Social Hierarchy vs. Social Inclusivity Theme Analysis

One of the most salient aspects of contemporary Indian society that comes across in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a rigid social hierarchy, maintained principally by the caste system but also upheld by religious differences. While the conservative characters in the novel seek to uphold the hierarchy that privileges them, the oppressed and marginalized characters continuously fight for greater equality in their society. By demonstrating the difference between the characters that believe in hierarchy versus those that combat it, Roy ultimately demonstrates that social hierarchy is isolating and perpetuates violence, whereas social inclusivity allows characters to live more happily and peacefully.

Biplab Dasgupta, the narrator of part of the novel and a Brahmin government official who works with the Kashmir conflict, serves to exemplify the elitism and conservatism of India’s Hindu upper classes. Dasgupta introduces himself as the “upper-caste, upper-class oppressor from every angle,” or, in other words “a tragedy-less man.” Indeed, he does seem to have no problem with the oppressive aspects of his job—he manipulates and uses Naga, a “leftist” but corrupt journalist, to cover up human rights abuses that occur in Kashmir, for instance. It is clear that Biplab’s class privilege isolates him from his fellow countrymen, to the point where he is comfortable working in a job that kills them. However, his assertion that he is a “tragedy-less man,” is, in some ways, ironic. In addition to being an oppressive but successful functionary of the government, Biplab is an alcoholic with a failing marriage. This suggests that he views tragedy only within the contexts of lacking political power, but seems unable to see the tragedy of loneliness that is his own life. What’s more, he never had the courage to tell Tilo, the headstrong, South Indian woman with whom he is infatuated, that he likes her. In fact, the first thing he mentions about Tilo is that “she didn’t look like any of the pale, well-groomed girls [he] knew at college. Her complexion was what the French might call café au lait (with very little lait).” His immediate noticing of Tilo’s skin color—an important class marker in India—demonstrates how deeply he has been conditioned to think, first and foremost, of social status. Biplab ends up unhappily marrying another Brahmin woman named Chitra. This suggests that his reluctance to tell Tilo about his feelings doesn’t just step from a childish fear of talking to women; likely, his hesitance stems from an inability to step across the class lines that separate them. Thus, Biplab’s class privilege doesn’t only isolate him in a broad sense from members of other classes: they cause him to isolate himself in his personal life, as well.

By contrast, Anjum and the community she creates completely disregard social hierarchy and espouse radical inclusivity, which is what allows them to have such a loving, nurturing community. A little bit after Anjum moves into a local graveyard, she begins to offer funeral services to the people of the city. For her, “the one clear criterion was that Jannat Funeral Services would only bury those whom the graveyards and imams of the Duniya had rejected.” By positioning herself as marginal to the Duniya, or the “real world,” Anjum opens herself up to accepting all marginalized populations, who have no other place to bury their dead with dignity. Anjum elevates and celebrates the human life that is discarded and disrespected by the society in which she lives. It is through this that she is able to build community and business; the funeral home is almost always bustling with friends and customers. In addition to accepting customers in spite of their low social status, Anjum also accepts customers regardless of their religion, and makes a point of performing the correct funeral services for each one. Comically, when she decides to perform a funeral ceremony for Miss Udaya Jebeen’s birth mother, a communist revolutionary who has died, she “[wants] to know what the correct rituals were for the funeral of a communist.” This endearing but misguided assumption—that communism is a religion with specific rites for funeral services—demonstrates the extent to which Anjum is not only accepting of people from all different backgrounds, but also respectful of those differences.

The name Anjum chooses for her funeral home is also significant—it is Jannat, which means “paradise.” The idea that paradise would be a shack in the middle of a graveyard surrounded by homeless people and people struggling with addition is, at first, startling. But it is through demonstrating the extent to which Anjum is able to build community surrounding that place that Roy may be able to convince readers that Jannat Funeral Services may, indeed, be a kind of paradise. It is a place where the downtrodden are welcomed, where the marginalized finally find a home. The overall vision Roy creates of India is thoroughly dystopic in the level of violence the powerful inflict on the powerless—the military occupation of Kashmir, and the murders of Muslim and lower-caste people at the hands of Hindu mobs all clearly implicate social division as the root of violence. By contrast, Jannat Funeral Services provides the only space of utopia. Through juxtaposing Jannat, which exists far on the margins of society, with the violence and isolation that even the most privileged members of mainstream society experience, Roy clearly illuminates the values of social inclusivity rather than hierarchy.