Kanthapura as a Gandhian novel

• Introduction:

Kanthapura is one of the foremost narratives of freedom struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi in an epic fashion written by Raja Rao. Raja Rao is the youngest among the Trio of Indian English literature specially novels.

Kanthapura is an account of the renaissance of Indian spiritual life
under the impact of independence movement. It’s message is essentially spiritual and cultural.

Dr. T Prabhakar

• Kanthapura as a Gandhian novel:

Between two World Wars, in Gandhian Age, writers were highly inspired by Gandhian philosophy. Most of all writers have written works based on Gandhian thoughts and talked about Gandhi’s work both spiritually and politically. Among them two novels are remarkable,

 Kanthapura by Raja Rao

Waiting for Mahatma by R K Narayan

Rao’s Kanthapura is a Gandhian epic. His treatment and manner of narrating Gandhian philosophy can be studied in three phases.

• Transformation of Freedom Struggle into a Mass Movement:

Entire the story of Kanthapura is well knitted with the theme of Freedom struggle. The novel depicts the pathetic condition of Indians under the cruel Britishers. Many kings have invaded our nation India and then came Britishers, in a same way, many freedom fighters were active in freedom struggle then came Mahatma Gandhi. Rao has mentioned this and connected it to religious thoughts and beliefs. Rao has made the story of freedom struggle spiritual instead of historical.

How Gandhian thoughts were spread in each part of India is shown through the small South Indian village Kanthapura. Kanthapura represents the India and shows miserable condition of India under the British Rule.

For Kanthapura is India in microcosm; what happened there is what happened in many places during India’s fight for freedom.

C D NArsimhaiha

Rao does not introduce Gandhi as one of the characters but introduces Narayan Moorthy as embodiment of his thoughts. Moorthy introduces Gandhian doctrines to the villagers. He goes door to door and inspires them to spin and join Khadi Movement. He made a small committee of Congress in his own village, collected money, and sent it to National Congress. He asked his committee members to follow some rules: to seek truth, ahimsa and to spin.

Moorthy does not care for people who criticize him for joining Pariah and Sudras into freedom struggle. He thus helps to convert fragmented India into a homogeneous one by joining all villagers to independence movement. The support of villagers to freedom struggle is also noteworthy. They support for Salt Satyagraha, get news of Dandiyatra every day, pray for them, and fast for them.

Kanthapura’s chief interest is in the depiction of how Gandhiji turned freedom struggle into a mass movement and in the glorification of Gandhian doctrine.

• Depiction of Inhumanity of Britishers:

However, in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura the British administrators of justice have been shown to be unjust in their ways.

B D Sharma and S K Sharma

The Britishers were too much cruel to Indian people. How they exploited Indian people is shown in the novel Kanthapura vividly.

Firstly, in the episode of Skiffengton Coffee Estate reflects the cruelty of Britishers. The master of this estate was an English man and villagers were working there as coolies. They were treated badly by their master- Sahib.

The Sahib says that if you work well you will get sweets and if you work badly you will be beaten- that is the law of the place.

Moorthy visits the place, tries to help them, and tries to literate them but he is prevented to do so. It is much cruel that they appoint one Indian to torture the Indian people. After the demise of Sahib, his nephew inherits the estate. He is called New Sahib. He is worse than the elder one. He exploits women physically and if she denies, her husband gets punished. He spreads sexual immorality.

They used Divide and Rule formula. Bade Khan is appointed there to barter women.

• Treatment of Freedom Struggle in Kanthapura:

Kanthapura is the first successful novel dealing with freedom struggle as a theme. It is the masterpiece of Raja Rao. He doesn’t describe the entire history, but he describes the last phase of freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi. Khadi Movement, Dandi March, Non Coorporation, etc. are depicted in the novel.

The story is narrated not in a historic or romantic mode but in a spiritual mode. Rao perceives freedom struggle as a holy war between good and evil, virtue and vice. This struggle is viewed similar to war between Rama and Ravana, Pandavas and Kauravas. There are several evidences to consider freedom struggle as a holy war in Kanthapura. 

The first is employment of Harikatha as amode of narration.

Kanthapura also shares certain narrative techniques with the Puranas. The story is told rapidly, all in a one breath, by a village grandmother and this style reflects the oral heritage evident in Harikatha.

Makarand Paranjape

The second is, use of myths and symbols. Invocation of God for the incarnation to save the motherland is religious and spiritual as well. As Krishna killed Kali, Gandhi was born to protect people from Britishers. Gandhiji is also compared to Rama, who came to save Sita as Gandhi came to save Bharata Mata.

Rao has mentioned the deity of the village Kanthapura- Kenchamma. She is the protector of the entire village Kanthapura.

• Conclusion:

Raja Rao has created a masterpiece in Kanthapura where the Western tradition of novel writing mixed well with Indian tradition of storytelling. Kanthapura proves Gandhi as a hero without being a character of the novel.

Davies: the Caretaker

• Introduction

I went into a room and saw one person standing up and one person sitting down, and few weeks later, I wrote The Room. I went into another room and saw two people sitting down and a few years later, I wrote The Birthday Party. I looked through a door into a third room and saw two people standing up and I wrote The Caretaker.

Harold Pinter

The Caretaker is a play in three acts by the well-known British playwright Harold Pinter. It was published in 1960. It’s centered around three main characters, Davies, Aston and Mick. 

• Davies as the Protagonist

The portrayal of Davies is a bitter commentary on the human condition.

Ruby Cohen

Davies is a tramp, the central character of the play. After a fight at his cafe job, he is brought by Aston to the room where he is offered the position of a caretaker, though he has not experience of it. At the end, he is thrown out from the room as Aston and Mick need him no more in their room and life as well. It is controversial either it was Davies who is responsible for not having stable job or the society in which he is considered as anti-social.  

• Davies – Aston relationship

The Davies Aston relationship begins with Aston apparently in command of the situation as both host and rescuer of Davies. His calm, quiet acceptance of the uneasy guest seems a natural posture of superiority and Davies at first accepts it as such. As both guest and rescued, Davies in contrast to Aston, is noisy, repetitive, and insecure.

Though, Aston is mentally not stable, he is helpful to others as we can see he helps Davies. Davies has a very good relations with Aston but later on he starts complaining about Aston to Mick.

• Davies’ complaints about Aston

Davies has a lot to complaint about in terms of Aston, and while much of it is quotidian and not all that interesting, this is important one:

I mean, we don’t have any conversation, you see? You can’t live in the same room with someone who…who don’t have any conversation with you.

Davies

• Davies’ racial prejudices  

All them Greeks had it, Poles, Greeks, Blacks, the lot of them, all them aliens had it…and they had me working there.

Davies

From the very first, Davies appears quite fixed on race. It can be considered as defense mechanism. He does not like other races. He represents the racial prejudices in the society in Britain in 1950s.

• Davies’ love for cleanliness

It’s because of dirty habits, I left my wife. After we were married just for a week…

Davies

Davies likes cleanliness; he doesn’t like those people who are dirty or not having sense of personal hygiene. For him, cleanliness matters a lot that we can see, he left his wife for this reason. He maintains cleanliness even in hard times of his life.  

• Quest for Identity

In some respect the three characters of The Caretaker are all in search of their identity in all dispossessed, all in search of their identity in a materialistic world.

Burkman

Davies has two names Mac Davies and Bernard Jenkins,  his real name and his commonly accepted name. Besides, he often mentions his identity papers which are not with him but he will fetch them from Sidcup.

• Conclusion

To conclude, one can say, Davies is the central character of The Cretaker and he represents the modern man after the Second World War.

Teacher's Day

As we all know that we celebrate teacher's day in memory of Dr Radhakrishnan. On this special occasion, students become teachers and try to imitate his or her favorite or ideal or role model teacher. This is the best opportunity to be grateful to the milestones of our life, our teachers.

Besides, our parents are the first teachers in our life, especially mother, she is equal to thousands of teachers.

To watch one such short film Click here👇

        The Best Teacher