Theme of Submission and Rebellion: These two themes are closely related by Anand in “Untouchable,” because without the act of being forced to submit to abuse by the upper caste Hindus, there really wouldn’t be a need for the Bakha to rebel against the system to get through the day. Bakha feels that he must rebel against the torture and slander cursed against him everyday because if he doesn’t fight it then he’s accepting that all of the horrible things everyone says about him and the people of his caste are true, and that would make for an even more miserable and unbearable life. Bakha doesn’t rebel in the normal sense of the word, his rebellion stems from a mind set against the system. He dresses different to set himself apart from his low class comrades, but he doesn’t go out and attack the Hindus who oppress him. The irony here is that by dressing like the Tommies instead of the Hindus, he is somewhat submitting to the power of Britain and their control over India. It is a somewhat never ending cycle of being tired of the abuse by the harsh Hindu custom and rebelling against those traditions by trying to accept the ways in which the British lives and in doing this submitting to their customs over Indian tradition.
What it means to be free: It seems that to Anand, being free doesn’t necessarily mean to have India not colonized/controlled by Britain because in reality that wouldn’t change the lives of the untouchables. In fact, for Bakha, it would take away one of the ways in which he rebels because if the British never came, then he wouldn’t have learned to dress like them. Also, in order to be free the lower castes do not need to try to break away from Britain’s hold on India, but need to find a way to get their fellow mankind to accept them. The untouchables will not be free until everyone in their society sees how wrong and horrible the caste system is and stops abusing people according to their ancestry and their occupations.
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