Free Writing on Untouchable

Overtime I have learned plenty about racism between different races, but I never put much thought into the possibility that a specific race could have classes and stereotypes among their own people. In a novel that I recently read, Untouchable, I learned the different class systems that took place in India during the 1930’s. The novel Untouchable highlights the issues of racial formation by showing us how India has let caste systems determine people’s importance in society.  The author tells his story through Bakha, a teenage outcaste living in the slums of India. Bakha is seen as an “untouchable” in the society’s caste system. Being an outcaste came with the baggage of labor that was to be done, sweeping and cleaning the latrines were duties that Bakha was destined to due to his class system.  His filthy profession was a reminder of the human status Bakha was condemned to from birth. The conflict in the novel between Bakha and his oppressors demonstrates to readers the importance for his emotions.  On one hand he doesn’t question the paradigm he lives in; on the other, knowledge on the Englishmen’s way of living arouses questions and feelings within him that make him question the paradigm he lives in.  Based on Bakha’s hate, resentment, and anger shown all throughout the book we learn that his emotions are what draw him to the Englishmen way of living. These emotions draw him to the English way of living because ….  His experiences help me understand his confusion for the way he’s treated and his confusion for the restrictions he faces in living the way he would like to.

 Throughout the book I see experiences that Bakha goes through that grow into the resentment he has towards being an outcaste. In a specific scene in the novel Bakha is roaming around the town and accidently bumps into a Hindu merchant. This is beyond an insult to the merchant and he begins to yell out racial slurs, “Keep to the side you low caste vermin! Why don’t you call you swine, and announce your approach! Do you have touched me and defiled me, you cockeyed son of a bow legged scorpion! Now I will have to go and take a bath to purify myself” (Anand 46). This is a perfect example of the treatment he goes through because of his role in society. Experiences like these are what contribute to Bakha’s hate for being an outcaste. Watching the way English men live is what draws Bakha to their lifestyle and makes him start question the way that he lives. He begins to wonder why he has to do things that Bramines, higher caste people, aren’t entitled to do.