One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, Mulk Raj Anand depicted the plight of the poor castes in his stories. Along with R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao, he is considered and celebrated for his realistic approach towards the poor and suppressed classes in society. His insight into their sorrows and sufferings earned him the epithet, chronicler of the poor.
His first major novel ‘Untouchable’ was a disturbing exposure of the miserable life of a member of India’s untouchable class. It is the tale of a single day in the life of Bakha, an unfortunate member of a community that pulled on by cleaning toilets of the rich households, in particular. He struggles to improve the sad destiny of his class.
A peep into Anand’s biography is relevant here. Born in Peshawar on 10 December 1905, he studied at Khalsa College, Amritsar and graduated with honours. He moved to England and attended The University College, London. Meanwhile he had to take a parttime job at a restaurant due to poverty. However, being a brilliant student he joined the Cambridge University and earned a PhD in philosophy . His subject of dissertation focused on Bertrand Russel.
Subsequently he spent some time in the U. K. and befriended a highly intelligent group. It is interesting to note that he married Wathleen Gelder, an English actress in 1939. They had a daughter, Sushila. The marriage did not last long and the couple divorced in 1948.
His stories and novels won him a lot of admirers, earning international readership in the process. As a matter of fact, his works were noted for their perceptive insight into the lives of the oppressed and their impoverished existence pointing to their miserable destiny. Such realistic depiction received wide appreciation, and before long he became a very popular writer.
Quite significantly, during his time in London, Anand wrote propaganda for India’s freedom along with V.K.Krishna Menon, who later became the country’s Defence Minister. He supported freedom movements elsewhere and even travelled to Spain to volunteer in the Spanih Civil war, even though his role in the conflict was more journalistic than military.
During the II world war, he worked as a script writer for the BBC in London. He befriended George Orwell, renowned writer, who penned a favourable review of his novel, ‘TheSword and the Sickle’. He was also a friend of Picasso, the world famous painter, and had a few paintings of his in his collection.
Perhaps, it was one of his earliest short stories, ‘The Lost Child’ that shot him to fame. It traced the intimate and intense love of a boy for his father. There was yet another work, ‘TheUntouchable’ which traced the miserable existence of the lower castes in India. It still remains as a social document and Anand was described as the Charles Dickens of India.
Along with ‘Coolie’, the private life of an Indian Prince is considered among his finest works. He founded a literary magazine, ‘Marg’ and taught at various Universities. During 1970s he worked with the International Progress Organisation (IPO). He also delvered a series of lectures on eminent Indians including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Ravindranath Tagore.
Anand painted himself on a memeir which contained seven parts, and for one part he won the Sahitya Academy Award. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India’s highest civilian award for his vast contribution in the fields of literature and education. He passed away on 28 September 2004.
Let us conclude with a quote from his article, ‘Why I Write?’
“I met Mahatma Gandhi in Ahmedabad in the spring of 1999. He said to me that I must not write anything which was not based on one’s own experience. Since then I have been confirmed in one fundamental truth. That truth alone should matter to a writer, that this truth alone should be the truth of life from felt experience and not only from books”.