study of the formal and technical aspects of Anand's fiction

necesitates consideration of Anand's intentions, attitude and

themes. He states:

Anand explores aspects of the human condition

mainly Indian, from the point of view of

certain assumptions; his stories, characters

and themes evolve out of the interactions of

these assumptions with mirror images of "real

lifen, his dramatization of these interactions

constitutes a quest for a coherent world view.

I would therefore postulate a close

correlation between this quest for ideological

structure and his quest for the fictional form

compatible with his instincts and prejudices

as a writer. Whether the ideological pursuit

initiates or takes precedence over the formal

pursuit (or vice-versa) is difficult to

determine though I suspect that in most of his

novels Anand has taken the view that form

should be subservient to content.

(Harrex, 1982: 142)

Harrex offers the theory that for Anand both the

ideological pursuit of the socialist humanist restructuring

and his own fictional pursuit of the appropriate form and

technique are complementary aspects of one and the same

Process. Harrex describes his standpoint or ethical base as

cosmopolitian-lndian, anti-Brahmin, this rather than other world-

oriented and gives his ultimate form of fiction the name of the

socio-political messianic novel.

Harrex moreover contends that there is often a fusion or

merger of Anand1s intentions as a writer and social reformer.

He is able to achieve, probably consciously, a perfect unison

between the moral, social questions he is addressing and the

formal technique of the narrative, so much so, one can't suspect

the commitment at both these levels. An examination of the

structure of his first novel Untouchable, does illustrate this

point. The writer's basic problem must have been how to

perceive and express experience from the untouchableslpoint of

view. As a socialist humanist his dilemma is: how to enter such

an alien, individual and caste consciousness? The final product,

the novel, demonstrates beyond doubt Anand1s exquisite handling

of this two-fold problem in such a way that at both levels

Anandrs commitment is unmistakable. He has succeeded remarkably

in identifying, agencies and aspirations of the untouchables that

Bakha is both an individual and type. His moving portrayal of

Bakhals revolutions, resentment and dejection in the face of

public humiliation such as the slapping by the brahmin and the

high caste woman's contemptuous flinging of bread, is a tribute

to his mastery over form. He finds a congenial medium for his

social content or purpose in the technique of

stream-of-consciouness. It has enabled him to enter

imperceptibly as it were into the inner and most intimate

recesses of Bakhars self-tortured, agonising and dehumanising

feelings and above all his seething anger. He used this method

because he was convinced that "the application of this technique

to the labyrinths and substrata of Indian mind could alone

metamorphose the inner realities of our soul".

Anand has masterfully employed the method of interior

monologue in unravelling Bakha's unarticulated but intense

feelings and reactions in the face of indignities heaped on him

just because he is an untouchable.

The scene where Bhakha is being insulted and slapped by a

caste Hindu whom Bakha is supposed to have inadvertently touched

and defiled is a masterpiece of Anandrs craftmanship. He buuilds

Up the cresando of Bakhafs discomfiture and embarrassment,

confusion and anger through cleverly contrived incidents that

heighten Bakha's pathetic state and by nirroring his conflicting

emotions and feelings now and again. A s if to relieve the

mounting tension and to offset the overwhelmingly hostile scene,

Anand introduces the tonga-wallah with a refreshing sense of

sympathy for the abused and ill-treated Bakha.

The climax of the scene is yet to be. Anand is still to

Probe the mind and inner feelings of Bakha who has barely managed

to bottle up his surging rage and to present a humble and

repentant face thus staving off any further abuses or physical

assault. Anand begins to probe the consciousness of Bakha at

this hour when his cup of woe and humiliation was overflowing:

And in the smoky atmosphere of his mind

arose dim ghosts of forms peopling the scene

he had been thro~gh.,..~~Why was all this?" he

asked himself in the soundless speech of cells

receiving and transmitting emotions, which was

his usual way of communicating with himself.

"Why was all this fuss? Why was I so humble?

I could have struck him'... I should have

been the high-caste people in the street.

That man; That he should have hit me; My poor

jelebis; I should have eaten them. But why

couldn't I say something?. . . The slap on my

face: But why couldn't I say something? .... The slap on my face; The coward: How he ran

away, like a dog with the tail between his

legs. The child: The liar: Let me come across

him one day. He knew I was being abused. Not

one of them spoke for me. The cruel crowd;

All of them abused, abused, abused. Why are we

always abused?.... They always abuse us.

Because we are sweepers. Because we touch

dung. They hate dung. I hate it too. That's

why I came here.. . They don't mind touching

us, the Muhammadans and the Sahibs, It is only

the Hindus, and the outcastes who are not

sweepers. For them I'm a sweeper, s w e e p e r

- untouchable: untouchable: untouchable:

That's the word: untouchable: I'm an

untouchable:

(Untouchable : p. 56)

Bakha has achieved a singular illumination as to the root

cause of all his iniquities. ggUntouchablew is the a n s w e r to his

soul-searching, tormenting question "Why all thisn. This single

passage is an eloquent exposition of the reality of

Untouchability, its extent and intensity and the mute passivity

of the majority who through their silence acquiesce in it. The

authorial voice may be heard here and there, but every word

Uttered has the area of authenticity and realism reflecting the

goings on in the mind of Bakha whose perception of his own

situation has matured and crystallised, thanks to his sensitive

and intelligent nature.

The whole story evolves and progresses as the by-product of

Bakha's interaction with his neighbours and the continuous

process of reflection and introspection that he is engaged in.

The realization of Bakhafs own inferior status and the injustice

of it has aroused the smouldering rage in him. His own

experiences of maltreatment and exploitation and those of his

fellow-untouchables become so many experiments with the truth.

The novelist not only allows the character of Bakha to blossom

gradually but in the process, develops the story woven around

Bakhafs experiences and maturated as an individual untouchable

and a type of the untouchables come of age.

Anand has achieved a high degree of success in correlating

moral, social questions to formal narrative problems. He has not

only succeeded supremely in identifying himself with the life and

experiences of the untouchables in India but in finding the most

appropriate medium to express these. There is a perfect fusion

of Anand's view of the situation of the untouchables and his

attempt to artistically project it. In this, he has masterfully

employed techniques such as the 'stream of consciousness~ and the

'interior monologuef. He has moreover made the structure of the

novel taut by restricting the entire action of the novel to a

single day - a remarkable achievement for an Indian novelist writing in the thirties. Anand himself calls his fictional form

"poetic realismtt by which he meant a synthesis of the subjective

formalism and social realism of the Western schools of

literature, Anand could probably have cut out the last part made

up of three long and monotonous harangues on alternatives and

still have preserved the organic unity of the entire novel-

While Anand has skilfully and consciously avoided turning Bakha

into an intellectual abstraction, his obsession with societal

change or transformation has got the better of the artist in the

final section of the novel. Nevertheless it must be admitted

that his fictional strategy in this novel and particularly h i s

style which is his own are a landmark in the history of Indian

writing in English particularly in the field of novel.

William Walsh comments on the novel's content and style in

these words: His sharpest, best organised novel is untouchable

which was very highly thought of by E.M. Forster. It is an

interesting combination of hard material, narrow specific theme

and throbbing Shelleyan manner.

(Walsh: p.7)

The Bis Heart is another successful novel of Anand wherein

he has handled a theme probably hinted at in Untouchable and

Coolie, It is the classical question of man or the machine that

finds a fictional presentation in this novel. In other words,

Anand is trying to grapple with issue of conflict between

tradition and modernity, a very real problem for India at the

threshold of an industrial and scientific era. Anand uses the

terms '@the age of truth" and "the iron age1' t o denote the t w o

eras.

While Anand's purpose as a socialist humanist believing

in modernisation and mechanization is quite obvious all through

the novel, he hasn't sacrificed the character of t h e hero Ananta

or the form of the novel in the interest of propaganda. Alastair

~iven his book titled, The meof Pity makes the following

comment :

Though the novel is undoubtedly propagandist

it has a wide and humane scope, surveying the

problem - humanitarian, social, cultural,

economic, political - which are inherent in the radical changes which India has to undergo

if the lot of the common people is to be

improved.

(Niven A, 1978: p.81)

While we can easily perceive Anand's own biases and pet

theories voiced by the protagonist and the poet Puran Bhagat

Singh, we admire the manner in which Anand has carefully drawn

the main characters and the events which ultimately lead to the

climax. The didactical overtones of the debates featuring the

coppersmiths and their warring groups do not in any way detract

from the powerful delineation of the closing scenes that hasten

the dramatic finale by heightening the tension and triggering a

crisis of leadership. The sober ending that caps the dramatic

and gripping action wherein AnantaJs mistress Janki is integrated

into the mainstream of struggling coppersmiths is a stroke of

genius on Anandfs part. The sudden void created by Anantafs

death is more than compensated in the hint that the struggle will

be carried on by his comrades. The novel ends on a note of hope

for the future of the struggle of the workers against the

exploitation of the employers eventually against the capitalist

system geared to profit at the expense of the labour. Ananta who

dies a martyr for the cause of the worker's unity and unionizing,

epitomises Anand's stand for replacing the present capitalist,

profit-oriented, power-mongering and elitist form of business and

commerce by a more humane, egalitarian, worker-oriented and

democratic form of business and government. Anand perceives the

nexus between the Government and the big buisness class and

therefore pleads for proletarian unity for over throwing such an

oppressive and powerful system.

While caste-discrimination is the central problem in

Untouchable, the class-consciousness is at the heart of Coolie.

The Bis Heart deals with both these problem but emphasises the

truth that the class is more powerful than caste and may

eventually relegate caste into the background. The novel

underscores the importance of the solidarity of labourers by

exposing the lack of unity of workers and the forces that

undermine such a unity. Undergirding this discrimination and

polarisation is the conflict between tradition and modernity.

The divide between the two groups is so pronounced that an

ultimate resolution is not to be expected. Hence Anand makes the

protagonist undergo a martyr's death which signals the release of

ongoing and invincible revolutionary zeal rooted in the life and

ethos of the labour class. Poet Bhagat Singh sums up this belief

of Anand in these words addressed to a heart-broken Janki:

ll.. . . Perhaps you are right. Because men

don't really learn from speeches as much as

they learn from examples, Perhaps the life of

Ananta - I mean the way he lived may be a greater example for them than any words he

could have spoken. Why, they may even recall

the wise things he said to them now that he is

dead. For what can be more persuasive than

the death of a man who loved themtt.

(Pp. 228-229)

T h e s e words of Anand1s spokesman poet Bhagat ~ingh embody

the outlook of the author which is crystallised in t h e word

'tbhaKti" meaning service of one's fellow human beings out of

selfless love. Anand believed this to be the foundation for a

classless, casteless, just and egalitarian society. The marvel

is that Anand hasnft produced a political or moralistic tract or

documentary to convey this philosophy. Rather he has created an

absorbing life-like story filled with living and credible people

acting out a body-soul drama in a given socio-economic situation

that could be witnessed in any part of India in the thirties.

And this he had done by narrowing down the action to the

happenings of a single day.

G.S. Balarama Gupta sums up this unique harmony - of the political vision and artistic commitment on the part of Anand in

the following manner in his essay IVAnandfs The Biq Heart" A

studyH :

The conflict between the capitalists and the

labourers is a theme which could easily have

produced a propagandist novel. But The Big

Heart escapes this criticism not only because

of Anand's intimate knowledge of the problems

. he writes about - he himself is a descendant

of coppersmiths - but also because there is perfect naturalness in what the various

characters say or do. It is a merit of novel

that there is a perfect integration between

the novelistfs philosophy of humanism and the

novel's artistic excellen~e.~~

(Gupta in B . P . 1 3 , 43)

Anand may not have been as successful in mantaining this

balance between his political creed and demands of an art form in

his other novels. Nevertheless an examination of one of his

other novels may be fruitful at this stage. In coolie Anand has

used a much wider canvas. Not content with one aspect of the

spectrum of exploitation and discrimination in Indian society as

in Untouchable, Anand has widened the horizons of his fictional

world by introducing the theme of the consequence of

indutrialisation in the towns and cities and its impact on the

middle classes and the poor peasants in the villages. Munoo the

innocent and sprightly lad from the hills is made to go through a

series of chance contacts, accidents and circumstances, as a

result of a remorseless historical process. Although Anand has

peopled this novel with numerous good, benevolent, malicious,

evil, and even comical characters, the focus is always on Munoo

and his response to the situations he is faced with.

The tragedy of Munoots life, as, in fact it is of a majority

of the poor and the downtrodden, consists in his suffering and

deprivation despite his desire to ameliorate his lot and his

earnest efforts to realise his dream. He is an innocent victim,

unaware of the hostile forces and structures he is pitted

against . Although he is not discriminated on the ground of

caste, as he is a Rajput, he is nonethelss tortured and hounded

out sirnply because he is indigent and seeks to eke out an

existence by clutching at whatever job may be offered to him. He

arrives at the folllowing inference after some painful

experiences and humiliations:

..-. there seem to be only two kinds of people in the world. Caste did not matter. I am a Xshatriya and I am poor,

and Verma, a Brahmin, is a servant boy, a menial because he is

poor. No, caste does not matter. The babus are like the

sahib-logs, and all servants look alike: there must only be t w o

kinds of people in the world: the rich and the paor.

(P-69)

Coolie's single most striking feature is the treatment of

Munoo with his variegated experiences and existential situations

till his premature death. It is Munoo who provides the thematic

unity in the novel. It is through the sieve of his adolescent

mind that Anand analyses and criticises the world of the

capitalists. While Anand exposes the foibles, psychoses,

machinations and inadequacies of the ambitious middle C ~ S S

People, the bourgeoisie and the white bureaucrats, he displays

tremendous sympathy, compassion and concern when he deals with

Munoo and the working classes. Anand's technique of expressing

the general and the universal through a careful portrayal of the

particular has paid him rich dividends in this novel. Almost a l l

the characters of the novel, including Munoo a r e meticulously

drawn and individualised, still the reader can't fail to

realise that each of these characters typifies a group or class.

As Jack Lindsay avers, this novel has been well-conceived and

excellently structured till the point when the adbortive strike

in t h e mill takes place. With the advent of Mrs ~ainwaring the

tight structure and the absorbing n a r r a t i v e sf the novel, nay

even the theme and message s e e m to suffer a setback. This phase

of the s t o r y lacks the organic quality which we perceive in the

other parts of the novel.

The language and style of Anand is consistent with his

theme and fictional objective. The manner of narrative being

picaresque, the style and language are extremely relevant. O n e

instance of Anandfs capacity for adapting the tempo and rhythm of

his prose is where the narration is attuned to the varying speed

Of- the train suggestive of the urban and rural scenes that

are passed. Even the abusive language and t h e swear words of

different characters do not jar as they sound natural in the

mouths of the respective characters. Although Anand does not

always exercise artistic restraint in the use of such 'uncivil'

language, he has struck the right measure in this novel. In fact

the artistic value of this work is immensely enhanced by the

s t y l e and language that Anand has masterfully contrived and

employed. Anand adapts and modulates his language to su i t

different characters and situations thus providing a raciness to

it. A word about the conclusion of this novel may not be out of

place. Anand subjects his protagonist to an agonised death

caused by tuberculosis. He is a victim of fate and

circumstances. Munoo seems to succumb to his fate without even a

semblance of a fight. This ending seems a logical outcome of the

passive self-suffering charac te r that Munoo is. However, we

feel, as C.D. Narasimhaiah and Saros Cowasjee have declared, that

Anand contradicts himself by legitimizing the fatalistic view of

life and by allowing much good to go waste. C.D. ~arasimhaiah

has observed:

In the circumstances sheer survival must be looked upon as

a triumph of the spirit, t h e very will to live must be reckoned

as strength.

(~arasimhaiah 1969: p. 119)

The author, however, seems to have a difficulty about

resolving the riddle of the life of Munoo endowed with

irrepressible zest for life and for the good things in life.

Anand can not consciously advocate a meek submission or

resignation to the so-called fate, given his refutation of

doctrines like fate and Karma. Nevertheless he finds himself in

a tight spot as to the ending of the novel. There is a pervading

sense of hopelessness and despair looming large in the final

scenes. The smouldering ember of revolt and ambition in Munoo

could have been creatively used by the writer to spark off other

currents of revolutionary fervour geared to the toppling of the

oppressive system that is built on cut-throat competition,

profiteering and cash nexus. The lust for life in Munoo, sparks

of which a r e occasionally revealed in his musings and reactions,

amounts in the ultimate analysis, to a desire for liberation,

personal and communal, physical, material and spiritual. In an

otherwise well-constructed and beautifully designed novel, the

way Munoo ends up strikes a discordant note. One is tempted t o

say, Anand has missed out the prophetic under-current that could

have heightened the narrative verve and enhanced the personal and

universal value of the theme of the novel.

These three novels have been singled out for investigating

the relationship between Anand the humanist and Anand the artist,

as these novels, more than others highlight both these aspects in

an abundant measure. The social motive or theory is the solid

rock on which the fictional matrix of these novels revolves.

Moreover, it is in these three novels that Anand has not

consciously allowed himself to be dominated or swept off the feet

by his theory or ideology, The structure and the fictional

strategies employed by Anand in these three novels have a

dialectical or mutually enriching and transforming relationship

to the content or sensibility, powerfully expressed by Anand.

William Walsh while finding fault with his habit of preaching

remarks :

But when his imagination burns and the dross of propaganda

is consumed, as in Untouchable, Coolie and The Biq Heart (1945)

there is no doubt that he is a novelist of considerable power.

(Walsh: p.7)

It is no mean achievement on the part of Anand that despite

his personal involvement in the topics or problems he is

analysing, he has been able to maintain that measure of

detachment that makes for a successful novel, probably because,

most of his novels are concerned with people not of his own caste

or class. All said and done, it has to be admitted that where

this artistic detachment or objectivity deserts him and his

compassion for his characters who are all victims at some level,

gets the better of him, his plots are loose, narrative

monotonous and language and style artificial or far-fetched.

Chinua Achebe has time and again declared that he considers

the restoration of African 'dignity' and ,self-respectf as his as

well as what ought to be every African writerrs responsibility.

In his essay, "The Role of the Writer in a New Nation1@, Achebe

says :

.... that African people did not hear of

culture for the first time from Europeans,

that their societies were not mindless but

frequently had a philosophy of great depth and

value, and beauty, that they had poetry, and

above all they had dignity. It is this

dignity that many African people all but lost

during the colonial period and it is this that

they must now regain.

(Achebe, 1964: p. 158)

Thus Achebe by his own conscious choice has committed

himself to convey to his people "What happenedtt and "what they

lostn. In other words he has tremendous respect for the past as

he is deeply involved, in his peple8s present reality and its

transformation. However Achebe insists that a novelist must do

this "by showing in human terms what happened to them". And

Nkosi Lewis in his book entitled Tasks and Masks says that Achebe

means to do it through a social reconstruction of the past in

novels which deal with recognisable people in recognisable human

situation.

Achebe has styled himself a politcal writer. And he has

defined his politics as universal human comunication across

racial and cultural boundaries as a means of fostering respect

for all people. True to this definition Achebe has addressed

himself in all his novels to clearing the channels of

communication by removing the misconceptions and misinformations

in the minds not only of Nigerians but also of others regarding

the precolonial past of ~igeria and how they lost it in their

encounter with the Europeans. With his characteristic raciness

he asserts:

The writer can tell the people where the rain

began to beat them. After all the writer's

duty is not to beat this morningrs headline in

topicality, it is to explore in depths the

human condition. In Africa he cannot perform

this task unless he has a proper sense of

history. He should moreover be concerned with

the question of human values.

(Achebe, 1964: p. 158) f-- 'Achebe believes in educating the people. He terms the

writer a teacher. Therefore the writer has to be committed to

his task. The task becomes all the more difficult as the legacy

left behind by the whites, together with the positive gains to

the country, has done untold harm in engendering in the minds of

the people self-defeating and self-negating values and complexes.

In other words if Africa is viewed as the negation of Europe one

could imagine the magnitude of psychological harm perpetrated by

the colonial masters during the colonial regime and afterwards.

Achebe is no starry-eyed romantic. He is aware that he and

his fellow writers are up against a very complex situation. He

is convinced that their colonial past with all its gruesome and

bitter memories is not altogether devoid of brighter moments.

Nor for that matter is the history of the Nigerian people before

the colonial period one long ,technicolour idyllf. He warns

fellow African writers against the temptation to select in their

writing only those facts which flatter them. He further adds

that "it's not the writer's personal integrity as an artist that

is involved, but the credibility of t h e world he is attempting to

recreatet1. Achebe maintains that Ifany serious ~frican writer who

wants to plead the cause of the past must not only be God's

advocate, he must also do duty for the devilu.

While Achebe's sole purpose in all his five novels is

without doubt an analysis of t h e Igbo historical past which

encompasses t h e precolonial, colonial and post-colonial or

pre-independence and post-independence days, his choice or

material, organisation and treatment of it, his narrative

techniques and characterization differ from novel to novel. His

first novel ~hinqs Fall Apart presents a view of the Igbo tribe

in Umuofia with its daily ritual of work and play, its religious

rites and its own administrative set up. Okonkwo is t h e central

character through whose vicissitudes, strengths, and weakenesses

Achebe examines the internal cohesion and harmony of the Igbo

society showing signs of exhaustion and internal disintegration,

T h e fortunes of t h e tribe seem to r ise and fall w i t h Okonkwo as

he is portrayed as the representative and key figure of the

entire community.

The first part of the novel reveals the composite picture

of traditional Igbo life cut off from any outside or foreign

influences. It is a self-sufficient, harmonious, self-enclosed

society not brooking any threat, to its internal cohesion. There

is virtually no plot as such in the sense of a well-knit cause

and effect structure in this part. There is no major conflict

confronting the protagonist except the minor day to day problems.

It is only in the last chapter of the first part that there is

some attempt to create a major problem leading to a crisis. That

is Okonkwofs exile as a punishment for accidentally killing a

tribesman. And it is only at this stage that we come across the

first encounter between this closed but ordered Igbo society and

the t w i n foreign forces of Christianity and the British colonial

rule,

The llplotless" nature of the narrative of t h e first part

has made a lot of critics point t o the structural weakness of t h e

novel. According to Gerald Moore this structural f l a w is the

consequence of Achebets introduction of s e v e r a l digressions

removing the reader from Okonkwo: anthropological background and

explanations, substories and several forms of old t r a d i t i o n s .

ene edict Chiaka Njoku however takes except ion t o t h i s criticism:

One of t h e points made by critics of the

novel is that it is structurally weak because

many of its main events t u r n upon chance

r a t h e r t han by design. True, great literature

has des ign , where one set of action leads to

ano the r and leaves nothing t o chance. But the

sober reality is t h a t Achebe seems t o have

overcome t h i s problem by his masterful control

of the narrative voice. T h i n s s Fall Apart is

told in third person by a t h i r d person

narrator, no t by an omniscient being who acts

as a God capable of being in many places at

the same time, knowing t h e Igbo past,

n ine t een th cen tu ry world view and the future,

able to penetrate i n t o the psyche of every

character and capable of creating and

motivating o t h e r c h a r a c t e r s by h i s

infallibility. But Achebe's story is narrated

by a seemingly wise and compassionate and

sympathetic elder, who is ably conversant

with Igbo worldview, philosophy and culture.

He is aware of the past and is cognizant of

the intrusion of Christianity and European

cultures, which are making "Things Fall Apartw.

(Njoku, B. C. , 1984: pp. 16-17)

Invoking the Igbo cultural and social background Achebe has

made a liberal but judicious use of the village meetings a

permanent feature of the Igbo social organisation and of music

and the big drum or the gong which played a significant role in

the communal drama. The eqwuwu, the Igbo traditional cult was

used to settle disputes within the community, thereby ensuring

order, tranquillity and solidarity. Achebe has taken pains to

bring out the role played by the communal drama and the eswuwu

in the daily rituals of the Igbos.

Ancestral worship signified by eswuwu, respect for the

elders and dead relations and place of importance and eminence

given to the doyens of the community are all hoary traditions

recreated artistically by Achebe. The local meetings which Achebe

has sought to introduce into the action of the novel are not

only foci of major decisions but contain veritable gems of

literature. Igbo idioms abound in these meetings and poetry and

rhetoric blend to refine the speech constructs. In fact,

Achebe1s merit lies in the dynamic building up of events and

details that go to enrich the narrative.

As oral traditions were part of the everyday life of the

people, Achebe strews his novels with oral forms such as stories,

folktales, proverbs, anecdotes and songs. They play a

significant role in shaping the values and beliefs, actions and

behaviours of the people, For Achebe, as for many modern Nigerian

writers, traditional forms, rituals and ceremonies provide a

frame work for expressing reality. Achebe uses folk tales as

affording answers to certain practical needs in inculcating moral

and social values. Ekwefi's tale of how the tortoise broke its

shell conveys the moral of the evil consequences of greed and

selfishness and the value of sharing. Again Uchendu, Okonkwo's

uncle, suggests a strategy for confronting the whiteman by means

of a folk-lore, Like the mother kite, who warned her offspring

to keep away from the silent duckling, the villagers must avoid

and fear the silent white stranger.

Achebe draws his tales and stories from the traditional

repertoire and renders them with consummate skill. The tales are

integral to the framework of the novel and become a part of his

narrative technique.

The other oral form which Achebe introduces is the folk

song. He has certainly blazed a trail in integrating folk-songs

into the novels, basically a western form, without violating

conventional norms. One of the gripping songs appears in this

novel, the song sung by Ikemefuna as he is led to be slaughtered.

The song is part of a game which he often played as a little boy.

It is left untranslated as if to heighten its evocative power and

the suspense and the pathos of the scene:

Eze, elina, elina ! Sala

Eze ilikwa ya

Ikwaba akva oligholi

Ebe Danda nechi eze

Ebe uzuzu nete egwu Sa la

He sang it in his mind and walked to its beat. If the song

ended on his right foot his mother was alive. If it ended an his

left, she was dead. No, not dead, but ill. It ended on the

right. She was alive and well. He sang the song again and it

ended on the left. But the second time he did not count. The first

voice gets to Chukwu or God's house. That was a favourite saying

Of children. Ikemefuna felt like a child once more. It must be

thought of going home to his mother.

The liberal but skilful use of stories and folklore in his

novels can be seen in proper perspective if one understands the

g r e a t importance Achebe attached to the function of imagination

in the context of liberal-mindedness and materialistic outlook of

the modern dispensation. ~ccording to him, there is an

imperative need for the ttcreative energy of storiestt in the

process of diagnosing Nigeria's social ills and cultural malaise

and application of the corrective. Itpeople create stories create

people; or r a t h e r , s t o r i e s create people create storiesw.

Achebefs prose in this novel has been described as

wleisurelylt and ltstatelylt. Probably Achebe's emotional and

intellectual detachment from the issues he describes and

dramatizes in the novel has influenced his style of writing. The

fact is, even the restrained pace of his style enables the

novelist to move the story forward with a sense of inevitability.

It is Achebe's supreme craftmanship that has enabled him to

sustain the ironic mode of narrating all through, even to the

extent of toning down or completely veiling t he intensity of t h e

life the novel evokes through a casual approach and leisurely

style. G.D. Killam points out:

The novel is in fact a structure of

ironies-irony of the tragic kind which shows

an exceptional man see his best hopes and

achievement destroyed through an inexorable

flow of events which he is powerless to

restrain, tragic irony suggested and supported

by a carefully integrated pattern of minor

ironies throughout the work - the accidental shooting which brings about his exile, the

irony of the appeal of Christianity to Nwoye,

Okonkwo's first born in whom he placed his

hopes, the irony contained in the persistent

comment by Okonkwo that his daughter Ezinma

ought to have been born a male child.

(Killam: 1975, Pp. 32-33)

It should be stated to Achebe1s credit as a novelist that

he never once deviates from his central purpose of presenting

forthrightly the clash of ideological beliefs and cultural

traditions between the t w o systems and pointing out unambiguously

that the basic problem is the de facto divergence and disparity

in terms of ideas and attitudes between the two sets of people.

The image of the "iron horsett (bicycle) as used by Obierika in

his matter-of-fact narration of the story of the advent of the

British administrators and missionaries serves to throw into

relief the two disparate worlds, these two categories of people

belong to. Even the casual and matter-of-fact manner of

announcing the descent of the British missionaries,

administrators and traders on the peaceful and self-sufficient

Igbo society is characteristic of Achebe's artistic approach. He

thus maintains a low key in terms of his narrative style in order

to forcefully bring out the conflict which is volcanic in its

emegence and subsequent manifestations., ; ." * - - - --"""

The characters in the novel are real and credible. The

central character, Okonkwo, displays inexhaustible energy and

optimism although plagued by a fear of failing in life like his

father. He is highly individualistic but epitomizes the views

and aspirations the entire community. ambitious,

expansive, self-willed and self-opinionated and strongly

entrenched in the traditional beliefs of his people. It is this

lack of a broad vision that finally brings about his own doom and

signifies the crumbling of the foundations of the Igbo society at

the impact of new doctrines, new structures, new government and

new ways of trade and commerce. He is in one sense a pre-eminent

symbol and embodiment of the Urnuofia community which races to its

dislocation and downfall as a result of its own internal

inadequacies evidenced by disruptive trends and polarization

based on some irrational rules and customs. That was a

centrifugal impulse challenging the very idea of order. After all

Okonkwo, his valour as a fighter, his wealth and his influence

notwithstanding, becomes a target of attack that comes in the

form of a protest current that refuses to accept his physical

power as the ultimate power granting stability to society. The

whiteman could not have succeeded as they did if these

disintegrating trends were not already discernible in the clan.

Okonkwo was unable to understand or accept the writings on the

wall forcefully signalled by his son Nwouye's desertion to the

new religion. His ultimate decision to commit suicide need not

be construed as an act of cowardice or aimlessness. His action

proceeds from a profound sense of loss of traditional values as

crystallised in his Kinsmen's betrayal of him. In other words

he is not prepared to live an alien in his own land. There is a

certain aura of pride and invincibility even about his

self-destruction.

Prafulla C. Kar, says that Okonkwo, .... becomes a victim

both of an error of judgement and an unknown deterministic force

operaring from outside.

(Gowda; 1983 : P. 154)

Okonkwofs friend Obierika has been portrayed by Achebe as

a counterpoint to the former. He almost becomes Achebe's

spokesman in his realistic conception of the change overtaking

Africa, his philosophical approach to different issues and sober

but critical comments on customs, events and behaviour. His

sagacity is obvious when he comments on the irruption of the

white administrators and missionaries into the Igbo heartland:

The White man is very clever. He came quietly

and peacefully with his religion. We were

amused at his foolishness and allowed him to

stay. Now he has w o n our brothers and our

clan can no longer act like one. He has put

a knife on the thing that held us together

and we have fallen apart. ( P O 160)

Achebe's third novel Arrow of God depicts

the s t a t e of shock and confusion experienced

by an Igbo clan living in Umuaro under the

inescapable impact of t h e colonial r e l i g i o n ,

administration and trade. While Things F a l l

Apart and this novel have a similar background

of the Igbo people's daily routine, religious

practices, rituals, f e s t i v a l s , and other

colourful celebrations, the situation is quite

different as the colonial p o w e r is we11

entrenched in African s o i l with its

concomitant erosion of the tribe's p o w e r

centres, It is clear that these two worlds or

structures are locked in an acrimonious

tussle for supremacy. Hence this novel cannot

be called in any strict sense a continuation

of Thinas Fall Anart, Moreover the protagonists

of the two novels have nothing in common.

Achebe himself has endorsed this view in h i s

interview in A f r i c a n Writers Talkins:

It is the same area - the supporting

background and scenery are the same. I am

writing about the same people. But the story

itself is not - i n fact I see it as the exact

opposite. Ezulu the chief character in AOG is

a different kind of man from Okonkwo.... He

sees the value of change and therefore his

reaction to Europe is completely different

from Okonkwols. He is ready to come to terms

with it - up to a point - except where his

dignity is involved. This he could not

accept, he is very proud. So you see it is

really the other side of the coin, and the

tragedy is that they come to the same sticky

end.

(Duerden and Pieterse: 1978, P.17)

The situation gets complicated as Achebe introduces a third

force in the form of A f r i c a n missionaries who are converts to the

White men's religion. The conflict i n this group arises over the

method of proselytising and preaching, and advocating extreme

intolerant approach and the other a less extreme form of

Peaceful, coexistence. Achebe allows these three groups each

with its own intragroup conflict to interact. A series of

incidents occur, the Okperi war, Oduche's imprisoning the sacred

python and the whipping of the second son of Ezeulu by the White

man. These incidents further compound the already strained

relations between the three worlds.

In Ezeulu's own life there are a number of incidents which,

beginning with his imprisonment by Winterbottom for no culpable

fault of his, conspire to pit him against the entire community as

a lonely adversary who is finally driven mad when his son Obika

dies after performing as Ogbazulobodo. Achebe has masterfully

interwoven these different strands and fashioned a plot that is

quite well structured and relentlessly moving to the climax,

In Ezeueluts character and behaviour Achebe had made a very

incisive analysis of power and power equations in the Igbo clan.

It is his power-consciousness that blinds his eyes to see the

total inhumanity and illegality of not announcing the New Yam

Festival. He contrives, to some extent, of course egged on by

his god Ulu, the final catastrophe. And Achebe uses his

inimitable ironic touch to give the climax a twist that is as

breath-taking as it is cataclysmic for the clan. The Christian

Church's announcement of the festival and the immunity offered by

them draws the clansmen in large numbers. The Igbo saying that

no one ever won a judgement against his clan provides the

enigmatic answer. In this case, the clan wins over its haughty

but well-meaning high priest, no doubt. But at what cost? The

whole cultural, social and religious fabric is lost in the exodus

of clan's people to the Whiternen's religion. The last few lines

of Achebe are masterstrokes, providing as it were the punchline to

the tragedy not merely of a single individual, but of a whole

people, a civilization:

If this was so then Ulu had chosen a

dangerous time to uphold his wisdom. In

destroying his priest, he had also brought

disaster on himself like the lizard in the

fable who ruined his mother's funeral by his

own hand.... the Christian harvest which took

place a few days after Obika's death saw more

people than even Goodcountry could have

dreamed. In his extremity many an Umuaro man

had sent his son with a yam or two to offer

to the new religion and to bring back the

promised immunity. Thereafter any yam that

was harvested in the man's field was

harvested in the name of the son.

(Pp. 262-263)

Achebe has used a number of proverbs and stories in the

narrative that highlights the simmering tension between the old

religion and the new and the eventual collapse of the old order

and the ascendancy of the new dispensation. This is one of the

devices by which Achebe sustains the ironic mode and underlines

the ambiguous and ambivalent trend of the Umuaro dynamics. In

and through all these events, Achebe drives home his perception

of the colonial encounter that a series of errors of judgement

committed by the colonial rulers eventually culminated in the

total rupture between the two realities. The worst evil that

befell the clan, according to Achebe, is the supplanting of the

spiritual and communitarian values of this society by materialism

of the worst kind. Achebe regrets this loss more than all the

others.

The criticism that Achebe's handling of the scenes devoted

to Winterbottom amounts to a polemic attack on the Europeansf

style of administering and their attitudes to the natives, seems

to be a little misplaced. While Achebe does strain to point out

the lack of apprehension of the Igbo customs on the part of the

British rulers, it should be mentioned that he does not fail to

lay the blame on the natives' squarely. Achebe endorses the

theory of Ezeulu who tells Akwebue that the white man has been

shown the way to their house and given a place to sit on. In

other words, the European colonisers could not make any headway in

their scheme to subjugate the Africans unless they are helped by

the Africans themselves.

~rtistically this book i s a masterpiece a s Achebe seems to

realize his goal as a writer to the full. He proceeded to

instruct through an imaginative recreation of the Igbo world soon

after the take-over by the British. The psychological trauma of

the characters and social and cultural convulsions suffered by

the clan while encountering a hostile foreign power are

clinically investigated by the author and convincingly presented

by evocation of the Igbo past in all its manifold forms,

multifarious activities and rituals, not without its flaws and

peccadilloes. It is a marvellous portrayal of the diverse ways

power operates vis-a-vis the colonised. Through his judicious

and controlled use of ironies and ambiguities, Achebe has

succeeded in making "the tragic pathetic, the inevitable

accidental, the final relativeu.

A glance through Achebe's latest novel Anthills ef &&

Savannah published in 1987 impresses one by its extreme economy,

novelty of narrative technique and of course the topicality of

its story and theme. It is a subtle indictment of the political

system operating in Nigeria. The fictional locale is Kongan a

backward West African state that replicates the political

scenario of contemporary Nigeria. The satiric mode that Achebe

has so appropriately adopted has paid him rich dividends.

This novel more than its predecessors, affirms Chinua

Achebefs predilection for the themes of power in human

relationships and its pluriforrn manifestations, aberration,

corruption, abuses and their tragic consequences. His

perspective in all his novels seems to pertain to the concept

and functions of power in the context of the colonial oppression

of the natives in Nigeria. In Thinss Fall A~art and Arrow of God

Achebe has depicted the collapse and virtual liquidation of

native power structures and the mounting of colonial power.

Lonaer && Ease is a critique of the handling or mishandling of

power by the native elite. & Man a o f Peowle is a sad

commentary on the fiasco that was the first Republic. And now it

is Anthills of && Savannah, a cryptic and crisp account of the

vagaries and misadventures of the military junta in power.

It is the story of three intimate but "connectedM friends

Sam (His Excellency), Christopher Oriko (the Ninister for

Information) and Ikem Osidi (the editor of the National

Gazette) . The Sandhurst trained army officer Sam transmutes himself

into a dictator overnight. The cabinet consists of officious and

slavish sycophants who are lawyers, professors, university

graduates, in short, the hope of the African nation. Fear

appears to be the inseparable twin of power. The powerless fear

"powerw while those in power fear losing it.

Chris, the commissioner for Information, turns sour and

becomes a critic of the projects and policies of His Excellency.

Ikem, the editor of the National Gazette is wedded to action and

turns anti-authority. He begins to articulate an alternative

political creed, I8a new radicalismtt. Ikem done to death by the

government attains a martyr's glory. Sam His Excellency is

kidnapped and killed and his dead body abandoned even without a

funeral. Chris gets killed in a bizarre incident wherein he was

rescuing a girl from a molesting cop.

It is, however, Beatrice a spinster and a highly placed

bureaucrat with an Honours Degreee in English literature from the

London University, who comprehends the nuances of the present

situation better than others. She is clearsighted and quite

objective in her judgement. She becomes Achebef s image of the

new woman of Africa in the throes of becoming a modern nation.She I

begins to articulate and synthesise their experiences by writing.

She inhabits simultaneously the world of modern politics and that

of ancient myths. She is not a model woman in the sense of a

feminist, but moulded after the Igbo tradition of "the village

priestess who prophesies when her divinity rides hern. eatr rice

puts on the mantle of a prophetess when she utters these words.

It is on now and I see trouble building up for us. It will

get to Ikem first. No joking, Chris, he will be the precursor to

make straight the way. But after him it will be you. We are all

in it Ikem, you, me and even Himw.

(Anthills, Pp. 114-115)

The triumvirate is eliminated and only Beatrice is left to

guide the future generation.

Achebe is quite surely back again on his avowed goal of

reeducating and reorienting the intelligentsia, the writers and

the artists. They are at the centre as keepers and decoders of

ideology. It is their responsibility to replace old hegemonic

pattern with p o w e r structures more consistent with liberation

and equality. This presupposes identification with the

disinherited m a s s e s . They should get to the core of the

indigenous culture. Innes C.L. observes in her book Chinua

Achebe :

The way in which the future role of women may be glimpsed

is characteristic of Achebe; the intellectual debate is abondoned

and the past is recovered.

(Innes: 1990, P. 176)

The myth of Idemili is abruptly introduced into the

narrative; Achebe elaborates the myth of Idemili thus:

Idernili comes down as a pillar of water linking the earth

and heaven. peop1e.i.n various parts of Africa worshipped her in

the form of "a dry stick". To this emblem of the Daughter of

Almighty, any rich and powerful man to come and offer sacrifices

and seek blessing in order to gain nadmission into the powerful

hierarchy Of ozo". He must be accompanied as mediator, by his

daughter or the daughter of some Kinsman. If Idenili finds the

aspirant unfit, she sends death t o smite him. If she approves of

the plea Ithe will be alive in three years' time". The myth of

1demili is an expression of the divine disapproval of man's

"unquenchable thirst to sit in authority on his fellownt (p.104)

This, according to some critics, is a very crucial moment

in the novel when there is a shift from the realistic mode to the

mythic and AchebeCs prose is vested with poetic and oracular

quality. The result seems to be to dismantle unilateral power

and the notion of 81centrality11.

Even as Achebe condemns concentration of power, he feels

the need for diffusion of narrative or narrational authority in

the text. He is so democratic that he desists from prescribing

one way of seeing or one formulaic alternative. Hence he adopts

the technique of multiple participant points of view. The author

intervenes occasionally. Thus the narration shifts from one to

the other signifying that the insignia of power should also

rotate without vesting or concentrating in one individual. The

reader is faced with a revolving narrational pattern and

therefore it is for him to reconstruct the t ex t .

The leader of the Abazonian delegation to meet the

Excellency narrates the parables of the "tortoise and the

leopardw. his parable serves as a metaphor for the framework of

the novel underlining the need for struggle even in the face of a

formidable opposition to checkmate power.

The leopard is always on the lookout to kill

the tortoise. When the latter is about to die

he pleads with his killer to give him a few

minutes for mentally preparing himself for

death. The leopard granted the innocuous last

wish of the tortoise. The tortoise began to

behave crazily, scratching with hands and feet

and throwing sand furiously in all directions.

The leopard asked the tortoise what his

curious behaviour meant. Pat came the reply:

. . . . even after I f m dead I would want anyone

passing by this spot to say, y e s , a fellow and

his match struggled here1'

(p.128)

Achebe's motif of the imperative of struggle is embodied

and forcefully expressed i n this parable. As a matter of fact

the final phases of the novel underscore the necessity and the

inevitability of struggle, if justice, liberation and equality

have to be realised.

Another novelty of Achebe is when he makes Beatrice accept

Agatha a born-again Christian, and a "prophetess of Jehovaw and

when she herself is transformed into prophetess, a reincarnation

of the priestess and prophetess of the hills and caves. The

motif of the apocalypse and eschatology is writ large right

through the novel. This has been a persistent strand in Achebefs

fiction going by the title of the first two novels.

Achebe has drawn with his own magic touch the culminating

incident where Beatrice comes forward to sponsor, conduct and

direct the naming ceremony of the child of Ikem and Elewa,

ordinarily a man's privilege. The baby girl is given a boy's

name, Amaechina, meaning "May-the-path-never-close". Beatrice in

this manner fathers the child. The overawed uncle of Elewa

exclaims :

"...in you young people our world has met its matchu

(P. 227)

Thus Achebe articulates his own response to the problem,

artistically told in the novel, particularly through the myth of

Idemili, of, who is to provide the alternative. The women now

left with the charge of carrying on the task, so valiantly begun

by Ikem, start the process in the naming ceremony. While Achebe

refrains from naming the alternative, he certainly highlights the

unique role of the women in the process of lire-formn, o f society

around its locore of reality". The celebration that follows is a

tribute to the potentialities of a community in solidarity not

only among themselves, but with the past precursors and

road-makers, a people who can consciously transcend factors that

divide and regroup to engage in our ongoing struggle.

More than his multiple narrative technique, which is

certainly a laudable device to make his theme more powerful is

the mythic dimension of metamorphosis and reincarnation. Achebe

becomes a master story-teller. One is reminded of the ringing

line of Achebe "Stories create people create storiestt. The myths

and legends provide meaning and continuity amidst the anarchy of

power. Innes, C.L. concludes her comprehensive study of this

novel with the following words:

... 'As Achebe writes in one of h i s recent

essays: 'stories create people create storiesf.

It is this universal "creative rondow that we

experience as the characters inform and are

informed by the myths and lengends which provide

meaning and continuity amidst the anarchy of

power. And for the novelist, it seems to

provide hope also. The despair at t h e end of .

A man a the people has been replaced by a belief in some kind of renewal through an

engagement with ,the oppressed. " A t such

critical moments new versions of old stories

or entirely fresh ones tend to be brought into

being to mediate the changes and sometimes to

consecrate opportunistic defections into more

honourable rites of passagef. In the story the

people's 'struggle will stand reincarnated

before us; - like the scorched anthills of the Savannah, both as a warning and promise.

(Innes C. L, : 2990, Pp. 184-185)

The greatest merit of this novel is Achebef s evolving of a

new fictional form dictated by the exigency of the theme of the

novel. Thus a transformative relationship is established between

the text and the ideology thereby allowing the reader to have an

insight into the ordinarily concealed aspects of ideology,

This innovative exercise consists in the multiple

protagonism and the concomitant multiple narrational technique

with everyone of the central characters taking on the narrative

role by turns. The message that his novel method conveys is

Achebe's and in general people's disenchantment with the colonial

model of governance which is unilateral and authoritarian as

well as the leader-centred despostic military regimes of the

neo-colonial variety. Achebe has turned into an ideologue and

therefore evaluates and censures certain developments in ~ i g e r i a

in the last two decades.

While Achebe1s attempt at providing re-education and

regeneration to the intellectuals of present day Nigeria hasn't

been very convincing, he has certainly achieved a fantastic feat

in enriching his art by incorporating African myth and legend in

a novel of contemporary politics, In other words, his strength

in this novel lies in his belief in story and its various

expressions in myth, legend, parable and folk-tale, It is a

pioneering experiment that will stand the test of time as a model

for relevant fiction in the context of not only African

socio-political milieu but that of any third world country.

It may be fruitful at this stage to compare these two

writers with reference to their mode of expressing their beliefs

or stand point through the medium of the novel. While Anand

and Achebe are committed to radical change of social structures,

there are shades of variation of perception and point of view.

The peculair individual, religious, educational, cultural and

experimental background of each writer accounts for this.

Achebe has had his share of alienation as he grew up in an

exclusively Christian milieu as his parents were converts of

Christianity and his father himself was a missionary. In Nigeira

those days the distinction between the natives and the Christian

converts was clear cut in terms of their style of life,

habitstliving quarters, spiritual practices and even culture.

~ecessarily, as it is obvious to us, there was a degree of

alienataion that Achebe experienced from his own cultural roots,

history and heritage. It is Achebef s unique merit that he has

overcome the enormous handicap and has on top of that acquired

not only valuable knowledge and insights in terms of Igbo history

and culture but a philosophical approach supported by a

scientific, analytical mind.

Anand by his own admission is a rationalist not believing

in any established religion or a personal God. For him Iuman is

the measure of all thingstf as the Greek dictum goes, He has

summed up his credo as, "1 believe in manut. He formulated his

philosophical system under the influence of Greek philosophy and

modern Western Philosophers. Nevertheless his comprehensive

historical humanism reflects the influence of Karl Marxrs

theories and hypotheses. Anand has no hesitation in declaring

that he has no faith in Gad and that he has no respect for the

social customs and insitutions that oppress man in the name of

religion, or caste or creed, He advocates a brand of humanism

that upholds the dignity and centrality of man historically

conditioned and culturally circumscribed. He is not in love with

man in the abstract but the human being in his precise historical

and existential context. In other words he is for comprehensive

historical humanism. He is a humanist cozing love for the man in

the street.

Despite an alienated education in the West Anand has succeeded

in retaining a basic respect for his culture and people. All his

novels and other writings demonstrate the deep interest he has

cultivated in Indian history, culture, heritage and

socio-political situation. One finds a similar trait in Achebefs

personality. Both these writers deserve all praise for a

consistent involvement in the political and social upheavals and

developments of their countries. Achebets oeuvre is an eloquent

testimony to this unassailable pride in his countryrs past, its

philosophy, poetry and dignity. Achebe and Anand have a

remarkable grasp over their national history, culture and

contemporary problems. Achebefs re-creation of the Nigeria a

hundred years ago is a veritable treat to any reader and offers a

rich multispangled panorama of the Igbo land, its people,

customs, rituals, beliefs and folklore. Anand's commitment to the

oppressed sons and daughters of India during and after the

colonial regime is so intense and overwhelming that his portrayal

of culture, customs and institutions is, though colourful, n o t of

such epic dimension. While Achebe is committed to expose to the

world the glorious rituals and beliefs and thus bring out the

essential antinomy between their world and the colonial world,

Anand ruthlessly undercuts the British regime and exposes its

chinks and fatal flaws.

Achebe as a novelist could not admit any dichotomy between

art and social commitment. He however made a distinction between

pure art and applied art and qualifies his own as applied art.

Art and education, which in his concept of an aritist's role,

need not be mutually exclusive. He insists that llsocial protest

is not antithetical to art and that the best craftsmen are not

those who have turned their backs to the social problems of their

time. For the African, 'the task of re-education and

re-generationr, is by far more important than the bogus and idle

theory of art for art's sake",

(Madubuike in BW : 1974, 67).

Anand's views on art or on his use of the novel as a

literary medium are available. Nevertheless it becomes

difficult to construct a coherent view of his literary creed

given the fragmentary statements made by Anand, passim, in his

writings and the gap between his statement and enactment.

Achebe's concept of art, though mentioned in an equally scanty

measure, Can be constructed from his works in a very convincing

manner. Achebe is reputed to be a conscious artist and master

craftsman, linguistically and materially equal to his task.

One has only to glance through his novels from Shinus pall

.- to Anthills of the Savannah to realise the almost

effortless and easy manner in which he uses the art form for

producing convincing portrayals of the Igbo clansmen, be it in

their primitive egalitarianism and pristine glory or in the

undivided social fabric being torn by divisive forces within and

without or in the sense of self-defeat and discomfiture brought

on by the leaders of the new independent Nigeria. The Igbo

rituals, customs, beliefs, social and religious institutions that

Achebe so magnificently recreates conjure up the magic world of

the Igbo clan in Things Fall Apart and in The Arrow of God-

Achebefs way of recreating the Igbo past and heritage is so

natural that one need not be an Igbo to appreciate this rich and

colourful world. Of course, Achebe adopts different techniques

by which he is able to accomplish his task with an uncanny

adowtness. He introduces into the narrative the folk language,

the folk tales, myths, symbols, songs and proverbs that form a

pattern in the whole narrative. The plot sometimes appears weak

or loose in structure probably because of the manifold events and

incidents that Achebe piles up in order to make the story more

true to life. Nevertheless it should be mentioned that his plots

are well-wrought with every event or incident moving the action

forward to a crisis or climax.

Anandfs strength as an artist lies in his remarkable

command over the language which he is able to manipulate. The

fluency of Anand is just proverbial. In novels like Coolie. Two

Leaves and 2 Bud and the Biq Heart, Anand has recreated the world p-

of the protagonists and the environments, be it rural or urban

with such minute details of colour, sound, tone and atmosphere,

that one wonders if he was an eye witness of all these scenes or

events. His descriptive style is sharp, rnelliffuous, meticulous

and captivating. His style achieves the cutting edge when he

wields his punitive pen to flay the colonial masters for their

insolence and vanity as in Two Leaves and a Bud.

While Achebe1s English is structurally faultless, he feels

free to innovate structures by infusing Igbo cultural patterns

into the English linguistic structure. He transliterates the

imagistic, symbolical and metaphorical views of the people of his

country into a foregn idiom. This is not to say his English is

faulty or that he is unconsciously influenced by the linguistic

patterns of his mother tongue. Without destroying the stru~tural

patterns of the English language, Achebe is creating a new

English, full of vitality and freshness, ~adubuike says in his

essay, "Achebe's Ideas on Literatures":

The linguistic originality of Achebe, the pleasures his

language gives us when we read him, all derive from the effective

and efficient use of ~ g b o verbal style which is so evident in his

writings.

(Madtrbuike in Black World: 1974, 6 7 )

Even Achebefs use of pidgin in novels like & of the

People and Anthills of Savannah becomes a positive quality in him

as Achebefs purpose seems to be only to convey the rhythm of the

language. And the reader does not have to continuously work to

get meaning from context.

Anand hardly innovates with his language. Hedoes not

introduce new linguistic structures. But there is a certain

plasticity of his language which enables him to create the

language or idiom suited to the particular character or the

specific situation. He has been found fault with for using ~indi

or Punjabi words or expressions specially in conversations. There

is also an abundance of swear words which although,are natural in

the mouths of the speakers sound offensive when repeatedly used.

Some critics justify Anandfs use of the swear words and phrases

as suggestive of the situation and characters indulging in them.

Nevertheless one can not legitimise a habitual use of such

offensive expessions by a writer of the calibre of Anand. An

overdose of even a good technique can vitiate an

otherwise-well-written narative. Anandfs occasional display of

metaphorical style and rhetoric gives one the proof of the master

who is behind it. For instance, in the following passage from

a B i l s Heart Anand handles the language with a lyrical touch:

The fact about water like time is that it will

flow; it may get choked up with the rubbish

and debris of broken banks; it may be arrested

in stagnant pools for long years; but it will

begin to flow again as soon as the sky pours

down its blessings to make up for what the

other elements have sucked up; and it will

keep flowing; now slowly, now like a rushing

stream,

( T h e Big Heart: p. 15)

C.D. Narasimhaiah has pointed out that in contrast to the

above passage, Anand has overdone his rhetoric and it vitiates

the portrait of Ananta, the protagonist in The Bis Heart. The

writer ends by piling up the abstract adjectives to the neglect

of the concrete:

But all the moral condemnation of himself and

others and his attainment of the splendrous

heights above the spurts of sulphurous regrets

in him, did not prevent him from succumbing to

the abysses of delivery in the volcanoes below

the stomach.

( T h e Big H e a r t )

C.D. Narasimahaiah further remarks that Anand at times

offends by exuding sentimentality in his language, as for

example, in a sentence like this:

The incarcerated sorrow wellled up in his

eyes, the saliva gathered in his throat , and

the whole of his fluid nature slipped across

the rocks of principles and the drifts of

i d e a s wept over all the languages, he spoke

and understood, and flooded across t h e cheeks

and his beard in hot scalding tears.

(The B i g Heart)

I t is when Anand the artist is overpowered by an onrush of

his sensibility or the social impulse that he commits mistakes of

becoming excessively sentimental or gushy and of packing too much

emotion into words and phrases or heightening the effect by

piling up adjectives. In fact there are numerous places where

Anand delights the reader by employing the right word o r phrase

or expression to highlight the action or emotion that is

depicted. He is further guilty of repeating expressions to the

point of exasperation in a bid to reproduce sounds.

It is from this perspective that Achebe who has his sight

set on his goal as a novelist, comes across to us as a self

disciplined artist and craftsman. Where Anand fails as a

consequence of his inability to restrain the flow of his fertile

imagination or to hammer his raw material into an artistic whole,

Achebe has his grip unrelawed over his creative mind even when

the story or theme he is treating is intrinsic to his world

vision or his stand vis-a vis the refashioning of the African

state.

All said and done, Anand is predominantly a novelist of

character, character as shaped by environment and strength of

will. The individual, for Anand, is in the process of change or

evaluation. He is not a plaything of the gods or Karma or any

sort of predeterministic or mechanistic force. Life experiences

and confrontation of reality shape him, his personality. True to

this theory Anand has created characters who are drawn from real

life and from his intimate experience of such people in his life.

After placing his Bakhas, Munoos, Gangus, Bikhus and Anantas in

situations hostile to the destiny of society, Anand probes their

consciousness at different levels. It is thus that his plots

evolve and create the type of catharsis that Anand as a novelist

expects to produce; compassion or karuna which is expiation

through art.

Anandfs success with character delineation is certainly of a

high order. ~ o s t of his characters are convincing, real, and fit

into his pattern of the inter-relationship between art and

vision, content and form.

Achebe's characters, specially his protagonists such as

Okonkwo, Ezeulu, Obi and Odili are really life-size characters

given the content of the pre-colonial or post colonial African or

~igerian predicament. Achebe does develop his stories and build

up his plots by allowing his central characters to interact among

themselves, with their environment and with their fellow human

beings. Nevertheless it must be said to the credit of Achebe

that he maintains an emotional detachment from his characters

that is extraordianry. Anand gets involved in his characters

and rightly so, but is loath to distance himself from them, thus

interfering with their individual development in some of his

novels. Where he is able to maintain a posture of a detached

observer his success is unprecedented. Certainly his delineation

of Munoo, Bakha and G a u r i is convincing and realistic as the

omniscient author's interference is kept to the minimum. The

characterization of Ananta on the other hand is hampered because

of Anand's frequent intrusions and sermonizing through him.

Both Anand and Achebe are in the habit of intruding into

the narrative in order to preach or comment or probe

consciousne~s and events. While Achebeys authorial voice is

modukted or disguised by means of distancing techniques employed

by him, Anand tends to be at times all too visible and

recognizable, through the prophetic frenzy of the tone of the

speeches.

Althusser has struck the key note of this tantalizingly

complex but inevitable relationship between form and ideology in

the following words in his book en in and ~hilosophvt

. . . . the peculiarity of art is to make us

see, make us perceive, make us feel something

which alludes to reality ... What art makes

us see is the ideology from which it is born,

in which it bathes, from which it detaches

itself as art and to which it alludes.

(Althusser: 1971, Pp. 203-204. )

Looked at from this perspective of a dialectical,

transformative relationship between art and sensibility, Achebe

comes through as a near perfect model while Anand, shorn of some

of his glaring inconsistencies and imperfections, passes muster.

In the foregoing chapters we have sought to discover the

liberationist outlook or impulse as manifested by both Anand and

Achebe in their fictional works. For this purpose we selected

six novels of Anand and all the five novels written by Achebe

till date. The study has followed a logic and dynamic of its

own. After stating the hypothesis or the problem in the first

chapter, the study proceeds to examine the different contours of

the problem by examining the artistic merits of the novelists and

by analysing the techniques and methods by which they strive to

achieve a perfect marriage between their political or social

creed and literary aims. There is no pretension however that a

satisfactory solution to the problem posed is found. But

certainly both these writers provide space and scope f o r a

libterationist interpretation and extrapolation in terms of the

type of fiction, novelistic techniques and themes. In other

words, we are trying to define "litterature engaggw or political

or protest novel in the context of today's third world situation.

"Commitmentt1 or 'Tommitted Writers" are terms used to connote

writers or writings with a social justice thrust. Liberation,

being a more comprehensive term, implies commitment. As a

Consequence, the question of the relationship of art to

commitment in the works of Anand and Achebe assumes great

importance. The classical pitfall of propagandism and

didacticism is to be consciously avoided by a committed writer if

he has to be credible as an artist.

Therefore we have examined both Anand and Achebe and their

works of art from these criteria. To start with, we have

provided a comprehensive review of almost all the literature

available on these writers in the introductory chapter. Scholars

both Indian and foreign have written critical commentaries on

Anandfs novels and merits as a writer. The foreign critics in

general are more positive and constructive, although they boldly

point out his weaknesses and limitations as a writer. Some

Indian scholars and critics display sharper insight into Anandrs

personality and cultural background and therefore their analyses

of individual novels are more revealing, enlightening and

enhancing. On the other hand, there are Indian critics who have

taken it upon themselves to castigate and lambast Anand by

exposing and exaggerating his stylistic deviations and in

particular his propagandist slant. However, there have been quite

a few champions of Anand who have striven to exculpate Anand of

such gross or deliberate psopagandism and to defend him against

captious critics or overcensorious scholars who have passed

strictures on Anand's flaws as a writer. All said and done,

Anandfs fluency and range as a powerful wielder of the English

language, his consistent and earnest pleas for eradication of

glaring inequalities, injustices and other social evils in India,

and his all-pervasive commitment stand out, And thus his narrow

canvas of characters specially the heroes and even the limited

conceptual framework and occasional propagandist forays are

liable to be overlooked. His humanism has not degenerated into

corny sentimentalism or melodrama, thanks to his intellectual and

philosophic formation and convictions. The novles sigled out for

compact structure and well-knit plot are Untouchable. Coolie, The

Bis Heart and Gauri. The last one has been hailed as a

fore-runner of feminist fiction in India.

Achebe has had a more favourable and constructive review as

compared with Anand. Achebe has been complimented for his range

of the English language, the creative variation he is capable of

and the manner in which he is able to innovate techniques. He

has been hailed as a committed writer who has never sacrificed

his art for the sake of his convictions. is dominant theme has

been variously described as reconstruction of the Igbo past, as

the glorification of the tribe's traditions, conventions and

beliefs, as a critique of the misdeeds or the failure of the

present day elite leaders to deliver the goods, as an open-ended

examination of the tragic consequences of the rapid change of

Power equations in Africa and as a study of the moral conflict

that surfaced in the wake of modernization and westernization.

Some critics have been quick to point out that Achebers attack,

albeit subtle, on the white colonialists and their alleged

oppression and chicanery is not quite justifiable. It must be

borne in mind that Achebe has time and again affirmed that the

colonial past is not one of unrelieved gloom or series of

misdeeds. Almost all the critics seem to agree that Achebers

nostalgic retrospection into the Igbo history, is not prompted by

a tendency to romanticize the past but by a desire to transform

the present in the light of the past. Achebe's latest novel

Anthills of the Savannah is acclaimed as a pioneering and

trail blazing novel that uncterscores Achebefs predilection for the

subject or theme of power and its various manifestations and

constitutes an excellent demonstration of the power of stories

and story-telling and their interpretation.

The purpose of this thesis is spelt out at this juncture.

It emerges from the various critical studies that Anand

advocates, as a remedy to the social and economic ills and evils

that afflict ~ndian society, personal self-awareness, compassian

and bhakti and yoga. On the other hand Achebe's answer

to the tragic consequences of colonial intrusion or the

catastrophic misrule of the native intelligentsia, is ongoing

struggle, self-sacrificing and people-centred leadership of the

educated elite.

The specific purpose of this study is stated to be to probe

the liberationist interpretation of the themes and stories of the

novels of both Anand and Achebe, Both are committed to the cause

of freedom of their countrymen. In other words, they have a

political vision. As enlightened thinkers with a well-thought-

out weltanschauung, they are aware of the futility of any

reformist approach to transform society. Therefore they hint at

a liberationist approach to transform structures. Achebe in his

insistence on struggles of the masses animated by an enlightened

and committed leadership and Anand in his impassioned plea for

sustained impatience, anger and discontent with the status quo on

the part of the victims of oppressions, and compassion and love

on the part of all.

The abstract of the chapters is furnished at this stage.

It is a very brief statement of what is going to be discussed in

the proceeding chapters.

Having stated the scope and purpose of the thesis, we go on

to furnish the conceptual framework necessary for this study in

the second chapter. The key concept of liberation is sought to

be contextualized and defined in this chapter. The term

liberation, has come to be used largely in the context of social

injustice and unjust and opppressive social and political

structures. While social justice was, for long, a term that

adequately expressed the massive injustice that marked society,

it has been found lately in the context of third world, ati in

American, African and ~ s i a n countries, that liberation is a more

comprehensive term that adequately captures the oppressive nature

of society and the aspirations for emancipation af the victims.

The term wliberation" posits man as the subject of his own

destiny and history.

Liberation as a universal aspiration of all oppressed

peoples, has found cultural and literary expression in all third

world countries, including India. Indian models of liberation of

old were culture specific and confined to particular groups or

sections of society such as the higher echelons in

caste-hierarchy- Withdrawals to solitude for pursuit of

philosophic or religious studies and renunciation of mundane or

worldly attachments or pleasures w e r e two such expressions. Today

it is the religiousness or the divinely invested messianic power

of the poor that holds the key for human liberation. The Marxist

theory of societal transformation through class war and the

dialectics of historical materialism that trigger it, was a

historic landmark that brought under scientific scrutiny earlier

models of liberation. ttPraxis** as a combination of action for

liberation and a relentless criticism of social conditions was

defined by Marx. It has found its way into the theology of

liberation as propounded by the at in ~merican thinkers.

Gandhifs concept of non-violence and non-cooperation is

another approach to liberation. Nevertheless it suffers from a

lack of a global or scientific and realistic analysis of society

or understanding of human nature. He had implicit faith in the

goodness of individuals and hoped social trnasformation to emerge

from a moral or spiritual conversion. The African liberation

312

movement is more a cultural reality than a political or economic

one. ~eo-colonialism or psychological subjugation that the

~fricans are victims of today, are indicative of how the

erstwhile colonial powers try to secure their grip over

ex-colonies indirectly. The liberation movement is a reality in

different forms in the various African states. The one

overriding and dominant mark of these movements is that they are

firmly rooted in the African culture and history and aim at

restoring pride, respect and dignity to the race, its culture

history and heritage.

Attempt is made in the next chapter to situate Mulk Raj

Anand and Achebe among the comtemporaries of their respective

lands. Anand is stated to be one of the pioneers in the world of

English fiction in India, Together with R.K.Narayan and Raj Rao,

he constitutes the formidable trio who revolutionized Indian

writing in English and earned for India a lasting and impregnable

place in the domain of English literature, specially of the

English novel. Anand however, has the distinction of publishing

one of the earliest modern English novels which proved an instant

success, His Untouchable was published in the year 1935. While

the fictive matrix of Raja Rao is the 1ndian view of reality as

perceived metaphyscially, Anand makes the humdrum and prosaic

lives and struggles of the rank and file of India's masses the

stuff of his plots. R.K. Naryana's fictional interest centres

round the psychology and manners of the South 1ndian middle class

gentry as contrasted with the deep compassion exuded by

ÿ nand for the underdogs. While Anand is not a consistent artist

~ a j a Rao and R.K. Narayan are meticulous about details of style,

language, structure, plot and characterization.

Mulk Raj Anand is a prolific writer having authored

sixteen novels and more than half a dozen volumes of shor*

stories and other non-fictional writings of merit. Although he

grew up in Punjab and had his schooling and college studies in

India, it should be mentioned that he spent several years in

Europe and England mastering the classical works of Western

thought, philosophy and history. Thus while he derived his power

of observation, desire for novelty and adventure and his

compassion for the poor and marginalised from his parents and the

Indian cultural milieu, he owed his intellectual sophistication,

cosmopolitan outlook and the streak of religious scepticism to

his Western academic formation and pursuits.

Anand has moreover been a corntemporary of several

generations of Indian writers in ~nglish. The more popular

novelists of the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties have

all been his contemporaries and have benefited from his

pioneering and experimental novels. Anand has outlasted all of

them in a sense and still holds his own as an artist with a

definite idological bias in favour of "the Wretched of the

Earthu, to use the title of the terrific book of Frantz Fanon.

The high regard which the African writers and readers have for

Chinua Achebe is an irrefutable testimony to the almost

314

unparalleled reputation he enjoys as a novelist. Although he has

to his credit only five novels, and some collections of

shortstories, his impact and extent of influence as a frontline

African writer are incredible. After a brilliant career in the

Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and as a teacher in American

universities, Achebe served a stint as editor of some journals

including Okike, a Nigerian journal of New Writing. His

experiences as the son of a Christian convert with all the

privileges and patronage that it implied and conferred and his

fairly long stint as an editor and teacher at Universities,

eminently fitted and equipped him to be a writer steeped in his

culture and passionately attached to his people and their

history.He regarded the role of a writer as that of teaching and

educating not only the African readers but also the Europeans, to

appreciate the wealth of civilization, philosophy, poetry and

above all, dignity that their race possessed even before the

white men appeared on the scene.

Achebe proceeded to achieve his fictive purpose by evoking

in his novels the glorious past, traditions, beliefs, joys and

sorrows of his tribe, called the Igbo. However , Achebe has

a keen sense of the havoc wrought by the colonial regime and its

political, administrative, economic and religious organisation of

society oblivious of the peoplefs traditional system of

governing and time-honoured religious practices. The colonizers

overran the local cultural manifestations and imposed alien forms

of administration, education and religion. his sowed the seed

of dislocation. division, dissension and even ultimate eob,pse

The novel of disillusionment came into being with Achebe's and

Soyinka's novels. The rather stereo-typed inward-looking

exercise of the earlier novelists or contemporaries was abandoned

by Achebe. He was a realist. He did not hesitate to boldly

indicate the failures, the mistakes and misrule of the indigenous

leaders of independent Nigeria. Achebe's artistic recreation of

the past is not aimed at a nostalgic glorification of all that

was old but at proposing an affirmative action for transforming

the present. Achebe's penchant for myths, proverbs and stories,

making his presentation more authentic and meaningful is his way

of conveying the message that the novel, although a western

genre, can and should be effectively transformed by creatively

infusing and introducing the local or native cultural flavour.

Achebe has certainly created a unique model for a contextualised

third world fiction. In his latest novel Anthills of the e

Savannah he has demonstrated the possibility of new fictional

strategies and of widening the scope of the subject matter of

novels issuing from African countries.

Both Anand and Achebe have broken new grounds with the art

form. The creativity and originality of each of the writers are

tremendous. he same can be said of their unflinching commitment

to the cause of liberation of the downtrodden. Both have

pioneered a new brand of fiction, which takes the poor masses and

their struggles seriously and conveys the hope that through

Conscientization and education of the oppressed masses, societal

transformation could be achieved, The writers become the

prophetic voice of change.

From this point we proceed to investigate the presence of

liberation motif in Anand4s delineation of the protagonists in

the third chapter. A fundamental postulate of liberation

thinkers is that man, specially the dispossessed and disiherited

man, is the subject of his destiny, history and emancipation. If

the poor of the third world are invested with the messianic

power, it follows that in novels that claim to mirror the life

and struggles of th,e disadvantaged masses of the third world

countries, the protagonists should be projected as champions who

spearhead the protest movement. In the case of Anand and Achebe

this becomes ineluctable given their avowed social and political

persuasion and literary creed. Herein lies a challenge as both

these writers have opted to portray, by and large, the simple

folks and others destined to be forerunners of the revolution or

catalysts of social change.

In this crucial test, both Anand and Achebe have

established their credibility and craftsmanship beyond doubt.

Anand has created a host of characters full of flesh and blood

manifesting scars of the psychological wounds inflicted by

centuries of subjugation, subordination and starvation. Bakha, e

the sweeper-boy-hero of Untouchable, is not just another

untouchable scavenger of punjab. He is drawn on a rather *

flamboyant scale. He has an insatiable thirst for the joys and

pleasures of life. He likes to dress like the sahibs and smoke a

cigarette, the symbol of a higher status according to his fancy.

There are occasions when Bakha abandons himself to such flights

of fancy. The author obviously juxtaposes such scenes and the

most pathetic and profoundly sorrowful experiences of Bakha, the

untouchable. In a short span of twenty four hours, Anand has

masterfully handled these scenes and explored most adroitly the

inner reactions of anger, revulsion and loathing that Bakha

experiences. Anand builds up the crescendo of Bakha's

deep-felt-resentment upto the point when he launches into a

meditative and discursive interospection. He is determined to

discover the reason for his inferiority or his being treated like

dirt. It dawns on him that for no fault of his he was born an

untouchable. The caste is the ultimate villain. Now it is for

him to search for a solution, a viable alternative, be it in

Gandhism or in mechanisation or socialism. He is thus presented

as a messenger, an ambassador, shall we say, a prophet of a new

social order built on equality of castes and races.

The central character of Coolie Munoo, belongs to the

Kshatryia caste, but still is hounded by society as he hails from

a poverty-stricken family. He is at the mercy of a heartless

world, He is presented by Anand as a picaresque hero, of course

with a difference. Munoo is no roguish hero, but a victim of

circumstances, a waif of a hero whose fortunes fluctuate as he

swims along the current. There is a certain streak of fatalism

in the treatment of Munoofs character, specially as we watch

Munoo die of tuberculosis. Nevertheless the satiric pen of Anand

has not spared the perpetrators of such kinds of exploitation and

subjection. He exposes the basic insecurity, cunning, egotism

and inhumanity of all the other characters of this novel, with

the only exception of characters such as, Prabha in the Daulatpur

phase and Ratan in the Bombay phase. Before Munoo could bring

himself to achieve something concrete in his life, his life is

being terminated, as if to convey the message of his role as a

martyr for the cause of the exploited coolies and labourers.

The protagonist of The Biq Heart is Ananta, who is cast by

Anand in the role of an evangelist, a man with a mission, a

messianic hero. Of course, there are certain contradictions in

his life. His liaison with Janki his mistress is a perennial

stigma attaching to Ananta. He summons his thathiar brethren to

sink their differences and unite in the cause of facing the

challenge of mechanisation of the factory. His rhetoric is of no

avail as the coppersmiths are divided and are far too immersed in

orthodoxy and antiquated beliefs, and superstitions. The paradox

of such a hero's life is poignantly underlined when he dies a

violent death assailed by Ralia, in the very act of preventing

mindless violence and vandalism. AnantaOs death is a triumph of

faith in ongoing struggle for freedom. And the first convert he

makes is Janki who becomes a symbol of new Indian womanhood. She

resolves to carry on the fight started by Ananta, The thathiars

are stricken by a remorse and guilt that is an expression of

their willingness to further promote the cause of liberation.

Achebets protagonists are authentic and realistic. They

are drawn from real life situations. In fact heroes like Okonkwo

of Thinss Fall Apart, Ezeulu of Arrow of God and Obi of

Lonser & Ease bring out the symbiotic relationship of the

individuals with the tribal community or clan. The eventual

downfall of any one of these characters signals or symbolises

the disintegration of the clan. Okonkwots characterization is

quite complex and rich, making it difficult for us to go to the

root of his tragic flaw. Okonkwo's death is an assertion of some

absolute values when relativising values became the hall mark of

the clan. The irony in this depiction is unmistakable that the

same attitude is a denial of the basic tenet of Igbo reality

which finds stability in flexibility and relatedness,

Obi Okonkwo is the grandson of Okonkwo and is the

protagonist in NLAE. Achebe presents him as an idealist whose

moral determination is no match for his moral consciousness~ He

fails when the chips are down and is framed for taking bribe and

declared guilty. Achebe, while not absolving Obi of his moral

culpability, does, however, attenuate his guilt by pointing a

finger at his village leaders, his parents, who prevented him

from marrying an "OsuH and the whole political system

transplanted by the colonial masters that engendered corruption

and moral depravity.

Ezeulu of is also an interesting character. Achebe has

bestowed on him a dual personality as the priest of Ulu, the god

of the clan. He is human and divine. Therefore his role and

functions, though monotonous, become quite involved and

problematic in the context of the clan's tie up with its

religious rituals and practices. The god Ulu's hold over the

clan as much as over the high priest, is unparalleled. The

conflict in the life of Ezeulu consists in his loyalty to U l u and

his commitment to his clan. He commits several mistakes as he

becomes overtly conscious of his power and position. Thus he

becomes a victim of his awn excessive power-consciousness. The

power of the people in liberative praxis is effectively brought

out. The people's power or the grassroot struggle holds, in the

final analysis, the key to success of all liberation struggles.

In Anthills of the Savannah Achebe has no single hero but a

number of them. He has tried out a new technique in

characterization and narrative pattern. The ruling trio of

Sam,lkem and Chris holds the centre stage in the first half of

the novel. Even so, it is difficult to pinpoint one of them as

the principal character- Achebe has employed multiple narrative

technique, thus not allowing any one person to hold the reins of

power for too long- In the second phase of the novel, it is the

women who hold the fort. Achebe has turned this novel into a

vehicle for defining and clarifying his political ideology,

specially for spelling out his perceptions of the functions of

power. Decentring and pluralism seem to be Achebe's two dominant'

impulses in the novel. Similarly Beatrice and the women take

on the mantle of leadership and the role of narrators. The naming

ceremony of Elewa's daughter is a modern christening ritual shorn

of all the conventions surrounding it. It is the beginning of a

new order. It is a recreation and regeneration. The role played

by Beatrice in the story and plot is crucial, She seems to tie

up all the different strands and kinds of approaches and link the

new synthesis to the lives of the struggling masses. Beatrice

becomes the sign of the new African wornan and signifies the

beginning of a new era of wornenls liberation. lkem and Chris, in

their own way, are forerunners of the movement or new alliance

for a people-centred and culturally-rooted politics.

Both Anand and Achebe use the main characters as their

~pokespersons. Sometimes this degenerates into preaching or

sermonising. But it should be added that the didactic vein is

more in evidence in Anand than in Achebe. The latter uses subtle

devices to cummunicate his strong views and critiques. His

satiric or ironic mode of writing veils his authorial voice or

presence in most novels. While Anandts characters get stunted or

truncated in growth as a consequence of his frequent intrusions,

~chebe's protagonists are allowed to grow organically. Thus

Anand's treatment of protagonists and other characters is marred

by ideological biases. Achebe's treatment is realistic and

within limits of authorial intervention or presence.

In chapter five, an attempt is made to examine the novels

of Anand and Achebe from the perspective of tradition versus

modernity. This question has exercised the minds of sociologists

ever since modernity became a reality with the advent of

industrialisation, science and technology. As far as India and

Nigeria are concerned, it was the colonial encounter that firmly

planted modernity in the native soil. Thus modern outlook,

views, attitudes, approaches associated with science and

technology and western civilization have become a challenge to

native traditions and local culture- The dichotomy in this way

of thinking is obvious. Nevertheless the problem is real and

needs to be faced squarely.

The novel as a literary genre came to 1ndia and ~igeria as

a byproduct of colonialism. And it is a proven fact that

colonial writers have evinced an extraordinary interest in

exposing and depicting the vast disparities between the two

opposite cultures and systems and the sad consequences of this

historic confrontation. The novels of Anand and Achebe closely

resemble the social process that they seek to describe. And in

fact the novel assumes greater vigour and verve as it becomes, in

the hands of the novelists, an instrument for expressing the

inner dynamics and contradictions apparent or hidden in social

structures or social relationships, We are reminded of

Goldmann's concept of whomology of structure^^^.

Anand and Achebe present the conflict that took place when

the alien cultural, political, economic and religious structures

came face to face with their native counterpart. The term

tradition signifies the latter and the term modernity is used to

denote the former. While this is a recurring theme or motif in

most of the novels of Anand and Achebe, they have addressed this

problem more explicitly and powerfully in some novels than in the

others. This motif is seen to be part of the liberation dynamics

of any colonised country, The post-colonial reality of any third

world country is marked by the consequences of this conflict.

Thus the resolution of this conflict becomes a must for such

countries. Anand treats this in a convincing manner in his

Bia Heart. Ananta the protagonist is Anand's own alter ego in so

far as the former professes a pragmatic approach to mechanisation

and modernity and virtually lays down his life in the cause of

promoting the spirit of modernism. Through Anantags frequent

harangues and the rhetorical exercises of Puran Singh Bhagat,

Anand has powerfully projected the importance and inevitability

Of the machines and exposed the shortsightedness and myopic

approach of those who blindly adhere to time-honoured and

outmoded beliefs. The lron Mongers bazar and bazar Kaserian are

certain symbols of the new and old world views respectively.

Moreover Anand has meticulously painted the Billimaran Lane where

most of the action of the novel is set. The choice of symbols of

ancient times and modern spirit that dot the lane at both ends is

evidently Anand's strategy to underline the conflictual but

ineluctable nature of such a situation. Anand has not extolled

everything that is old or obsolete, but has advised moderation

while following the path of modernity and progressivism. His

philosophy as verbalised by Ananta is that machines are

necessary, but we must master the machines and above a11 we

need a big heart. Ananta's violent death is, in fact, turned

into a martyr's sacrificial offering on the altar of human

solidarity. Notwithstanding Anantafs ~lscandalous~ cohabitation

with janki, he is elevated as a model of such heroic living. In

otherwords, Anandfs apotheosis of Ananta and Janki is his fictive

tribute paid to all forms of struggle based on self-effacement

and self-giving without counting the cost or minding the wounds.

As a strategy for struggle geared to liberation Anand

perceptively points out a few indispensable ingredients. While a

radical structural approach to social injustice and disparities

is ideal it must go hand in hand with a practical down-to-earth

concern for the immediate material needs of the underprivileged.

He condemns the attitude that compartmentalises these two related

aspects of the liberationist struggle. Ananta fails as he is

unable to concretely translate his high ideals and goood

intentions in terms of actions here and now. High sounding

radical rhetoric alone cannot satisfy the hunger of the masses.

The hunger for ultimate freedom cannot be satisfied without

feeding their physical hunger. The second ingredient of a

liberation struggle according to Anand is the need for

complenentarty. The presence of the poet Puran Singh Bhagat is

Anand's assertion of the need for an ideologue, a visionary, a

prophet in a programme for liberation. Ananta stands for grit

and determination, conviction and action. The poet articulates,

clarifies and encourages. Both the types of people are necessary

if a struggle has to succeed in India. The role of the

enlightened and educated individuals in a democratic country like

ours cannot be overemphasised.

In Gauri Anand has highlighted this problem, albeit in an

indirect or, implicit manner. Although the protagonist Gauri is

cast in the mould of a conformist, tradition-bound, self-effacing

rural girl and wife, there is a dramatic change towards the end

of the novel. Her sufferings and humiliations have

mellowed her and facilitated her maturation. But the real

exposure to modern values and habits occurs in the hospital of

Dr. Mahindra and thanks to his example and efforts. There is a

sharp contrast between the Gauri that meekly accepts her unhappy

married life with panchi and her being sold to a rich merchant

and the Gauri of the last pages who stages a walk out on her

husband who refuses to acknowledge her fidelity or regard her

changed modes of thinking and behaving as indicative of her

personal growth as a working woman. Anand condemns the habit of

mudslinging and character assassination so rampant in Indian

society, as detrimental to the cause of liberation. In this

novel Dr. Mahindra becomes the spokesperson of Anand for

expounding his humanistic philosophy. Mahindra proposes the

antidote to fear and recommends a fearless and indomitable

spirit. Gauri carves out for herself a path and follows it with

devotion and conviction, whatever the maligning tongues of her

kith and kin may pronounce. She becomes the subject of her

destiny. She is the model of the new woman as perceived and

represented by Anand. ~auri is as much a creature of traditions

as a product of modern ethos and values. She is a symbol of the

integration of the traditional spirit and the modern scientific or

rational temper. For Anand, adherence to truth, sincerity and

human values is as important as scientific and rational outlook,

if Indian society should march towards progress and emancipation.

Achebefs fictional matrix is the colourful and glorious

Igbo past and culture. His first novels depict the tribal

society in its pristine beauty and simplicity, thus setting the

stage for the eventual catastrophe brought about by the onset of

the values, administration, political, economic and religious

structures of the British. Nevertheless more than in his

Thinss Fall A~art and Arrow of a, Achebe addresses tbe problem

of tradition versus modernity in his No Lonser & Ease. The

central chracter Obi Okonkwo has the stuff in him for a modern

tragic hero. In fact his discomfiture is announced at the

beginning of the novel as he is convicted of corruption. It is a

severe blow to t h e ego not only of Obi but of the entire village

community that expects much from him. But Obi's failure or

tragedy is t h e result of t h e convergence of many extraneous

factors and his own lack of will. His indebtedness as a result

of his yielding to pressures and demands both real and imaginary,

becomes unbearable and therefore he resorts t o the unethical

practice of accepting bribes. Obits perversion is only t h e

symbol of the general moral corruption and decadence that rocks

the whole of Nigeria. Achebe reproves the moral depravity of the

people of ~muofia and in a subtle manner attributes the

responsibility for Obits failure to the corrupt ethos and

decadent milieu and his parent for repudiating Clara

just because she belongs to the outcast group known as Osu.

Achebe exposes the hypocrisy and double-. standard of Obi's

parents and village people and the lack of grit on the part

Obi. 'I

Obits tragedy underlines the uneasy situation that prevails

in Nigeria in the wake of colonial confrontation. On the other

hand Achebe doesnf t fail to point out the woeful lack of

awareness on the part of the Nigerians who still cling to some

traditional beliefs, practices and prejudices. While blaming the

present moral crisis on the white man's subterfuges and

imperialist arrogance, Achebe finds the acquisitiveness and greed

of the people quite reprehensible and unacceptable. While not

npproving of Obi's moral deviations, Achebe provides hints to show

that he sympathises with the young, educated, elite leaders like

Obi who are caught in a bind, a dilemma wrought by the historic

clash of two opposite cultures and societies. While Anand

becomes on occasions didactic and preachy in achieving his

artistic end, Achebe does it by means of subtle devices of

charcterization, plot and structures and narrative techniques.

Achebe maintains a rational and emotional distance from the story

and action of the novel that makes its message credible.

From an examination of how the theme of "tradition versus

modernity11 & expressed in the novels of Anand and Achebe, w e

proceeded to investigate in the next chapter another important

issue in the whole gamut of liberation, and that is, I1Class War

and Caste politic^^^. Class war obviously recalls the Marxian

dialectics of how class war will eventually yield or lead to a

classless society, the withering of the state, and statelss

socialism. ~ h u s we are faced with the most serious modern

problem of exploitation that make the poor poorer and the rich

richer. rt is peculiarly capitalistic problem and one that has

been sharpened and made more contentious in the third world

countries after the imposition of colonial rules, The gap

already existing between the haves and the havenots began to

widen as the British introduced commerce and trade based on mere

profit-seeking and cut-throat competition.

It is this aspect of Indian economy that Anand explores in

his novels specially in Coolie, The Big Heart and Two Leaves and

a Bud. Munoo the central character of Coolie and Gangu the main - -

character of Two Leaves and a Bud are both kshatriyas the second

highest in caste hierarchy and still are exploited because they

come from an indigent background. They both are coolies who sell

their labour for making a livelihood. Money is the main objective

or goal of all their hard labour and inhuman sufferings at the

hands of their employers.

Munoo is barely past his childhood and the experience he

goes through in order to eke out an existence are beyond, the pale

of even an adult labourer, He is driven from place to place,

ill-treated, poorly paid and finally becomes a victim of a

wasting disease and dies, Exploitation is written large in his

life and predicament as the system he is trapped in, mercilessly

saps his life, energy, enthusiasm and idealism.. He is a mere

puppet in the capitalist system and is buffeted by all

anti-worker and anti-human forces. Nevertheless Munoo cherishes

an unquenchable thirst for the good things of life, for love and

friendship. In the last stages of his life he desires to rejoin

Ratan in Bombay to work for his trade union.

Anand's Gangu in Two Leaves and g Bud is another exploited

hero, a victim of circumstances and the glib talk and fraudulent

promises of brokers. He is drafted like thousands of other

labourers into the Assam tea-gardens. He like his other

fellow-labourers, is a clasic case of bonded labourers whose

chances of liberation are remote and virtually nil. Anand's

sympathies are quite obvious as he portrays the inhumanity of the

British overlords who are out to fleece the workers and enhance

the profit for the empire. The portrayal of some of the British

characters, specially the one of Reggie Hunt, the assistant

planter, is, though exaggerated, Anand's perception of the

cruelty and inhumanity of the system. Gangu nearly lost his

daughter as a victim of Reggie Hunt's lust, watched his wife

succumb to cholera and fell victim to Reggie Hunt's rage.

Anandfs portrayal which is grim, is also a vehement plea for the

subverting of the system so that the working class will not only

get adequate wages but will eventually come in possession of the

means of production.

The Bis Heart is another novel where Anand has addressed - the question of class struggle and its subtle relationship to

caste. The thathiars are traditional coppersmiths. The starting

of a large scale factory hits their business badly. Ananta

stands for a rational approach to the machines while a bulk of

the thathiars oppose the move. ~ u r l i Dhar, who has joined the

factory management as a partner, tries to form a new alliance

with the upper class kinsmen and ignores his poor kinsfolks and

treats them with contempt. The latter however teach him a lesson

by boycotting his sons's betrothal and thus causing him

embarrassment in front of his business partners. Class may

eventually triumph over caste. Nevertheless Anand seems to

assert that caste as a reality has came to stay and may not be

easily obliterated. Anand, however, advocates a moderate and

rational approach to mechanisation and industrialisation without

trampling, in the process, human values of unity, solidarity,

compassion, equality, brotherhood and justice. The title of the

novel "The Big Heart" is Anantaf s oft-repeated refrain and

encapsulates Anandfs version of humanness and humanism.

Achebefs fictional world does not allow of treatment

pertaining to class or caste. The tribal society was a cohesive

one and the problem that is directly addressed by Achebe is the

unsettling effect of the colonial presence and domination on the

traditional society. In this process, very seldom does Achebe

dwell on class reality and obviously never on caste, as it is not

a reality in ~frican society. Nevertheless he does allude to the

emergence of trade and business based on cash in Thinss FalL

A ~ a r t and Arrow of a, He does not develop this idea at length except in Lonser & Ease and A Man of the P e o ~ l e . In a

slightly varied manner he treats class conflict in Anthills 9f

the Savannah. In these three novels the class character of the - relationships prevailing between the principal characte* is

clearly brought out. The conflict between them is more often than

not reducible to money competition and profit making. One common

denominator of the presence of capitalist form of economy is the

ubiquitous presence of corruption. In No Lonser & Ease, it is

corruption of Obi that spells his disaster and throws up

questions regarding the system whose product and victim Obi

happens to be. corruption in high places is being studied in A

Man of People, where the chief Nanga is a personification of

corruption- The powerful influence of corruption is projected by

Achebe as he points out that even Odili's father or his great

comrade Max is not free from this virus, Achebe effectively

presents the moral degradation and erosion of values that are the

logical corollary of the capitalistic mode of production and

business centred on profit-making and self-seeking. The ruling

triumvirate of Kangan in Anthills of the Savannah gets divided on

account of warring perceptions on the nature of the state and of

governance. The radical element and protest spearheaded by Chris

and Ikem cost them their lives, but not before igniting the

revolutionary spark in Beatrice, a well-placed and educated

woman. She and her other companions vow to continue the

struggle. Achebe subtlely points to the dictator's subservience

to foreign manipulations and neocolonial mentality.

Achebers analysis of the tragic consequences of the

introduction of the capitalist mode of production and trade is a

perspicacious commentary on the ethical crisis and political

instability that are the order of the day in independent Nigeria.

He regrets that values of sharing, giving, equality and

brotherhood that were part of their heritage have been lost in

the aftermath of colonization.

Anand has dwelt on the problem or the social evil of caste

in a profound manner in his Untouchable, The Road and The B i q

Heart. Bakha the protagonist of Untouchable and Bhikhu the

central chracter of The Road are both sweeper boys, the lowest

among the untouchables. Casteism and untouchability are depicted

in their worst and most despicable forms in Untouchable. Bakha

is a type of the sweeper caste but is possessed of a keen sense

of his own lowliness and the impossility of his breaking out of

this rut, The conflict is portrayed powerfully as Bakha

goesthrough the notions of his daily chores of sweeping and

cleaning and begging his food. The climax occurs when he touches

a Brahmin unwittingly and he is made a laughing stock of

all-This incident however, opens his eyes to the injustice

and sinfulness of the system of caste hierarchy and

untouchability. Bakha's spark of revolt is smothered by

the futility of his rage and protest. Nevertheless Anand

offers him three different alternatives, that of Gandhi, that

of Jesus and that of the poet proposing a scientific and

modern solution to this vexatious question. AnandJs own

solution probably lies in a combination of all the three

alternatives. Of course his scientific, historical and

comprehensive humanism is his answer to the social evil of

casteism and untouchability.

Anand probes the psychological hang-ups and fears that

operate in the minds of the high caste Hindus and the

untouchables in their inter-relationships in his novel The Road.

As the title implies there are government-sponsored programmes

and activities that help the low caste or the so called scheduled

caste people to ameliorate their lot economically. Now they can

work and earn money, This has given them independence. ~conomic

freedom from their traditional caste masters is a boon to them if

they are prepared to work out their own course of action. Anand

uncovers the hypocrisy and double standards involved in the high

caste Hindu's attitude to Bhikhu the central character who leads

the road-building operation and the other untouchables. He

asserts the so-called caste dharma often proclaimed by Pandit

Suraj Mani and Thakur Singh. Anand also takes up the cudgel

against the chamars who wilt under pressure from the high caste

leaders. They are defeated by their own sense of inadequacy and

inferiority. Dhooli Singh is a very credible creation of Anand

and represents AnandJs vision of transforming the caste-ridden

society into an egalitarian one.

Anand completes his analysis of caste and casteism by

exposing in The Bis Heart yet another aspect of the class-caste

equation. The richer thathiars represented by Murlidhar and his

coterie are trying to dissociate themselves from their caste by

forming a new class alliance with Gokul Chand, a kasera. Economic

prosperity enables some to move upwardly and in the process to

declass themselves and join the ranks of a rich dominant class.

Anand might be putting forth his hope that class formation and

flexibility may be one way of liquidating the caste hierarchy or

at least casteism in Indian society. But it will be a long and

arduous road for the untouchables to shake off the stigma and

enter the heaven of equality and brotherhood built on human

dignity and personhood.

Achebe has not addressed himself explicitly to caste or

casteism in any of his novels simply because caste is non-existent

in Africa in the form or in the virulent degree that it is present

in India. The only instance of discrimination that we find is in

Lonser & Ease where the parents and village people stoutly

object to Obi marrying Clara, as she is an Osu which signifies

her belonging to a slave community or an outcaste group among the

Igbos. Achebe is highly critical of this discirminator attitude

and tradition among the Igbos and disapproves obi's repudiation

of the girl.

Both Anand and Achebe are not obscurantists, They believe

in the full and regulated spread of the scientific and

technological culture. Education as a means of widespread

conscientization is advocated by them. What is essential is the

right mixture of the modern spirit or modern scientific values

and the old human values. Person should be at the heart of any

programme of liberation.

If liberation has, as its objective, the installation of

the human person at the centre of world reality and as the

subject of his own destiny, it follows that the woman, as his

equal partner cannot be ignored. In fact women's liberation or

feminism has today won tremendous prestige amidst social

scientists, educationists, social reformers and literary artists.

Hence, it becomes imperative to examine Anand and Achebe and

their writings from the feminist perspective. d

Anand has created a number of women characters. But most of

them are cast in the conventional mould of housewife-mother.

Only in Gauri we come across a woman known by the same name, who

flouts all conventional female roles and norms and comraences a

life of her own. She determines her own future and courageously

walks out on her husband who is a personfication of feelings of

inadequacy, inferiority and fear of blame. Panchi, the husband

of Gauri fails to resonate with an awakened Gauri. Hence, ~auri

decides to leave him and shape her life and that of her child

whom she is carrying. This novel is a powerful indictment of the

heartlessness and lack of understanding of menfolk while dealing

with women.

Achebe examines this question in Anthills of the savannah,

while laying bare the different nuances and contours of power and

power relationships in the polity. Achebe makes women, the

successors to the legacy of liberative struggles. eat rice is

the lone survivor, having imbibed the spirit and daring of Ikem

and Chris who have died as martyrs of the cause. The feminine

element so essential and intrinsic a part of all human activities

is being emphasised by Achebe once the men quit the scene.

Beatrice, Elewa and other men and women enact the christening

ceremony of the child of Elewa, a traditionally male prerogative

in the tribal dispensation. The stage is set in a mythical and

apocalyptic fashion for the liberation struggle to be carried on.

Here is the biblical remnant seized with a profound sense of the

urgency of the cause and deeply linked to the past in the living

memories of Chris and Ikem. Achebe has masterfully interwoven

myriad strands drawn from history, mythology, culture, language,

literature, politics and society to fashion this novel which both

expresses an ideology and is its product and ends on a certain

note of hope, wiping out all the sorrowful and gloomy events of

the story.

While Anand's humanistic concern for the woman stops at

revolt and defiance at the personal and domestic levels ~chebe's

perspective on women prefers a larger stage or arena wherein the

main actors will be women spearheading the struggle, possessed of

a clear-cut agenda for liberation. While women like Gauri are

not easy to come by, the fire that is kindled in them can catch

and ignite more women in a similar travail or predicament.

Probabaly Anand sustains such a hope for womankind and society as

a whole. Achebe leaves no doubt about his intention and

objective of making women play a crucial role in the drama of

human liberation.

Having examined the perspective of liberation from various

angles in the works of Anand and Achebe, we proceeded in the

penultimate chapter to tackle the very problematic question of

the relationship between art and commitment. It is quite

appropriate and in a way essential that this queston was faced,

as "commitmentl~ can justifiably and meaningfully be applied to

the writings of both Anand and Achebe. From a critical analysis

of selected novels of Achebe and Anand, it emerges that they both

are committed writers with a definte purpose and goal, working

within a well though-out ideological framework. while affirming

that there is no doubt at all about the commitment of Anand and

A c h e b e , it, however, remains to be estblished that their

commitment to a cause, in this case, the cause of liberation of

the peoples, does not in any way mar their artistic integrity.

In other words, it has to be shown that both Anand and A c h e b e

remain faithful to the logic, inner dynamics and basic principles

of the art they are working with. As novelists, they are bound

by certain laws of the art or genre they are enegaged upon.

Hence it is expected that they strike a balance or the golden

mean between their ideological convictions or ideas or

felt-experiences and the form through which these are expressed.

Art-commitment controversy is as old as literature. From

Horace, Plato and Aristotle down to many British writers

including Spenser and Johnson have all spelt out the aim of

literature in terms of effecting a moral or intellectual or

behavioural change in the huamn person. The Romantics and the

Victorians wrote with a passionate attachment to a vision,

political or social or spiritual. Dickens was certainly a

trend-setter in realistic portrayal of social realities. The

political novel of the Victorian Age was probably an offshoot of

this trend. The aesthetic doctrine of art for art's sake was

also a product of this age.

The Marxian appraoch to literature was based on mode of

production which in turn conditions the social, political and

intellectual life. Marx averred that it was necessary to change

the world and therefore proposed a critical framework with which

to analyse reality. Jean-Paul Sartre made a vehement plea for

engaged or committed literature (litterature engage'). For

Sartre, freedom is the only subject of writing for any writer and

this freedom or liberation has to be specific, appropriate to a

particular context or situation.

There has been a controversy as to whether a committed

writer or a political writer is, by the very fact, a

propagandist. This confusion has to be clarified or else it will

have far-reaching consequences in respect of writers like Anand

and Achebe. The criticism that a committed writer always has an

ideological viewpoint which he tries to impose on an uninitiated

or unwary reader, is false and seems to be politically motivated.

Instead, one needs to frame the question this way. "Is not a

wholly uncommitted art a contradiction in terms?lq. Thus

commitment is viewed as a moral need, not to be equated with

propaganda. If this is progaganda, then we are going to have it

always and in all committed or engaged writing. Nevertheless it

is possible and important that a good artist avoids the

impression of being propagandist.

As an artificial separation of politics from human life is

at the bottom of this dichotomy, it may be useful to trace the

historical evolution of this relationship from ~ristotle down.

Neither the ancient Greeks nor even Marx propounded any dichotomy

between politics or society and literature. And still they

upheld the autonomy of a work of art.

1.A. Richards has written exensively on this question- He

has asserted that the manner of saying the truth is crucial in

any art form, T. S, Eliot has expressed a profound insight when

he suggested that the content of a work of art and its form are

closely related to each other and that this relationship is

~ t u a u y enriching and transforming. Hence, Eliot saw no

disjunction and much less contradiction between art and

commitment.

Thus it becomes intelligible to us that any third world

writer worth h i s name should be a committed writer. And this

commitment, to be real and meaningful, we may infer, has to

reflect the reality of poverty, illiteracy the gap between the

rich and the poor, exploitation and oppression, both colonial and

neocolonial. The works of Anand and Achebe need to be

investigated against this background. Of course, Anand has come

under heavy flak from critics within the country and occasionally

fr0m abroad for being overtly propagandist. There are however

more objective scholars and critics who have held a brief for

Anand and exonerated him by pointing out that Anand is genuinely

searching fox fictional forms that will suit his social impulses

or desire images. He has succeeded in finding the right form to

a large extent. Nevertheless it should be conceded that by and

large in Anand the form is always subservient to the content.

It should however be said in Anand's favour that out of

the works that we have examined in this study, Untouchable,

Coolie and The Biq H e a f i are superb creations of his artistic

Pen. fired by a creative mind and powerful imagination of a rare

quality. His novelistic techniques are quite variegated- He

tries the stream of consciouness and psychological probing of the

minds of characters in Untouchable and Coolie. It should be

conceded that Anand, more than any Indian novelist, has

successfully employed this technique and in a sense has improved

upon it by adapting it to the peculiar cultural variables of

India. He has moreover made use of the interior monologue rather

effectively in order to circumvent the much too obvious

aberration of the authorial intrusion, a defect commonly found in

Anand's novels.

Anand's technqiue of expressing the general or the

universal through the experiences or reflections of a single

character like Munoo in Coolie, Bakha in Untouchable or even

Ananta in The Bis Heart, Gauri in The Old Woman and the

speaks volumes for his artistic temper and commitment. Anand is

capabale of adapting his language and style to suit the mode and

tone of the narrative or story. His artistic detachment from the

story or plot or the characters in some of his novels is worthy

of commendation, His objectivity in these novels is

praiseworthy. It is true that the endings of coolie and

Untouchable are not in keeping with the tenor of the action and

plot of the novel and perhaps it is Anand's artistic faux pas.

Nevertheless, it has a legitimacy of its own, viewed within the

larger reality of helplessness and hopelessness that the present

situation of mass poverty and exploitation consistently projects.

The prophetic dimension underpinning such situations could have

been effectively tapped by Anand for rallying and mobilising all

liberationist forces of the world.

Achebe has time and again proclaimed his commitment to the

cause of exposing the tragic consequences of the colonial

encounter and of educating the masses of his people and the

colonial countries to perceive the beauty and grandeur of the

tribal society and culture. He has styled himself as a protest

writer, a teacher and an educationist. is technique of doing

this is by reconstructing the Igbo past and analysing the present

colonial and postcolonial reality in the light of the past. He

is neither a blind romanticizer of the past nor a jaundiced

critic of the activities of the colonizers. He is able to

command a respectable distance from the events portrayed or

action or the characters of his novels. while one senses the

author's pervasive presence in his novels, it is the greatest

merit of Achebe that his charcters are life-like and credible,

his situations realistic and plots extremely well constructed and

architectonic.

His use of the folklore and folk-traditions, stories,

tales, songs and proverbs, is a marvellous achievement on the

part of Achebe the masterful artist. These provide a framework

to Achebe for expressing reality. They in fact afford answers to

certain practical questions. These stories or tales invariably

convey a moral. Achebe has pioneered the skilful use of the folk

song in the narrative, that heightens the evocative power and

sometimes the suspense and pathos of the action. Achebefs range

of language, variation of style, adaption of different modes

suited to the paxticualr theme, his characterization and

craftmanship are all points that go to make up his profile as an

artist and a novelist. His early novels Thinss Fall Apart, Arrow

of God and No Lonser Ease show forth his power for nostalgic --

reconstruction of the past in an effort to contrast it with the

havoc wrought by the colonial intrusion. & man of the Peoule is

a fictional presentaion of the disillusionment that gripped the

people after the native elite took over the reins of government

in the aftermath of independence, His latest novel Anthills of

the Savannah is an artistic landmark in Achebefs career as a - novelist in that he has successfully experimented with new

techniques and a new novel form. While maintaining his realistic

tenor and the satirical mode, Achebe introduces a mythical mode

in order to show the need for multilateral power. He has

discovered a multiple narrative scheme that shifts the focus of

action on different individual leaders. Change of leadership or

multiple leadership style is in other words a decentring of

power. Achebe's form in this novel enhances the power of the

narrative and transforms the content even as the content provides

shape and thrust to the form. In other words, there is a

dialectical relationship between the form o f the novel and the

content emphasising the dialectics that should underlie the

relationship between the leaders among themselves and the leaders

and the masses. It is an absorbing novel that brings out the

power struggle and the tussle between power equations and power

centres in the new Nigerian political dispensation. The unique

feature of this novel is Achebe's portrayal of the crucial role

women have to or can play in liberation struggles. He has

moreover underscored the vital and indispensable realtionship

between story-telling and people.

In short, Achebe believes in the distinction of art into

pure art and applied art and qualifies his as applied art. While

being quite clear that there is no dichotomy between art and

political commitment, he insists on the educative and

regenerative values of any art, specially of writing.

Neverthelss it is meritorious on Achebe's part to have achieved a

near toal correlation between form and content, a perfect unison

between art and commitment.

While the same cannot be said of Anand's record as a

novelist, he has certainly been a trail-blazer and pioneer with

the teething problems associated with such a task. While some of

his novels are perfect pieces of art, he has not been consistent

in this commitment to the novel as an art form. His social,

political and moral convictions get the better of his aesthetic

or artistic impulse on occasions. This tendency has flawed or

vitiated not only his language and style but also the action,

plot and characterization of some of his otherwise well-conceived

novels.

POSSIBLE AREAS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The foregoing study had the burden of examining the

liberationist potential or thrust in Anand and Achebe as

novelists of the third world. The underlying assumption in this

study was that the perspective of liberation should permeate the

stories and themes of a third world novelist who professes

commitment to the people whose lives and struggles, he claims to

portray. It was therefore a search or investigation based on the

hypothesis that liberation or people's perspective should colour

the approaches, content, texture and message of such novels. A s

a result of a deep study, analysis and interpretation of select

novels of Anand and Achebe, it has been possible for us t o

discover elements of liberative urge, sentiments, themes, vision,

approaches, outlook and pedagogy in both the authors. In other

words, the commitment of these two writers as novelists has

redoubtably established their wroks as pertaining to the realm of

liberation of people as a whole, from subjugation, slavery and

Oppression of all kinds. Now the onus is on us to make

projections for future research possibilities. We shall examine

this possibility keeping the paradigms created by Anand and

Achebe in mind,

In Anand the subject matter or the fictional matrix .is

almost always the life and fortunes of the under-privileged

working classes, the untouchables or women. These people m a h e up

the fictional world of Anand. He hardly ever describes the

reality of an alien or foreign world, He has carried on, with a

crusader's zeal, the fight for making the underdog in society,

the eccentrics and the marginalised, the central characters and

subject matter of his stories. He has succeeded after a game and

relentles struggle to give legitimacy to the admission of such

characters into the elite society of the fictional world. Thus

the problems, concerns, aspirations, alienations and disabilities

at all levels experienced by the under-priveleged masses become

the very substance of his novels. Anand makes even children

heroes of his novels, Thus the stigma attached to such people in

the world of letters specially in the novel, has been removed.

They have been, in one sense, liberated by Anand from the

alienation or marginalisation committed on them by novelists with

a bourgeois bent or class orientation.

Achebe too has emphatically established the relevance and

importance of making the African society, African people's

cultural, social and political relaity the subject matter of

fiction in Africa. He has not only proclaimed it as an

ineluctable option for all writers, but has also created

successful models in his novels.

The objection of sameness, staleness or monotony can be

abviated by the fact the both Achebe and Anand have created a

whole gamut of stories and themes and have not suffered from a

dearth of material. It should be remembered that there are

numerous writers in various Indian languages, who, like Prernchand

in Hindi, Jeyakantan in Tamil, and Thakazhi Sivasankaran in

Malayalam, have espoused the cause of the downtrodden and have

used the lives and problems of these people as the raw

material for their novels with unprecedented succees and readersf

response.

Given the fact that there are quite a few novelists in

various Indian languages who are "Committedw in the sense Anand

and Achebe are, it should be fascinating to make a comparative

study of Anand and any other Indian novelist writing in an Indian

language. Such an investigation is bound to yield rare and

precious insights that will enrich reading of such novelists and

provide new avenues and areas to critics and comparatists.

Both Anand and Achebe have demonstrated not only the

possibility, but the inevitiability and necessity of depicting or

portraying characters who represent the larger reality of

suffering, deprivation and alienation as it exists in one's

country. The novelists should however guard against the pitfall

of becoming stereotypical or monotonous in characterization.

Novelistic techniques have to be adapted or innovated according

to the demands of the existential situation enacted and the plot

of the novel. Anand and Achebe have quite successfully done it.

If there is a specific area for further research, it is the

novelist's ability to make an absorbing story out of the humdrum

existential struggle of the oppressed masses. The works of Achebe

and Anand could be further explored from this perspective. In

other words the relative innovative and creative potential of

these writers could be assessed and compared with the novelists

of other Indian languages. Moreover it may be legitimate to

expect that any relevant third world fiction should reflect

realistically the existential angst and struggles of the

maginalised sections. To judge the relevance of a novel or a

novelist from this critical standpoint becomes necessary in the

context of the universal phenomenon of liberation movements in

the countries of the third world.

In Achebe the folk elements, particularly folktales,

proverbs and myths find a place in the story quite naturally

performing a specific function in the narrative and in the

structure of the novel. A special mention should be made of

Achebe's use of folktales in and AOG as paradigmatic.

Sometimes these tales serve a multiple purpose of revealing the

hidden conflict of a character, of teaching a universal moral

principle to one and all and of throwing light on the central

conflict or message or theme of the novel.

Anand has established a unique novelistic technique of

investing a novel with the qualities of a fable, of a folktale.

His Untouchable and Coolie read like tales and their structure

has all the ingredients of a fairy tale. This explains why these

novels have perennial appeal, to both young and old, to Indians

and foreigners.

A critical study of Achebefs and Anandfs use of national

cultural symbols such as folk tales, stories, songs, rituals,

beliefs, myths or puranas in their novels can by itself

constitute a veritable research subject. There is a difference

in the manner both Achebe and Anand exploit this rich cultural

heritage for making their novels more rooted and appealing as

liberative tools. Achebefs model in this regard is highly

original and variegated. Indian or African novels can become

once charming and educative if the cultural aspect is enriched by

incorporation of elements from national or racial repertoire o f

folklore and myths or puranas and proverbs. his cultural

dimension of a novel should be interwoven into the very structure

and fabric of the work.

It may be appropriate to note here that the folk character

of the form of the novel or in other words, the mass cultural

forms or technqiues are different from the transmuted or imitated

Western form or technqiues. Such a practice will be in itself an

affirmation of the culture and traditions of the masses. It is

by means of the magnificent array of oral traditions that Achebe

has infused a special quality into the texture and fabric of his

narrative. As a resul t of this a blurring of all cultural,

racial and geographic dividing lines occurs and the message is

driven home powerfully.

The novel is a popular and powerful medium with a universal

appeal. Depending on the personal vision and creed of the third

world novelist, it can either become a vehicle for conveying

personal epxeriences or for communication of knowledge to a

western audience. It should be conceded that in the masterly

hands of Achebe the novel has become a potent vehicle of

self-expression, that is, for expressing his perception and his

people's perception of their collective identity, consciousness,

aspirations, frustrations, past glories, traditions, successes

and failures. Anand too has demonstrated this dimension of

fiction with his relentleks portrayals of the underprivileged

masses of our country. In other words Achebers ideal of a writer

being a teacher or Anand's objective of a writer being the fiery

voice of the people becomes a critical yardstick for assessing

the worth of glcammitted'r third world writers. The committed

artists are fearless in voicing the injustice and inequity of the

contemporrary reality, be it colonial or neocolonial. The

writers, who have the western readers in view, may find it

legitimate to temporize or compromise,

Another fruitful area of further investigation may be a

comparative study af Anand and Achebe using Marxism or ~andhism

as the focal point. In as much as these two historical

phenomena have influenced and shaped Indian and African

thought-patterns, attitudes and practices, in one way or another,

it will be a valid starting point for a fruitful research work.

~eedless to say that Gandhi and his teachings played a crucial

role in reorienting Anandfs ideology in favour of the poor of

1ndia. And it is not difficult to discover Marxist overtones in

Anandfs fury and fulmination against exploitation and

inequalities. Explicit references to his knowledge of Marxian

approaches, pedagogy and categories abound in his non-fictional

writings. Achebe, like many other African writers, should have

come under the influence of Gandhi at some time in his life, It

may be more difficult to discern Marxian influence in Achebe1s

passionate plea for change of socio-political and economic

structures and his vehement outcry against colonial plunder and

inhuman attitudes towards the Africans.

The novel as the most flexible literary genre lends itself

to multiple manipulations, as demonstrated by Anand and Achebe

each in his own peculiar, personal and typical fashion. Such a

novel has a dual role of entertaining and instructing at the same

time. The novelist has the unenviable task of combining the role

o f a committed pedagogue and that of an artist, In other words

he is faced with the paradox of producing a fictional work that

constitutes a veritable photograph of the social dynamics and

structural mechanics that form the human drama that will

determine the ultimate shape of human civilization and the

destiny of the nations,

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

PRIMARY SOURCES

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Things Fall Apart. London : Heinemann, 1958.

No Longer at Ease. London : Heinemann, 1960.

A r r o w of God. London : Heinemann, 1964 ; Garden City : New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1969.

A Man of the People, London : Heinemann, and New York: John Day, 1966.

Anthills of t h e Savannah. Kenya : Heinernann, 1987- "The Role of the writer in a New ati ion". Nigeria Magazine 8 1 (June 64) : 158-160,

Morning Yet on Creation Day. Essays. London : Heinemann, 1974 - 'tThe Novelist as Teacher", The New Statesman LXIX (Jan 65) : 160-162.

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Untouchable. London : wishart, 1935, revised edition, London: Bodley Head, 1970.

Coolie. London : Lawrence and Wishart, 1936 ; Coolie, London : Penguin, 1945 ; New York : Liberty Press, 1952; revised edition, London : Bodley Head, 1972-

Two Leaves and a Bud, London : Lawrence and Wishart, 1937; New York : Liberty Press, 1954.

T h e Big Heart. London : Hutchinson, 1945 ; revised e d i t i o n , edited by Saros Cowasjee, New Delhi: Arnold-Heinernann, 1980.

The Old Woman and t h e Cow, Bombay : Kutub, 1960 ; as Gauri , New Delhi: Orient, 1976, T h e Road. Bombay : Kutub, 1961 ,

R e f l e c t i o n s on t h e Golden Bed. Bombay : Current Book House, 1947.

Apology for ~eroism: An Essay in Search of Faith- London : Drummond, 1946 .

Roots a n d F l o w e r s : Two Lectures on the Metamorphosis of T e c h n q i u e and Content i n the Indian-English Novel. Dharwar : Karnatak University, 1971.

"Pigeon Indian : Some Notes on Indian-English W r i t i n g R t . Karnatak University - Journal (Humanities); 1972-

A u t h o r T o Critic : The Letters of Mulk R a j Anand. edited by Saros Cowasjee, Calcutta : Writers Workshop, 1973-

"Trends in the Modern Indian NovelN- JIWE 1.1 (3an. 1973) : 1-6.

The Humanism of Jawaharlal Nehru. Calcutta : V i s v a - Bharati, 1978.

Conversations in Bloomsbury (reminiscences) ,, N e w Delhi : Arnold-Heinemann, and London : Wildwood House, 1981.

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. , '

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