34 pages • 1 hour read
Mulk Raj AnandUntouchable
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1935A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 41-80Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 41-80 Summary
Bakha escapes, and he is enraged. He wants revenge. "Why was all this fuss?" he asks himself. "Why was I so humble? I could have struck him!" (51). He realizes that the tonga-wallah was not afraid to touch him, because Mohammadans are also viewed as Untouchables by the Hindus. Bakha mutters the word Untouchable repeatedly, and people stare at him.
He reaches the courtyard of the temple and prepares to start cleaning. He sees people coming in and out of the temple and asks himself, "What have these people come to worship?" (57). Bakha wants to go into the temple and see what is inside, but knows that his presence would "pollute it past purification" (58). He sneaks to the top step and is able to see some of the temple interior. He sees half-nude priests leading the worshippers in a chant. He clasps his hands and bows his head, moved by the song.
He hears a priest shouting "Polluted!" (61) and worries that he has been seen. But the priest is with his sister, Sohini. A man is screaming that Sohini touched him, and he is polluted. Sohini tells Bakha that the priest made sexual advances on her when she was cleaning the lavatory, and when she resisted, he had run into the courtyard claiming that he had been defiled. When she tells Bakha that the man grabbed her breasts, Bakha runs through the courtyard, claiming that he will kill the man. But he calms himself, realizing, "He could not overcome the barriers which the conventions of his superiors had built up to protect their weakness against him. He could not invade the magic circle which protects a priest from attack by anybody, especially a low-caste man" (65). He tells Sohini to go home and that he will get food for them.
Bakha leaves the temple. He shouts, "Posh, Posh, sweeper coming" (66) to announce his approach, so that higher castes can get out of the way. He walks down an alleyway, calling, "Bread for the sweeper" (68) at the steps of each house, hoping that someone will give him food. There is no response. He sits to rest and falls asleep, leaning against the wall of a home. He has a dream in which he is a rich, celebrated, and educated man. He wakes when the woman who owns the house he is leaning against screams at him: "You have defiled my house!" (71). A holy man passes by and she gives food to him, but shouts "May you die" (73) at Bakha. Then she says that if he cleans her drain he can have some bread. After he cleans the drain for her, she throws a piece of bread at him, which lands in the dirt.
When Bakha gets home, Rakha is out looking for food. His father calls him a "good-for-nothing scoundrel" (77) for not bringing home more food. He says that Bakha must get to know the people in town better, because, "You have got to work for them all your life, my son, after I die" (77). Bakha remembers the priest who touched Sohini, and the cruel woman who made him clean her drain. The thought of working for them for his entire life horrifies him. He tells his father about the abuse he suffered after touching the man in the town, and his father asks him why he was not more careful. He notices that Bakha is angry, and that he is beginning to hate the upper caste Hindus. Worried that he will lash out at them and suffer terrible consequences, he tells him a story: once Bakha had a life-threatening fever when he was a child. A doctor came to their house, despite their Untouchable status, and saved his life. "They are really kind" (83) says his father.
Pages 41-80 Analysis
The core of pages 41-80 focuses on Sohini's assault at the temple. But first, Bakha is helped by the Muslim man after escaping the mob. The Muslim and Hindu faiths have little in common with each other, but the Muslim man thinks nothing of helping Bakha, because he himself knows what it is like to be disdained for one's status. The upper Hindus view Muslims the same way they do with Untouchables: as pollutants and parasites. Bakha notices the man's compassion and it gives him some relief from his mental torment until he arrives at the temple.
Other than the scene at the temple, and Bakha's later conversation with Colonel Hutchison, religion is not overtly discussed. This is ironic in light of the fact that the caste system was a product of religious Hindu doctrine. The Rig Vedas, a central text in Hindu religion, provide the first recording of the social hierarchy in India, which was later criticized but not successfully dismantled by Buddhist and political sects. Bakha's Untouchable status is a result of his religion, which elevates some, but oppresses others to the point where he is not allowed inside the temple to participate in his own religion. When Bakha sneaks towards the temple doors to peek inside, it is a sign of his growing unwillingness to be who he is told to be. But it is Sohini's defiance at the temple that shapes the rest of Bakha's day.
The priest assaults Sohini because he wishes to indulge a physical appetite, and because he knows he will not be punished. Bakha, after hearing Sohini's story, wants to hurt the man, but "He could not overcome the barriers which the conventions of his superiors had built up to protect their weakness against him. He could not invade the magic circle which protects a priest from attack by anybody, especially a low-caste man" (65).Bakha knows that he cannot attack the priest, but what he calls the magic circle of protection also extends, at least in the evidence given by the novel, to all members of the upper caste. The priest uses the privilege of his office to pursue unrighteous actions, and Bakha cannot fight against him, even on behalf of his sister.
After Bakha sends Sohini home, he goes to beg for food. The events at the temple fester in him. It is one thing to do menial work, and he had found a way to tolerate his Untouchable status. But this was prior to being struck by the man, and then seeing the liberties a priest took with his sister. Bakha begins to see that the status of an Untouchable dooms them to abuse. His outlook darkens further when the woman scolds him for falling asleep on her porch. After he works for her, she throws a crust of bread at him from the fourth floor of the building. When he does not thank her, she remarks, ‘They are getting more and more uppish” (74). She expects gratitude for the abuse she visited upon him.
When Bakha speaks with his father about the day's events, Lakha reminds him that he has to find a way to make peace with their situation. But when he tells Bakha that he will work for the upper Hindus all his life, the notion of work has changed for Bakha. Lakha's story about the doctor saving Bakha's life as an infant does not have the effect he wanted. Rather than accepting his father's decree that all upper Hindus are kind and good, Bakha begins to wonder if his life—if this is what his life will be like—was worth saving.
