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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Mulk Raj Anand imagined resistance as a struggle against connected but distinct forms of domination: caste exclusion within Indian society, British colonial rule, and the exploitation of workers. His novels made these systems visible in different settings, while his political writing and wartime broadcasting took that challenge beyond fiction.
What “global resistance” means in Anand’s work
Anand did not reduce caste, colonial rule and labor exploitation to one interchangeable experience. He placed them in different institutions and settings, then showed how power could restrict people’s movement, dignity and choices. The Library of Congress describes his writing as exposing British rule as well as “layers of colonialism within Indian society.” That phrase is the Library’s characterization, not Anand’s own wording. Library of Congress: Mulk Raj Anand Collection
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
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Untouchable (Penguin Classics) | $14.91 | Buy on Amazon |
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Coolie (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) | $16.37 | Buy on Amazon |
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Greatest Short Stories | $16.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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ACROSS THE BLACK WATERS | $15.65 | Buy on Amazon |
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Untouchable (Twentieth Century Classics) by Anand, Mulk Raj (1989) Paperback | $23.93 | Buy on Amazon |
The novels make this frame concrete: caste society in Untouchable, precarious work and mobility in Coolie, and plantation labor under colonial rule in Two Leaves and a Bud. Their subjects connect through unequal power, but they are not the same history or the same kind of resistance.
Three novels, three settings of oppression
| Novel | Setting and social position | What the work brings into view |
|---|---|---|
| Untouchable (1935) | Bakha, a sweeper boy marked as untouchable | Everyday humiliation and the restrictions enforced by caste |
| Coolie (1936) | A child worker searching for work amid economic hardship and movement between jobs | Labor precarity and class, read by scholar Sonali Perera in relation to migrant labor and global economic crisis |
| Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) | Indian workers on a colonial plantation | British exploitation of workers and resources, as described in a university thesis abstract |
The publication dates and titles are listed by Penguin Random House; the descriptions of the novels draw on the Library of Congress, an INFLIBNET teaching chapter, Perera’s scholarly chapter abstract and a university repository thesis abstract. Penguin Random House: Mulk Raj Anand INFLIBNET Scroll.in
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Untouchable: caste made visible in daily life
Published in 1935, Untouchable follows Bakha through a day shaped by caste discrimination. The novel draws attention not only to exclusion as an abstract social rule, but to the humiliations and constraints that organize ordinary encounters. The Library of Congress says Anand’s early novels directed attention to social evils sustained in the name of religion and tradition. An INFLIBNET teaching account describes the novel as raising different possible responses, including Gandhi’s reformist message and the prospect of a flush toilet. These are competing routes the text brings into view, not a single, simple solution.
The novel’s focus on one character and his constrained day gives readers a close view of how social hierarchy is lived. Its subject is caste exclusion; it should not be treated as simply equivalent to race or class elsewhere.
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Coolie: labor, mobility and a wider economy
Coolie (1936) follows a child worker’s search for work. The story’s movement through labor and hardship can be read beyond a purely local frame: Sonali Perera’s scholarly chapter abstract places the novel alongside migrant labor, the global trade depression and currency crisis, literary internationalism, and anticolonial labor struggles. That is Perera’s interpretation of the novel, not a claim that it represents every labor movement.
This wider context makes labor central to Anand’s imagination of resistance: a worker’s insecurity is connected to economic systems that cross borders, even as the novel remains rooted in its own characters and circumstances.
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Two Leaves and a Bud: plantation labor under colonial rule
In Two Leaves and a Bud (1937), Anand turns to workers on a colonial plantation. Penguin Random House confirms the book and publication year; a university repository’s thesis abstract describes the novel as criticizing British exploitation of Indian workers and resources. The plantation setting shows colonial power operating through work and control over resources, distinct from the everyday caste restrictions at the center of Untouchable.
Resistance beyond the novels
Anand’s political engagement also included public writing and broadcasting. INFLIBNET says he wrote on behalf of the Indian cause during the independence movement, supported freedom elsewhere—especially in Spain during the Spanish Civil War—and worked as a BBC scriptwriter during World War II. The teaching chapter quotes Anand as saying, “That is why I have always considered literature and art as the instruments of humanism.” It does not identify the original speech or publication, so the quotation is best understood as attributed to Anand through that source.
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Pushpesh Pant’s Scroll essay gives a more detailed account of Anand’s wartime radio work with George Orwell. According to the essay, the talks sought to encourage anti-imperialist feeling in India. In the series New Weapons of War, Anand explained terms including “Propaganda,” “New Order” and “Pluto-Democracy.” The account describes public language itself as a site of political struggle: explaining political terms could help listeners recognize how power sought to shape understanding. The essay is the source for this specific broadcast narrative; it does not establish a verified verbatim sentence spoken by Anand on air. Pushpesh Pant, Scroll.in
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.International connections without false equivalence
Anand’s global reach is clearest when the settings remain distinct while their mechanisms of power are compared. Caste in Untouchable, migrant working-class precarity in Coolie, and colonial plantation labor in Two Leaves and a Bud each restrict agency in different ways. Perera’s reading of Coolie supplies a transnational labor frame, while the Library of Congress notes Anand’s international literary relationships, including E. M. Forster, who wrote the foreword to Untouchable.
Scroll’s essay draws parallels between Anand’s depiction of caste and George Orwell’s account of class and poverty in Down and Out in Paris and London, and also invokes Richard Wright’s writing on structural racism. These are comparisons made by the essay; they do not establish direct influence or make caste, class and race interchangeable.
A writer and an institution-builder
Anand’s political activity extended into literary organization. The Library of Congress identifies him as a founding member of the Progressive Writers Association. Scroll reports that after the war he returned to India and founded MARG magazine in 1946. These roles put his fiction within a broader effort to connect literature with social and political debate.
The Library of Congress page, dated January 11, 2016, reported more than 150 publications by and on Anand in its collection at that time. That is a dated collection count, not a current live total. Library of Congress collection overview
Where to begin reading Anand
- Start with Untouchable for Anand’s close portrayal of caste exclusion through Bakha’s daily experience.
- Read Coolie to follow a child worker’s search for work and consider the broader labor context identified by Perera.
- Turn to Two Leaves and a Bud for the colonial plantation setting and its critique of worker and resource exploitation.
These novels form a useful route through Anand’s changing settings of oppression, rather than a claim that all his fiction makes the same argument. Penguin Random House’s author bibliography also lists The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1940), The Sword and the Sickle (1942), and Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953).
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