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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Corruption, Political Violence, and Capitalism
Resilience and Hope
Gender Identity, Social Division, and Coexistence
Social Hierarchy vs. Social Inclusivity
Religion and Power
Summary
Analysis
Dr. Azad Bhartiya is the last person to see the baby before she disappears. He has been on a hunger strike for 12 years, and is so thin he is “almost two-dimensional.” In explanation of his protest, he wears a grimy sign around his neck, on which is written his full name, home address, and current address—the Jantar Mantar, where he sits every day in protest. It also lists his qualifications, of which there are many: two master’s degrees, a bachelor’s in history, and a pending PhD. The doctor is also the “founder member” of the World People’s Forum and the Indian Socialist Democratic Party. Finally, below is a long list of the many things the Azad Bhartiya is protesting: “US Capitalism, Indian and American State Terrorism,” along with nuclear weapons, bad education, corruption, violence, environmental degradation, unemployment, and, in his words “all other evils.”
Through his dedication to sitting every day at the Jantar Mantar for over 12 years, Dr. Azad Bhartiya is a symbol of hope and resilience in the novel. His commitment to his cause is so strong that he has starved himself to the edge of death. The plethora of causes that the doctor advocates for—including everything from the end of imperialism to the end of unemployment—may seem absurd, and even a sign that he is a little bit mad. However, when readers think about all of the issues that have been presented in the novel so far, it is clear that the people of India do desperately need to see the end of all of these things if they are to live safe and happy lives.
Themes
Next to Dr. Azad Bhartiya is a small bag from a shopping mall, that contains several typed pages in English and Hindi. The doctor has placed several copies of the document in front of him, held down by rocks, for sale—it is called “My News & Views (Update).” On it, he introduces himself by explain that Azad Bhartiya is not his given name, it means “Free/Liberated Indian,” and he has chosen it for himself. He explains that a “free Indian” shouldn’t be found starving himself to death on the street, anticipating that readers might expect that to find a truly liberated Indian “in a modern house with a car and a computer.” But he explains that he is not in a modern house with a car and computer and rather is on the street because, simply put, he is a revolutionary. It is his 12th year on hunger strike—he eats one light meal every 48 hours or so to survive. In his words, he “eat[s] only to live and [he lives] only to struggle.”
Here, Azad Bhartiya’s interpretation of freedom goes directly against what capitalism would have Indians believe freedom looks like. Bhartiya astutely assumes that the readers of his “News & Views” associate freedom with material comfort. But for Bhartiya, freedom means the ability to do what he thinks is necessary in the world, irrespective of the expectations society might place on someone who, as he seems to, comes from a relatively privileged background (he speaks English and has two master’s degrees). Like Anjum. Azad Bhartiya has located his freedom on the margins of society, rather than within its constructs of success and liberty.
Themes
Dr. Azad Bhartiya confesses that he is not technically a doctor, as his PhD is pending. But he chooses to refer to himself with the title anyway, mostly to make people listen to him. He justifies this choice, writing, “If there were no urgency in our political situation, I would not do this because, technically speaking, it is dishonest. But sometimes, in politics, one has to cut poison with poison.”
Up until this point, Dr. Bhartiya seems to have the most integrity of all of the activists that the novel has examined. But even he, who so earnestly believes in his cause that he has been on hunger strike for 12 years, feels the need to lie to get ahead. This demonstrates the extent to which India’s political game has become totally immersed in corruption. The novel suggests that even the most innocent-seeming political players participate in misleading their audiences.
Themes
For all 12 years of his hunger strike, Dr. Azad Bhartiya has been at Jantar Mantar, the place of protest. While he sees so many groups come and go, hopeful that finally, someone will hear them and listen to their message, the PhD hopeful is a little bit more jaded. He writes, simply, “No one listens. The police beats them, the government ignores them.” Unfortunately, most protesters, unlike him, lack the resources to go on an indefinite strike: they are poor, and have to go pay their landlords or moneylenders.
In this moment, Bhartiya acknowledges the ways in which his class privilege allows him to continue protesting—he is not in debt, unlike many of the poor, and so has the luxury not to work. Even though he says he believes no one listens to the protestors, it is clear that there is a part of him that believes it is possible for voices of dissent to be heard—otherwise, he himself would not have dedicated his life to this cause.
Themes
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Seemingly out of nowhere, Dr. Azad Bhartiya changes the line of discourse with the rhetorical question, “What caste am I? That is your question?” The doctor states quite clearly that for him, caste doesn’t matter: he rhetorically asks his readers what castes figures such as Jesus and the Prophet Muhammed were. He has disavowed Hinduism exactly because he doesn’t believe in the caste system, as he is an advocate for the poor. Indeed, he writes, even if he were President of America—“that world-class Brahmin”—he would be on hunger strike for the poor.
Dr. Bhartiya’s critique of the caste-system subtly shows his readers another path to freedom: ignoring the societal roles their caste has carved out for them. By saying that he would protest for the poor even if he were a “world-class Brahmin,” Bhartiya states that he would do away with the privileges of high-caste identity in order to do the work he feels is important. This itself is a kind of freedom. It highlights the fact that Bhartiya is there because he wants to be, not because he has to be, which in turn demonstrates his strength of character.
Themes
Dr. Azad Bhartiya believes he is on 24-hour surveillance by the government on account of his radical politics. A staunch anti-capitalist, he believes “capitalism is like poisoned honey. People swarm to it like bees. I don’t go.” According to him, the hyper-capitalist government of India feels threatened by these politics. He has been hit by multiple cars during his hunger strike, which he believes to have been sent by politicians and businessmen whose work he protests. After being hit by a car, he broke his arm and still wears a cast. While his life as a hunger-striker is difficult, the PhD candidate has built something of a community with the other activists, many of whom have signed his cast. He concludes his letter with the declaration that all of the information written above is “true to the best of [his] knowledge and no material has been concealed therefrom.”
In this passage, the various forms of attack Dr. Bhartiya claims to have experienced speak to the Indian government’s corruption. He is exercising his right to free speech by undergoing this hunger strike, and, as he supposedly lives under a democracy, this shouldn’t endanger his life. However, according to Bhartiya, he lives in a country that is more committed to upholding the principles of capitalism than it is to protecting the rights of its people. That the other activists at Jantar Mantar sign Dr. Bhartiya’s cast demonstrates their commitment to community resilience, to celebrating one another in spite of the violence they face.
Themes
Dr. Azad Bhartiya has seen the baby disappear, and, in the moment that he saw this, he believes the baby “had three mothers on the pavement that night, all three stitched together by threads of light.” Because the police rely on him for information about the goings-on at Jantar Mantar, they question him about the disappearance of the baby, “[slapping] him around a little—not seriously, just from habit.” They confiscate his News & Views and other documents when the doctor refuses to give them any information, and beat him again. Still, when they go, the determined activist immediately sets about the “laborious process of documentation from scratch.”
The mention that the police slap Dr. Bhartiya around “just from habit” is further evidence of how practices of brutality and disrespect of the populace are ingrained in the police culture. In dedicating himself to rewriting his entire document once the police have left, Dr. Bhartiya demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to his work, which, although small in its scope, is a rare example of honest, if radical, political activism in the midst of a political landscape riddled with corruption.
Themes
The police have no suspects for the kidnapping of the baby, but, nonetheless, they set up a public announcement about her disappearance and register a kidnapping case—but without much hope of the investigation going anywhere. They “[have] already registered one thousand one hundred and forty-six similar cases in the city that year. And it [is] only May.”
Here, the fact that the police don’t really expect the investigation to go anywhere goes to show that the law in India really doesn’t have the power to truly protect its most vulnerable citizens—such as an abandoned, low-caste baby.
Themes
