Coolie A Saga of Protest

www.thecreativelaucher.com Impact factor- 2.3 Vol.
II & Issue III (August- 2017) ISSN-2455-6580
THE CREATIVE LAUNCHER: An International, Open Access, Peer Reviewed, Refereed, E- Journal in English
UGC Approved- (Sr. No. 62952)
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Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation
Pallavi Gupta
Research Scholar
Siddhartha
Mahavidhalaya, Jaswant
Nagar, Etawah
Abstract
The nineteen-thirties were the most tumultuous years in Indian history. It was the time
of Indian struggle for independence and everybody was effected by the impact of this even
poetry, drama and novel too. So Anand could not remain uninfluenced by it. He suffered a lot
so this made him hate imperialism. He was aware of the sufferings of our people from
poverty and squalor. No one in India had yet written the epic on this suffering adequately
because the realities were too crude for a writer like Tagore. Mulk Raj Anand a great Indian
novelist draws our attention through his immortal characters Munno and Bakha, from real
society. As a novelist he speaks on realism, conflict, humanism and exploitations. Anand
wrote about real people whom he knew quite closely. Mulk Raj Anand awakens social
conscience by his works. He arouses sympathetic feeling of readers for the oppressed and
under-privileged, who suffer a lot.
Key words: realism, social conflict, humanism, exploitation, underprivileged.
Indo-Anglian literature or Indian English literature is associated with Indian English

writings and is a very important part of English literature in the present era. Indo-Anglian
literature or Indian English literature or Indian writing in English is the literature, written by
several well-known Indian writers in the various genres. It includes poetry, prose, drama and
novel. Michael Madhusadan Dutt was the first renowned Indo-Anglian poet, who gave a new
sky to Indian poetry in English language that had not originated in India. After Madhusudan
Dutt there came many worthy writers and they also gave a new shape to Indian English

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Pallavi Gupta 521
www.thecreativelaucher.com Impact factor- 2.3 Vol. II & Issue III (August- 2017) ISSN-2455-6580
literature. All are geniues in their fields and did the best for their readers. Some worthy names
are: Toru Dutt, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Aurbindo Ghosh, Sarojini Naidu, Nissim Ezekiel,
Kamla Das, A.K. Ramanujan , Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan , Mulk Raj Anand etc. All the writers
of India gave a new direction, a new revolution and a new sensational world in their works.
Poetry in India has a special place in all the forms of literature due to its deep intensity of
emotion and passion. But we can’t deny that in India the novel or fiction also has a
remarkable place, because of its unforgettable creators whose writings are based on realism
and have a social purpose. They wrote not merely for entertainment but for some sincere
reasons. The Indo-Anglian writers of fiction wrote with an eye and hope. They choose matter
from the real life. They all have the elements of Indianness, nationalism and patriotism,
glorification of India’s past and placing country above all and speak of the eastern
orientation. According to Prof. C.D. Narasimhaiah,
The Indian novel in English has shown a capacity to accommodate a wide
range of concerns: in Mulk Raj Anand a humane concern for the underdog or
subalterns; in R. K. Narayan the comic modes as equivalent to the tragic in his
evocation of mediocrity; and K. Nagarajun surprises by his sensitive handling
of the human significance in the religious and stories he has at same time to
use T.S. Eliot’s words, ‘altered’ the ‘expression’ to accommodate distinct
profoundly Indian ‘sensibility’ in different degrees. Bhawani Bhattacharya
and Khuswant Singh in very different ways give us valuable insights in to the
pathos of economic impoverishment, mal-distribution of wealth and human
degradation caused by political upheavals. (14)
The wider canvas of Indian English literature can be seen by a study of characters of
various writings. The range has been more widened by inclusion of untouched themes. In this
regard we can see the novels of Mulk Raj Anand, whose novels are a rich and perfect model
of real India of post colonial period. So far as the themes of novels of Anand are concern,
they are: social problems, domestic problems and problems related to human relationship etc.
Anand occupy the similar position in the realm of Indian writings in English as in fielding,

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Richardson, and Sterne in English literature. He stands as a strong pillar in the field of novel
writings. He wrote in English on Indian themes; Indianness is the common characteristics of
his writings. His works reflect a close affinity between Marxim and humanism. He said, ‘I
believe in man’. This is how he defined humanism. He kept redefining humans, he never
compromise terms of ideology even at the risk of being called a propagandist. Anand was a
humanist in literature. He was a liberal humanist not a doctrinaire Marxist. He was the
founder of the progressive writings. Anand’s humanism is the chief motivating force behind
his novels. In the description of humanism he is compared to the great novelist Charles
Dickens, who points the life of downtrodden very effectively. K.R.S. Iyenger’s comment
does full justice to the kind of novel Coolie is. Iyenger writes:
If Untouchable is the microcosm, Coolie is more like the macrocosm that is
Indian society: concentration gives place to diffusion and comprehension, with
several foci of concentration. Coolie is verily a cross-section of India, the
visible India, that mixture of the horrible and the holy, the inhuman and the
humane, the sordid and the beautiful. The general effect is panoramic, good
and evil being thrown together as in actual life. There is no time for us to
pause, to think, to judge, for we are constantly shifted. A new situation engulfs
us at every turn, and new cruelties and absurdities whirl round us. Village,
taluka headquarters, district headquarters, Presidency capital (Bombay), the
national summer capital (Simla)-this is a progression indeed, but only
spatially, for the human situation hardly alters wherever we may be. Munoo is
the exploited one all the time; and his fate is typical of the fate of millions
whose only distinguishing badge is patient sufferance. (120-121)
Anand awakens social conscience and arouses sympathetic feelings of his readers towards the
oppressed and sufferers. Anand’s passion and compassion for humanity is boundless. It is his
religion. His commitment to humanism constitutes the very foundation on which his novels
are built. Coolie is the great example in which Anand beautifully presents the hard realities of
lower class people through a boy named Munoo. Philip Henerson correctly observes:

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Coolie takes us into a world in which the comradeship of man exists only
among the very poorest people. With nothing to hope for, their common
humanity is all they possess. The relationship between Prabha (at heart a
coolie), Munoo, and the other factory employees (all hill-men) is one of
humaneness. At the other end of the scale we have Ganpat (the frustrated son
of a well-to-do-broker), the Todar Mals (essentially Nathoo Ram gone
successful), and the police–more a symbol of British oppression than of
British justice. Their world is a world of hysteria, one devoid of restraint and
self-respect… (168-169)
Coolie is a great work of Anand where exposes the hard realities of an underprivileged
society. The central theme of this fine work is the exploitation of the poor and the subalterns
by the forces of capitalism, industrialism and colonialism. Anand through Munoo, a poor and
helpless orphan presents these evils. Munoo is a fourteen years old boy who is unable to find
even his fundamental rights to life and happiness. He is exploited and made to suffer till his
death. Munoo is not only victim of such exploitations. Anand has made an attempt to bring
out all types of exploitations and denial of life and happiness of lot of poor, everywhere in
India. According to him the lot of the poor is equally wretched and miserable whether in rural
or urban India.
The novel opens when Munoo, an orphan is living an idyllic life in his village. He is
quite happy with his friends through he is ill-treated by his uncle and aunt. This simple and
rural community is not free from capitalistic exploitations. This exploitation becomes the
destiny of Munoo. At a very early age, ‘Munoo had head of how the landlord had seized this
father’s five acres of land because the interest on the mortgage covering the unpaid rent had
not been forthcoming when the rains had been scanty and the harvests bad. And he knew
how his father had died a slow death of bitterness and disappointment and left his mother a
penniless beggar, to support…. a child in arm.’ Anand’s Coolie is significant for exposing the
sufferings and realism of poor and working class in India of the thirties. The conditions of life
of the working class in this country have considerably improved in present era, but

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unemployment is certainly a big issue in our times. In this regard Coolie is a mirror, a
realistic work that depicts the misery and the wretchedness of the common people especially
of the town people and cities. Coolie also brings before us the conflict between labour and
capital. This theme is as relevant today as it was in those days and it, has, in fact, become
even more acute, more pressing and more complicated.
Coolie tells an interesting and eventful story through actions and evokes excitement.
Munoo’s reactions to every experience of his life are discussed in detail. There is plenty of
appealing dialogue and many descriptive passages. Coolie is also known as a novel of
protest. Anand protests against the capitalist exploitation of the poor and the underprivileged
people in the country, but he never lets his work a source of propaganda. He merely gives us
pictures of the suffering caused by poverty and unemployment, leaving the readers to draw
their own inference. He in a very beautiful way puts across the message of denial of the right
to life and unjust social system through the pathetic story of Munoo. His poverty compels
him to do apprenticeship at the age of fourteen and to be exploited by his uncle. His only
wish is that ‘I want to live, I want to know, I want to work.’ In his short life, his first
encounter with the urban world was in the house of babu Nathu Ram. The lady of that house
Bibi Uttam Kaur humiliates him in various ways. From this Munoo learns his first lesson in
the harsh school of the modern urban world. Now he has realized finally his position in the
world. In Daulatpur he is well treated by Prabha Dayal and his wife, but their partner Ganput
frequently beats him and abuses him. When Prabha Dayal is ruined by the treachery of his
partner Munoo works as a coolie. There too he finds the cut throat competition and
exploitation. Coolies of that time were paid extremely low wages and made to carry
excessively heavy loads and were abused too. This exploitation is presented on a much larger
and more terribly in the Bombay phase of Munoo’s life. There ill-paid, ill-housed, under
nourished and bullied laborers are broken fully both in body and mind as Munoo finds in his
friend Hari and in his own youth too. From there Munoo goes to Shimla with Mrs.
Manwaring, as she wants a servant. She makes him, her boy servant, ricksaw-puller and there
are hints that he is exploited sexually too.

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A deep rooted feeling of inferiority to the superior people who live in bungalows and
wear Angrezi clothes makes him weep without murmur. His lot as a ricksaw- puller was
tough as a result of which he dies of consumption at the age of sixteen. All these things are
presented in this novel Coolie by Anand. He also throws light on capitalism, colonialism and
industrialism to show how these forces exploit Munoo and his like. There is also a
presentation of the fires of communal hatred by caused politicians, who have their own axe to
grind. Anand in Coolie tells about how the colonial rulers exploited Indians. They not only
degrade the Indians by their contact but also ill-treated them. The policeman, the symbol of
British Raj, beats Munoo and scares him away from the railway station. Prabha Dayal , a
respectable man is mercilessly caned at the police station for no fault of his. Prabha Dayal is a
symbol of British cruelty and inhumanity rather than of British justice, and the Englishman
who slaps Munoo merely for looking at him. The head foreman of cotton mills, a thoroughly
repulsive character is presented as ‘massive man with a scarlet bulldog face and a small
moustache with his huge body dressed in a greasy white shirt, white trousers and a greasy
white polo topee. He refers to Hari as a ‘stupid bullock’ and he certainly treats the factory
workers as if they were animals. He kicks, beats and abuses them at will. Saros Cowasjee
remarks on it:
The evil that one sees in his poor is the direct result of capitalistic exploitation
and the indifference of the British Government towards the lives of millions of
its subjects. The same cannot be said of the rich, their greed is needless. There
is a lot of difference between Prabha’s creditors fighting among themselves to
recover whatever they can and the coolies vying with each other to earn a few
annas so that they might live another day. (169)
Thus Anand has given us a faithful picture of the exploitations of the underprivileged and the
misery which was the lot of the poor in pre-independence India. The treatment is elaborate;
the subject has been studied from various angles and in various societies. The evils, the
injustice and the inhumanity of colonial rule, have been also exposed. The degradation

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caused as a result of contact with the west also brought out. For this K.R.S. Iyengar praises it
and calls it: ‘a prose epic of modern India.’
Works Cited
1- Cowasjee, Saros. Coolie. New Delhi: Rama Brothers, 2014. 169. Print.
2- Ibid p.169
3- Iyanger, K.R.S. Coolie. New Delhi: Surjeet Publication, 2002.120-121. Print.
4- Narasimhaiah, C. D. “Naked Exposure of Caste System in Mulk Raj Anand’s
Untouchables”. Etawah Journal of Social Sciences. Vol. 4, no 2. page 14. 2014. Print.

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www.thecreativelaucher.com Impact factor- 2.3 Vol.

II & Issue III (August- 2017) ISSN-2455-6580

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

Key words: realism, social conflict, humanism, exploitation, underprivileged.

Indo-Anglian literature or Indian English literature is associated with Indian English

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

Coolie: An Epic of Injustice and Exploitation

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