ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

Social Inequality and Human Dignity in the Novels of Mulk Raj Anand and Amitav Ghosh

In this article, we will explore the themes of social inequality and human dignity using examples from the literary works of two authors (Mulk Raj Anand and Amitav Ghosh). In particular, we will look at examples from Anand's (Untouchable, Coolie, Two Leaves & Bud, The Big Heart, The Old Woman and the Cow), as well as Ghosh's (The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, Flood of Fire) novels. The discussion will draw upon the primary source material previously mentioned, as well as upon critical sources proposed in the context of this study (i.e. New Humanism, Caste Realism, Labor Exploitation, Patriarchal Ideology, Dalit Resistance in Anand's Work along with recent scholarship from theorizing Diaspora, Ideology, Ethics of Representation, Ecological Thought, Precarity, and Postcolonial Identities concerning the writings of Amitav Ghosh). The difference between these two authors’ styles of writing is substantial. The distinction between the writers is what will lead to reading them together. Anand's novels get closer to the wounded body of the sweeper, coolie, peasant, artisan, and oppressed female; Ghosh's work deals with issues of memory, migration, empire, ecology, and the historical afterlife. While there are similarities in the writing of both authors, both present systems of inequality that constrict individuals to either caste, class, race, gender, their mode of labouring, their place within the ecology, or their purpose within an empire. Therefore, the paper contends that the works of both writers constitute an ongoing analysis of how marginalized peoples' rights to dignity are denied and how their dignity continues to appear in literature.