The Importance of the caste system in Rabindranath Tagore and U.R Ananthamurthy’s novels
Abstract
This paper aims to study the Importance of the caste system in India. It takes into study the literary works done by Rabindranath Tagore and U.R Ananthamurthy. People in India are different concerning gender color, religion caste, and class. The caste system in India has prevailed for quite a period and was the formation of a social actions which belatedly became the convention of life, with the continuance of servitude and supremacy due to one’s religion, individual colour, where one was born, economic and the civil status.
Introduction
“Equality in every society is a fundamental human right.” In India, where discrimination is so rampant, equality can only be realized by doing away with the caste and discriminations based on class. Indian societies have had from the history been exposed to social, cultural, economic affliction due to the odd to historical, cultural, and communal factors in the community.
Caste system in India has prevailed for quite a period and was the formation of a social actions which belatedly became the convention of life, with the continuance of servitude and supremacy due to one’s religion, individual color, where one was born, economic and the civil status (ipl.org, p 1). The present caste system is a result of the regulations of the British, and before the colonial regulations, four Varnas were linked and varied on occupation as opposed to an individual’s birth. Caste adaptability became reliable and less flexible. The hierarchy caste system that lead India was not vague but its challenges owed to its dictatorial and exploitative nature.
This system is the fundamental feature of the Indian social arrangement. It is made up of two varying concepts “Varna” and “Jati”. Varna referred to four different classes named Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. Shudras are currently known as the Dalits and represent the untouchables in the community. Jati came from birthing. Due to the system of caste, untouchability turned into a huge issue. It resulted in the untouchables ruled out form the people of higher class (ipl.org). Upper class and caste people divided the residential patterning of caste into the Brahmins in India’s rural areas. Caste degenerated over a period of years due to the exploitation of priests and higher-class people in the society. This gave rise to the untouchability, a system where one individual cannot touch the other. At the same time, one society does not mingle with another, and it becomes a profane if one touches the other (ipl.org, p 1). Presently, the law and regulations of India tries to put an end to the caste system by providing a uniform law.
The Importance of the caste system in Rabindranath Tagore and U.R Ananthamurthy’s novels
English novels started as the novels of social pragmatism but not as love or historical romance in India. It was linked to the social, monetary, and political affairs prevailing in the country. Novel writing in India was imported from the Western countries.
An important individual in the Indian literature includes U.R Ananthamurthy and Rabindranath Tagore. U.R Ananthamurthy writings include Sharada of ‘Prashne’, Venkamma and Seetha of ‘Prasta’, Shankaraiah of ‘Prashne’. Rabindranath Tagore was a genius. He influenced the thoughts of people from his choices presented in the novel. He began by emulating Bankim Chandra Chatterjee before finding his own themes in the Choker Bali. He did other literary novels such as Gora (1923), The Home and The World (1919), Binodini (1959), The Wreck (1919), Four Chapters (1950), and Farewell My Friend (1956). For Tagore’s novels, he helped Indians redefine themselves and formed a new knowledge of their norms. He interpreted a number of his Bengali jobs to English, which has aided in the founding of the versions of Indian-English novels.
Rabindranath Tagore’s thoughts have, in the past, gained little notice from the historians. He has been lauded for his literary writings, where he is vocal in social as well as political issues caste being one of them (Chunder, R.). Tagore was an affiliate of the less superior caste, Pirali Brahmans, which seemed to erode since their social relationship with the Muslims. This happened to Tagore’s family, as the caste Hindus couldn’t enter marriage relationships with the socially excluded members, and those who dared were rejected. Caste was an element to be considered in those years.
- R. Ananthamurthy describes the caste system as that which divides individuals into high-level and low-level groups with varying roles, living standards, and functions (A, M, p 69). Members belonging to the same caste had a common social environment and promoted individuals emotions in the system. Untouchability was due to the cast system and is a speck in Hinduism. Brahmins were the most superior and had the same power and respect throughout the society (A, M, p 69). U. R. Ananthamurthy in the Bharathipura depicts a system made up of upper and low caste as well as the way people of the lower level were treated differently as opposed to those of higher-level individuals.
- R. Ananthamurthy, in his writing of Bharathipura, He writes about the industrialization, economic development, socialism, and the fight of people to go above their caste and their categorical interest. In his novel, he concentrates on an informed compatriot who is more determined in freeing, eliminating individual burdens. For him to accomplish this, he has to perform malicious things which in other terms means polluting many sanctified things that have been handed over from the past. Such impel to break his burden of the past, yields to a disastrous, sarcastic situation (A, M, p 71). The protagonist, Jagannatha was propelled to shatter the harsh caste pecking order of his town, he decided to force the untouchables, the eroded ones in the higher caste influenced society, to gain their release by touching holy objects, and eroding it, what came after were odd turnarounds, illogical developments, and an unexpected turn of events. The objects became more holy and more powerful compared to the moments before, thus making the untouchables more endangered than before (A, M, p 71). The Jagannatha’s character is rooted in deeper unsound and wild patterns of ideology and illogical systems of societal order that yields power, where needful, to destabilize whatever tries its jurisdiction.
Ananthamurthy’s writings is an interesting of how the modern universe create itself again and restore the past to guard its pecking order structure. The complex reasoning generated by the pas or current, is what Ananthamurthy fictional work tours from the modern to the past in his writings (A, M, p 71).
According to Tagore, as the Swadeshi movement grew, upper-class caste Hindu leaders came to be influenced. They used Hindu images and signs to call others to masses while forcing the peasants to avoid foreign commodities, which were cheap and chose the expensive Swedish goods (Chunder, R.). “And yet it was not that my husband refused to support __Swadeshi__, or was in any way against the Cause. Only he had not been able whole-heartedly to accept the spirit of __Bande Mataram_” This move estranged the Muslims and the lower class of people, caste peasants. This added to the alienation of the low class by the upper caste Hindu Zamindars.
Caste alienation and communalization of became linked. Tagore was quick to realize such oppression. In his writings, he strongly campaigned for a unity between the Muslim and the Hindu with a judgment of the trial of the Swadeshi leaders to force Swadeshi onto the low caste Namasudra and Muslim peasants who were not willing.
Bharathipura’s writings concern the untouchability character in a cultural society that is trying to modernize through the new economic challenges brought about by a specific class of people (A, M, p 71). With this regard, economic and traditional actions are monitored by the leading class, which got appropriate Temples and Gods. One cannot break one without breaking others since they are simultaneously correlated. Jagannatha could not challenge the caste system without destroying the economic arrangement of the absurdly outdated town while violating its holy symbols (A, M, p 71).
Ananthamurthy does not give modernity a great choice since it carries structures greater dehumanizing forces. A topic worked in his other novels the Awasthe and Bhava in the year 1978 and 1994, respectively (A, M, p 71). He depicts that the current democracies are as oppressive as the autocracy in the feudal societies. For this reason, his writings remain open-ended as he colligate cultural and modernity, the rural and the urban, the feudal caste order, and the depersonalized cosmopolis. The modern Indian reality is a scary blend of all of these incompatible elements that fuse, merge into each other, but at the same time, separate and differ one another. The indecision of the writer that acts as the only metaphor that can reflect all the confusions and the paradoxes in Indian life.
Conclusion
- R. Ananthamurthy’s ingenuity is writing pictures of the current problems in the cultural societies. This are challenges, which are a result of a changed line of thinking and change in ideology. Cultures, current education, caste system, and other varying practices that were incorporated in the past as a rule in the society have now changed individuals to a very new outlook. In his other works, U. R. Ananthamurthy’s mirrors the cultural life with blinded beliefs and without any thoughts (for example, Sharada of ‘Prashne,’ Venkamma and Seetha of ‘Prasta’, Shankaraiah of ‘Prashne’). The characters in his novels have social responsibilities and are aware of them; for example, Praneshachari in ‘Samskara’ has a role of guiding his people in the village.
Political changes have remained to be a menace, especially in India. There have been struggles between the political parties going back to the history. People have to undertake all that is risk and do what is acceptable by the rules and the regulations (TagoreWeb.). There is a need to show the authorities that people are strong in terms of character and power in truth and beg whenever there is nothing to offer.
Works Cited
Chunder, R. Tagore, and Caste: From Brahmacharyasram to Swadeshi Movement (1901–07). Sahapedia. https://www.sahapedia.org/tagore-and-caste-brahmacharyasram-swadeshi-movement-1901%E2%80%9307.
A, M. (2018). A Study of Indian Social Structure of Caste: Bharathipura by U. R. Ananthamurthy. languageinindia.com. http://www.languageinindia.com/june2018/vitseminarenglish/monikabharathipuraananthamurthy1.pdf.
TagoreWeb. tagoreweb.in. https://tagoreweb.in/Render/ShowContent.aspx?ct=Essays.
ipl.org. The Importance Of The Caste System In India. https://www.ipl.org/essay/The-Importance-Of-The-Caste-System-In-F3RM2WH4AJP6.