Voice of the Voiceless: A Social Exploitation in Two Leaves and a Bud by Mulk Raj Anand

Mulk Raj Anand is a renowned Indian novelist of English-language novels, short tales, and critical essays. He is acclaimed for his empathetic and realistic depictions of Indians living in poverty. He examines the everyday lives of common Indians while tackling societal concerns like injustice and poverty. His writings about the colonised community in the nationalistic perspective places a strong impact on human empathy social injustice and economic exploitation. This novel Two Leaves and a Bud highlights on the brutal realities of colonialism. The exploitation about the Indian labours working in the tea plantation of remote Assam. This was regarded as one of his significant work. It was later adopted into a Hindi film in Rahi (1953) directed by K A Abbas and The Wayfarer in English was directed by V James Murray and his team. This paper tries to interpret the critique of social inequality, exploitation, and oppression, advocating reform and social change. It is necessary to overhaul this corrupt system, which treated the tea plantation as a huge prison where the labours were imprisoned and isolated totally away from the outside world.