Exposure of Social Injustice and Humiliation in Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand

Introduction An examination of Mulk Raj Anand’s renowned novel, Untouchable, written in 1935, reveals the exposure of social injustice and humiliation borne by members of the so-called untouchable or Dalit community. The story focuses on a fifteen-year-old boy named Bakha who belongs to the low caste in a hierarchical and discriminatory society that ostracises certain groups of people, consigning them to menial and demeaning jobs. Caste distinctions have defined the structures of South Asian society for centuries, determining what an individual could or could not do compared to other social groups. The irony is that such supposedly divinely ordained concepts, micro-managing and controlling the lives of millions of individuals, are still justified in the name of Hinduism, the main religion in modern India, which also sanctions the conversion of ‘lower’ caste individuals into Sikhism and other religions.