Untouchable

by

Mulk Raj Anand

Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi Character Analysis

Mohandas K. Gandhi, also known as the Mahatma (or “great-souled one”), was the historical figure most responsible for India’s successful independence movement and the end of the British Raj. Gandhi was famous for his hunger strikes, his 1930 Salt March (and other forms of non-violent resistance), and his efforts to end the concept of untouchability. Though Gandhi was radical in many ways, he also resisted industrialization and clung to some Hindu norms, including norms that entrenched some of the harmful prejudices he claimed to fight against. In real life, Gandhi’s ideas were often challenged from the left by B. R. Ambedkar, while in the novel, his critics are R. N. Bashir and Iqbal Nath Sarshar. The complexity of Gandhi’s politics is reflected in Bakha’s view of him: after he hears Gandhi give a speech in Bulashah, Bakha is torn between gratitude for Gandhi’s anti-caste platform and frustration at some of Gandhi’s more patronizing ideas.

Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi Quotes in Untouchable

The Untouchable quotes below are all either spoken by Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi or refer to Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Inequality, Harm, and Internalization Theme Icon
).
Pages 105–139 Quotes

The beautiful garden bowers planted by the ancient Hindu kings and since then neglected were thoroughly damaged as the mob followed behind Bakha. It was as if the crowd had determined to crush everything, however ancient or beautiful, that lay in the way of their achievement of all that Gandhi stood for. It was as if they knew, by an instinct sure than that of conscious knowledge, that the things of the old civilization must be destroyed in order to make room for those of the new. It seemed as if, in trampling on the blades of green grass, they were deliberately, brutally trampling on a part of themselves which they had begun to abhor, and from which they wanted to escape to Gandhi.

Related Characters: Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:

He wanted to be detached. It wasn’t that he had lost grip of the emotion that had brought him swirling on the tide of the rushing stream of people. But he became aware of the fact of being a sweeper by the contrast which his dirty khaki uniform presented to the white garments of most of the crowd. There was an insuperable barrier between himself and the crowd, the barrier of caste. He was part of a consciousness which he could share and yet not understand. He had been lifted from the gutter, through the barriers of space, to partake of a life which was his, and yet not his. He was in the midst of a humanity which included him in its folds and yet debarred him from entering into a sentient, living, quivering contact with it.

Related Characters: Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:

Bakha saw a sallow-faced Englishman, whom he knew to be the District Superintendent of Police, standing by the roadside in a khaki uniform of breaches, polished leather gators and blue-puggareed, khaki sun helmet, not as smart as the military officers’, but, of course, possessing for Bakha all the qualities of the sahibs’ clothes. Somehow, however, at this moment Bakha was not interested in sahibs, probably because in the midst of this enormous crowd of Indians, fired with enthusiasm for their leader, the foreigners seemed out of place, insignificant, the representative of an order which seemed to have nothing to do with the natives.

Related Characters: Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Related Symbols: English Clothes, The Sun
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:

Bakha felt thrilled to the very marrow of his bones. That the Mahatma should want to be born as an outcaste! That he should love scavenging! He loved the man. He felt he could put his life in his hands and ask him to do what he liked with it. For him he would do anything. He would like to go and be a scavenger at his ashram.

Related Characters: Bakha (speaker), Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:

‘It is India's genius to accept all things,’ said the poet fiercely. ‘We have, throughout our long history, been realists believing in the stuff of this world, in the here and the now, in the flesh and the blood. […] We can see through the idiocy of these Europeans who defied money. They were barbarians and lost their heads in the worship of gold. We know life. We know it's secret flow. We have danced to its rhythms. […] We can learn to be aware with a new awareness. We are still eager to learn. We cannot go wrong. Our enslavers muddle through things. We can see things clearly.’

Related Characters: Iqbal Nath Sarshar (speaker), Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi, R. N. Bashir
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:

As the brief Indian twilight came and went, a sudden impulse shot through the transformations of space and time, and gathered all the elements that were dispersed in the stream of [Bakha’s] soul into a tentative decision: ‘I shall go and tell father all that Gandhi said about us,’ he whispered to himself, ‘and all that that poet said. Perhaps I can find the poet some day and ask him about his machine.’ And he proceeded homewards.

Related Characters: Bakha (speaker), Lakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi, Iqbal Nath Sarshar
Related Symbols: The Sun
Page Number: 139
Explanation and Analysis:
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Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi Quotes in Untouchable

The Untouchable quotes below are all either spoken by Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi or refer to Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Inequality, Harm, and Internalization Theme Icon
).
Pages 105–139 Quotes

The beautiful garden bowers planted by the ancient Hindu kings and since then neglected were thoroughly damaged as the mob followed behind Bakha. It was as if the crowd had determined to crush everything, however ancient or beautiful, that lay in the way of their achievement of all that Gandhi stood for. It was as if they knew, by an instinct sure than that of conscious knowledge, that the things of the old civilization must be destroyed in order to make room for those of the new. It seemed as if, in trampling on the blades of green grass, they were deliberately, brutally trampling on a part of themselves which they had begun to abhor, and from which they wanted to escape to Gandhi.

Related Characters: Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:

He wanted to be detached. It wasn’t that he had lost grip of the emotion that had brought him swirling on the tide of the rushing stream of people. But he became aware of the fact of being a sweeper by the contrast which his dirty khaki uniform presented to the white garments of most of the crowd. There was an insuperable barrier between himself and the crowd, the barrier of caste. He was part of a consciousness which he could share and yet not understand. He had been lifted from the gutter, through the barriers of space, to partake of a life which was his, and yet not his. He was in the midst of a humanity which included him in its folds and yet debarred him from entering into a sentient, living, quivering contact with it.

Related Characters: Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:

Bakha saw a sallow-faced Englishman, whom he knew to be the District Superintendent of Police, standing by the roadside in a khaki uniform of breaches, polished leather gators and blue-puggareed, khaki sun helmet, not as smart as the military officers’, but, of course, possessing for Bakha all the qualities of the sahibs’ clothes. Somehow, however, at this moment Bakha was not interested in sahibs, probably because in the midst of this enormous crowd of Indians, fired with enthusiasm for their leader, the foreigners seemed out of place, insignificant, the representative of an order which seemed to have nothing to do with the natives.

Related Characters: Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Related Symbols: English Clothes, The Sun
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:

Bakha felt thrilled to the very marrow of his bones. That the Mahatma should want to be born as an outcaste! That he should love scavenging! He loved the man. He felt he could put his life in his hands and ask him to do what he liked with it. For him he would do anything. He would like to go and be a scavenger at his ashram.

Related Characters: Bakha (speaker), Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:

‘It is India's genius to accept all things,’ said the poet fiercely. ‘We have, throughout our long history, been realists believing in the stuff of this world, in the here and the now, in the flesh and the blood. […] We can see through the idiocy of these Europeans who defied money. They were barbarians and lost their heads in the worship of gold. We know life. We know it's secret flow. We have danced to its rhythms. […] We can learn to be aware with a new awareness. We are still eager to learn. We cannot go wrong. Our enslavers muddle through things. We can see things clearly.’

Related Characters: Iqbal Nath Sarshar (speaker), Bakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi, R. N. Bashir
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:

As the brief Indian twilight came and went, a sudden impulse shot through the transformations of space and time, and gathered all the elements that were dispersed in the stream of [Bakha’s] soul into a tentative decision: ‘I shall go and tell father all that Gandhi said about us,’ he whispered to himself, ‘and all that that poet said. Perhaps I can find the poet some day and ask him about his machine.’ And he proceeded homewards.

Related Characters: Bakha (speaker), Lakha, Mahatma Gandhi/Mohandas K. Gandhi, Iqbal Nath Sarshar
Related Symbols: The Sun
Page Number: 139
Explanation and Analysis: