Analysis of Coolie

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Introduction

Published in 1936, just a year after Untouchable, Coolie is Mulk Raj Anand’s second major novel and a powerful continuation of his exploration of social injustice in India. While Untouchable focused on the vertical oppression of the caste system, Coolie examines the horizontal oppression of class and economic exploitation in colonial India. It is a sprawling, picaresque novel that follows its young protagonist through a series of misfortunes, painting a vast and harrowing picture of the lives of the poor and powerless. The novel is often described as a “prose epic of modern India.”

Plot Summary

The novel tells the story of Munoo, a fourteen-year-old orphan from the Kangra hills. Forced to leave his village to earn a living, Munoo embarks on a journey that takes him through various strata of Indian society, each stop revealing a new form of exploitation.

His journey begins as a domestic servant in the house of a bank clerk in a small town, where he is subjected to constant abuse and humiliation. He escapes to the industrial town of Daulatpur, where he finds work in a primitive pickle factory and later as a porter in the grain market. Here, he experiences the brutal reality of labor exploitation. His journey then takes him to Bombay, where he works in a cotton mill under horrific conditions and lives in a crowded slum. In Bombay, he also briefly works as a rickshaw-puller, a job that drains his physical strength. Finally, he is taken to Shimla by a kind Anglo-Indian woman, Mrs. Mainwaring, where he works as her personal servant and rickshaw-puller. The constant hardship and physical labor take their toll, and Munoo, still a teenager, contracts tuberculosis and dies a lonely, tragic death.

Major Characters

• Munoo: The protagonist. He is an innocent, resilient, and fundamentally good-natured boy who is thrust into a cruel and unforgiving world. Unlike Bakha from Untouchable, who is trapped in a single location by his caste, Munoo is constantly moving, yet he cannot escape the oppressive structures of class and poverty. His journey is a tragic odyssey through the lower depths of Indian society, and his eventual death highlights the disposability of the poor.

• Various Masters and Exploiters: Throughout his journey, Munoo encounters a series of characters who exploit him, from the abusive housewife in the first town to the foreman at the cotton mill. These characters represent the different faces of a heartless and exploitative social and economic system.

• Mrs. Mainwaring: The Anglo-Indian woman who takes Munoo to Shimla. While she appears to be kind, she is also self-absorbed and uses Munoo for her own convenience, ultimately contributing to his demise. She represents a more subtle, paternalistic form of exploitation.

Major Themes

• Economic Exploitation and the Evils of Capitalism: This is the central theme of the novel. Anand provides a powerful critique of industrial capitalism in colonial India, showing how it dehumanizes workers and treats them as disposable commodities. The horrific conditions in the pickle factory and the cotton mill are vivid illustrations of this theme.

• The Journey from Innocence to Experience: Munoo begins his journey as a naive village boy, but his experiences quickly strip him of his innocence. His story is a tragic coming-of-age narrative where the process of growing up is synonymous with learning about the cruelty and injustice of the world.

• Social Mobility and its Illusions: Munoo is constantly on the move, searching for a better life. However, the novel shows that for the poor and powerless, social mobility is an illusion. Each new location brings only a different form of suffering, and Munoo remains trapped at the bottom of the social ladder, a perpetual “coolie” (unskilled laborer).

• The Indifference of Society: A key aspect of the novel is the pervasive indifference of the upper and middle classes to the suffering of the poor. Munoo’s plight is largely invisible to those in power, and his death goes unnoticed. Anand uses Munoo’s story to force the reader to confront this uncomfortable reality.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Coolie solidified Mulk Raj Anand’s reputation as a major voice of social realism in India. The novel was praised for its epic scope, its powerful portrayal of poverty, and its passionate plea for social justice. It is considered a foundational text of the Indian English novel and a classic of proletarian literature. Along with Untouchable, it remains one of Anand’s most important and widely read works, offering a timeless and devastating critique of economic inequality and exploitation.