Manual Scavenging and the Issue of Untouchability in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable

Abstract

Untouchability is an evil social menace, where certain group of people are discriminated or alienated based on their caste, class or job from the mainstream sections of the society. Untouchables are the most oppressed and marginalized people, who often lack right and voice in the public domain. Manual scavenging is considered or treated as a job attributed to the untouchables of lowest strata of the society. These people are not given any dignity due to their job of carrying human waste using their bare hands. Mulk Raj Anand presents the sufferings and hardships of an untouchable boy named Bakha as a manual scavenger faced in the casteist society through his well known novel Untouchable.