Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Coolie: The Marxist Approach

P. Priyanka
M.Phil. English,
Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College,
Trichy –620 002
Contact no.: 8526174940
email: udayapriya195@gmail.com
Abstract:

Coolie, a socioeconomic novel written by Mulk Raj Anand was first published in 1936. He has
authored other works like The Sword and the Sickle, Untouchable, Two Leaves and a Bud with themes
related to discrimination, orthodoxy, social disparity, untouchability and the highhandedness of the
powerful and the rich. This paper explores on the class system of India and the coolie characters
presented in the novel Coolie portray the life of working class all over the world. The protagonist Munoo
suffers of poverty and exploitation by the upper class society. Munoo and his co-workers undergo
oppression and they fall victim to social injustice. This paper deals with societal statements necessary for
the development of society with the application of Marxist theory. Marxism analyses class relations and
social conflict with materialistic interpretation of historical development. Marxism analyze and critique
the development of capitalism through the concept of historical materialism. This paper presents the class
conflict arising in the capitalistic societies. This paper focuses on degrading class consciousness with
bringing up communal society with social equality.

Coolie is a novel showing the tragic situation of millions of coolies who are without land and has
run away from home due to hunger and starvation. It is because of their poor condition that they become
coolies and fall prey to forces of oppression in society. This novel revolves around the migration of
Munoo in search of a better life. Coolie means unskilled workers. Mulk Raj Anand is considered the
Messiah of the downtrodden. He is known as India’s Charles Dickens. In Coolie, Anand shows the state
of coolies on a big scale. Coolie’s appeal is so much innate and translated into more than 38 languages of
the world. It brings to light the exploitation, issues of caste ridden society and communal riots. Anand has
used Capitalism, Imperialism, Industrialism and Communalism to show their influence on the
dispossessed and socially oppressed.

Karl Marx did his economic and social analysis in his contemporary age of 19th century. Marx
was a reader of Dickens in particular and earned for communist society. Marxist criticism underwent
significant development in the 1920s and 1930s. Marxist criticism depend largely on the issue of realism.
The novel Coolie has realism. Mulk Raj Anand has portrayed the real India, and more specifically the
poor India in Coolie. Though the novel is written based on social concerns of 1930s, it continues to be the
same in the present century India. Marxist critic Georg Lukacs analysed novel with its ability to reflect
the historical and material conditions of society as these were the criteria for assessing its realism.
Marxist critics examine characters by exploring the wider social and historical forces of which they are
seen as products. Munoo, the proletariat is the product of the social conditions and historical forces in the
novel Coolie. The plight of Munoo represents the suffering of disadvantaged world-wide who are
exploited by the capitalists. Their poverty is because of the presence of capitalism in the world.

The society is divided by class system and categorised as haves and have-nots. The rich exploit
the poor in several ways since they are meek and at the same time satisfied with their living conditions.
The class system does not give chance for the poor to come up. Inspite of the hard working of the
working class, they remain poor always. This is because of the low wages given to them. The capitalist
wants the proletariat remain proletariat so that he could have labour and profit. To the capitalist any
labour moving out of the working class is a threat, as he is completely dependent on the labour. They are
compelled into being voiceless and silenced where they wanted to arise. The colonizers troubled the
people both mentally and physically. Hari’s family represents millions of toiling coolies in India who are
ill-treated and insufficiently nourished till the end. The colonizers saw the ill-fated Indians just as
animals. The capitalist make the proletariat work and work until their death.

Munoo, the protagonist of Coolie, is born poor and he tries to avail chances of progress but he
was never able to overcome poverty. Indebtedness and unemployment forces Munoo to go to town in
search of work. Munoo started working in the house of Babu Nathoo Ram where Bibiji always kept
Munoo engaged. Despite of the financial position of Babu Nathoo Ram and the routine work given to
Munoo, Munoo was paid very less for his labour. Bibiji constantly abused him with curses for his
slightest faults. Munoo as a servant accepts the exhausting work, the abuse or the cruel treatment. Munoo
took his identity as a servant and understood and accepted everything in the percept of master-servant
relationship. He gradually started accepting the ways of his master and stopped complaining or accusing
the ill-treatment imposed on him. He viewed the master-servant relationship “like sunshine and sunset,
inevitable, and unquestionable”(Anand, Mulk Raj.Coolie.50)

Munoo notices the similarity of servants irrelevant to their caste hierarchy. He realises economic
status has a strong hold on society. Munoo’s master Nathoo Ram is the servant of his higher official Mr.
England and Mr. England is the servant to the British Government. He observed that class system is a
ladder where anyone can move up or down. But obstacles created on poor people make them remain in
the lower position forever. It is to protect the advanced position of the rich.
 I am a kshatriya and I am poor, and Varma, Brahmin, is a servant boy, a menial, because
his is poor. No, caste does not matter. The Babus are like the Sahib logs, and all servants
look alike: there must only be two kinds of people in the world, the rich and the poor. (75)

One day Sheila, Nathoo Ram’s daugther played with her friends. Munoo too joined them and bit
her playfully. For this, he was mercilessly kicked and beaten by Babuji. Munoo unable to tolerate the hurt
and humiliation imposed on him, runs away from Baboo’s house. As he was unaware of the next move to
take, he climbed a train unintentionally. There he was discovered by a passenger, Seth Prabh Dyal, who
takes him to Daulatpur. Prabh Dyal and his wife are kind to Munoo. But here he is ill-treated by Ganpat,
Prabh’s partner in Pickle Factory. Munoo’s happiness was short lived and vanished when Ganpat cheated
on Prabh Dayal and left him bankrupted. Thomas Hardy says: Happiness is an occasional episode in the
general drama of pain. Out on the streets again Munoo becomes a Coolie. Getting a job as coolie was not
easy for him as there were many others in desperate competition. Munoo strived and strained in bigger
the city is, the more cruel it is to the sons of Adam,’ accomplishing his job but what he had at the end of
the day was not sufficient for his living. Munoo goes for Bombay believing he would settle with a job
there. An elephant-driver helps Munoo to reach his destination and he warns Munoo: “The bigger the city
is, the more difficult it is to the sons of adam” (125). Munoo goes for a refreshing drink and the
proprietor makes him sit on the floor and not on the chairs. Munoo for his identity as Coolie, is treated
like a leper. Munoo finds job at George White Cotton Mills in Bombay. Munoo finds it difficult to
undergo capitalistic suppression accompanied with colonial exploitation. Munoo feels like a trapped
animal, weak and helpless. Munoo has no economic freedom and this makes him yield himself to be
oppressed. The Trade Union President, Sauda says, “We are human beings and not soulless machines.”(284)
The coolies of the Sir George White factory were not treated as human beings and they were made to
work as machines from dawn to dusk. In spite of the low wages they paid bribes, they are provided with
poor living condition. They lived at the clutches of the debt and interests summing up day by day. They
had not the job security. The labour organisations and labour demands were not recognised by the law.

The Trade Union of the Sir George White Factory announced strike for the employers to meet with the
demand of the labourers. This was a shock to the labourers as they will become helpless without work. “The
privilege of work--a privilege, indeed, because it meant wages, whereas its withdrawal would mean
starvation!” (277) The coolies in the factory were not skilled workers. They had daily wages and even a day out
of work will make them unable to buy food. Low wages were given by the labourers in spite of the profit they
make out of the workers.

Class Conflict is an issue from time immemorial. Class consciousness retains under the
capitalistic mode of production, where the minority bourgeoisie who own the means of production is in
no way related to the proletariat, the large population who produce goods and services. The material
contradiction between the classes produce social injustice. Marxism analyse the material conditions and
economic activities required to fulfil human material needs in any society. It stresses on co-operative
ownership replacing private property. A socialist economy would not support private profits but
concentrate on satisfying human needs.

The factory had unbearable heat radiating from the tin sheets and continuous machine sound that makes the
employee sick. The crowded dwellings, dirty latrines, regular cuttings made from the low pay agitated the Trade
Union leaders. As a result the labours committee, Red Flag Union’s President Suada aroused rebellion and
awareness among coolies with his powerful speech. Sauda announces;

There are only two kinds of people in the world, the rich and the poor and between the two there is
no connection. The rich and the powerful, the magnificient and the glorious, whose opulence is
built on robbery and theft and open warfare, are honoured and admired by the whole world, and by
themselves. You, the poor and the humble, you, the meek and the gentle, wretches that you are,
swindled out of your rights, and broken in body and soul, you are respected by no one, and you do
not respect yourselves.(284)

The capitalist society extracts wealth through the surplus profit produced by the proletariat. The wealth of rich may
not be a product of robbery and theft but their stingy ways on coolies like low wages make the coolies assume that
they have acquired wealth by sucking their blood and sweat. Munoo and Hari with his family seek a night’s shelter
on the crowded pavements of Bombay. A woman there moaned the death of her recently expired husband. Hari
responded consoling to that woman as her husband has attained the release, a release from the hell on earth.
Munoo was accidentally dashed by Mrs. Main Waring’s car and she took him as servant to Simla. She
employed him as richshaw puller and her boy servant. He is also sexually exploited by her sometimes.
Munoo worn out by heavy work, got weaker. He didn’t have proper shelter to sleep in and because of the
cold weather he caught T.B and died at the age of sixteen.

The economic system forms the superstructure of all other social phenomena; social relations,
political institutions, legal systems, cultural systems, aesthetics and ideologies. Socialism provides the
right climate for a progressive society. A Communist society could have turned Munoo into a happy
individual, and also averted his tragic end. Marxism aims for a classless society based on common
ownership where each donates according to his ability and it is distributed to each according to his needs.
Thus, the haves and have-nots both can enjoy the life by practising fraternity, peace, love and justice.

Works cited

Aanad, Mulk Raj. Coolie. Great Britain. The Stanhope Press Ltd.1936.Print

en.m.wikipedia.org

Webster, Roger.Studying Literary Theory, an Introduction. Great Britain. J W Arrowsmith Ltd.1996.Print