Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR)

Vol. 5, No. 3 (168-178)

© Author(s) 2020
ISSN: 2279-3933
Original Article

Cadaverous Images of the Caste System: An Analysis of U.R.

Ananthamurthy’s Novella Samskara and Mahasweta Devi’s Short Story
“Douloti the Bountiful”
Sachini Marasinghe
Department of English,
Abstract University of Peradeniya,
Sri Lanka
U.R. Ananthamurthy’s novella Samskara and Mahasweta Devi’s short story
sachini_marasinghe@yahoo.com
“Douloti the Bountiful” both employ the image of the diseased body/corpse
in their own significant ways to drive home the point that there is much that
continues to ail the stagnant Indian society on the journey towards
modernity and a more forward-thinking and more inclusive nation state. In
Samskara, Ananthamurthy is concerned with the apparent reluctance and
even failure of Indian society to rid itself from the shackles of the oppressive
caste system and embrace the change/transformation that was sought after
in the period leading up to (and directly after) Independence. Mahasweta
Devi’s “Douloti the Bountiful” located in the aftermath of Independence
during the time when India was emerging as a nation state wherein all
subjects ought to have been truly equal, underscores the point that this was
in fact far from being the reality. This paper examines the ways in which
both works employ the image of the rotting cadaver in their own varied
ways to comment on the lack of progress in the Indian
culture/society/nation and to call out for the dire need for a more inclusive,
egalitarian society.

Keywords: body, nation-state, modernity, progress, independence

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Vol. 5, No. 3 (168-178)
© Author(s) 2020
ISSN: 2279-3933
Original Article

INTRODUCTION to caste distinctions with an iron fist

since caste acts as the lifeblood of the
Bengali writer and activist Mahasweta
rich and the powerful and the sole
Devi’s short story “Douloti the
basis on which their oppression of the
Bountiful” appearing in the collection
poor and the outcastes is justified.
Imaginary Maps (1995) ends with a
searingly graphic description of Ananthamurthy’s novella was
twenty-seven year old “kamiya originally published in Kannada in
whore” Douloti’s “tormented corpse, 1965 but according to A.K Ramanujan
putrefied with venereal disease” after in the Afterword to his English
years of sexual exploitation, fittingly translation:
spread out over the map of India
“filling the entire Indian peninsula “several details suggest that the
from the oceans to the Himalayas” time of action could be early ’30s or
(Devi, 1995, p. 93) on the very day of ’40s: references to older coins
Independence itself. Postcolonial India (anna), and to the then-popular
that came to pride itself as a nation daily Tayinadu, the rise of the
state, the very premise of which is Congress Party, etc.”
equality amongst all its citizens, was (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 128).
nevertheless unable to rid itself from
Mahasweta Devi’s short story is set in
the shackles of bonded labour, the
post-Independence India; Douloti,
painful reminder of which lay in the
most aptly and most tellingly, had
form of young Douloti spread-eagled
in a pool of blood over the freshly- been born the very year after India
gained Independence. Nevertheless, it
drawn map of the Indian nation.
is apparent that in spite of the
In U.R Ananthamurthy’s novella decades-long difference with regard to
Samskara, the renegade Brahmin their temporal setting, there is not
Naranappa’s rotting corpse lingers in much of a difference in the way the
its putrefying state till almost the very moribund Indian culture/society is
end, casting a pall of death over the constructed in these two works.
entire Brahmin agrahara. He is a
Samskara can be viewed as a socio-
reprobate in the eyes of his fellow
political allegory of pre-Independence
Brahmins for having cast off his
India, an India that was clinging on to
Brahmin ways and rebelling against
the status quo which results in all of its ancient ways, age-old practices and
beliefs, refusing to give in to the waves
them refusing to perform his last
of change brought in by the colonizers
funeral rites and letting the cadaver
as well as by indigenous reformers like
fester away. This incident can be
Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Mahatma
viewed as symbolizing Hindu Indian
Gandhi. The ideals sought after by
culture and its blatant refusal to
these different and conflicting parties
change, the very culture that holds on

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Vol. 5, No. 3 (168-178)
© Author(s) 2020
ISSN: 2279-3933
Original Article

may not have been the same but they LITERATURE REVIEW
all sought to affect one thing i.e.
The significance of the body (life and
change and this was the very thing
lifeless) and the wider implications of
that conservative, moribund India was
the image/object of the body has been
not willing to accept. Devi’s “Douloti
examined by several scholars in
the Bountiful”, despite being set in
anthropological, sociological,
postcolonial post-Independence India,
historical, and political terms.
shows that bonded labour and the
Katherine Verdery (1999) in a riveting
oppression of outcastes still permeate
examination of political burials and
the Indian social structure in spite of
reburials in Eastern Europe and the
India presenting itself/being perceived
Soviet Union tracing back to 1989
as a nation state that accepts all as its
sheds light on the significance of
free and equal citizens and despite the
“bodies as symbolic vehicles” (p. 27)
allusion to change/transformation in
that are able to transcend their
the social setup at the end of Samskara
corporeality/materiality and take on
In this paper, emphasis is placed on new meaning as political symbols.
the images of Naranappa’s and Verdery (1999) brings in the example
Douloti’s corpses to examine the ways of the popularity of relics during
in which they stand as symbols for the medieval times (i.e. the physical
putrefying Indian society and culture, remains of saints) to drive home the
be it pre-Independence or post- point that “bodies have the advantage
Independence India, highlighting the of concreteness that nonetheless
caste-ridden Indian society’s refusal to transcends time, making past
accept change and adopt a more immediately present” (p.27). New
progressive and more humane stance significance and new meaning (of the
towards all human beings. The paper kind that were nonexistent when alive)
seeks to draw lines of comparison can be infused into a dead body which
between the metaphor of the body in thereafter becomes a symbol for the
both works and the overall moribund sociopolitical implications of the world
body politic of Indian culture/nation to it was a part of when alive.
underscore the ways in which both Zoe Crossland (2009) in a paper
works cry out for the dire need for anchored in the field of forensic
transformation in the oppressively anthropology draws upon the
stagnant Indian culture/nation. In discourse of the exhumation and
doing so, the trope of the subsequent analysis of human remains
body/cadaver is taken as a focal point and the wider implications of the said
and examined as a potent process. Crossland (2009) underscores
signifier/symbol of widespread socio- the idea that agency is infused into
political ramifications. human remains that are given “the
ability to speak (truthfully) about their

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Vol. 5, No. 3 (168-178)
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ISSN: 2279-3933
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histories” (p. 75) endowing them with power/agency by escaping the throes
a “life of [their] own” (p. 76). Michel of the societal forces that had tried to
Foucault (as cited in Crossland, 2009) claw at it when alive.
in The Birth of the Clinic (1973) sheds
DISCUSSION/ANALYSIS
light on the changing practices of
physicians at the end of the eighteenth Analysis of U.R. Ananthamurthy’s
century and underscores the Samskara
developments made by them in
Death permeates the entirety of
diagnosing illnesses based on the
Ananthamurthy’s novel and translator
symptoms displayed by the body.
A.K Ramanujan in his Afterword to
Hence, the dead body became for
Samskara states, “The opening event is
these physicians, a valuable source of
a death, an anti-brahminical brahmin’s
information/insight into the elusive
death and it brings in its wake a
origins of illnesses which in turn
plague, many deaths, questions
brought about a better understanding
without answers…and the rebirth of
of the living (Crossland, 2009, p. 71).
one good Brahmin, Praneshacharya
Foucault (2003) in a lecture dated 17 (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 123)”. The
March 1976 spoke of “techniques used term “rebirth” is significant in this
to take control over bodies” in the context since it connotes the meaning
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of life after death. Praneshacharya, the
with “devices that were used to ensure highly respected Brahmin leader of the
the spatial distribution of individual agrahara at Durvasapura, revered for
bodies (their separation, their miles around as the “Crest-Jewel of
alignment, their serialization, and their Vedic Learning” (Ananthamurthy,
surveillance )” (p. 242) through 2016, p. 16), in the wake of
institutions such as schools, hospitals, Naranappa’s death has a sexual
barracks, etc. Foucault identifies this encounter with Naranappa’s outcaste
seizure of power over the individual mistress Chandri that shatters the
body as the essential first step with the whole of his existence and hitherto
second step following soon after in the held worldviews. One may question
form of mass scale population control whether Praneshacharya’s “rebirth”
through processes such as “the ratio of following his sexual encounter with
births to deaths, the rate of Chandri and the existential crisis that
reproduction, the fertility of a follows which forces him to shed his
population, and so on” (p. 243). Brahminism altogether is a prefiguring
Foucault (2003) further states that of the “rebirth” of India, the new
“death is beyond the reach of power, Indian “nation” that was expected to
and power has a grip on it only in emerge following Independence from
general, overall, or statistical terms” the shackles of British rule.
(p. 245). Hence, one can state that the
body upon death takes on a newfound
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ISSN: 2279-3933
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At the very end of the book it is stated dead man was grisly, disfigured”
that “Pranesharya waited, anxious, (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 61).
expectant” (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p.
113) as he sat in a cart on his way back He wields just as much influence over
to Durvasapura, uncertain how his the other Brahmins in death as he did
transformation and transgression in life, the stench of his bloated,
would be received by the other decomposing corpse being what rings
Brahmins. Can this be an allusion to the death knell for the agrahara:
the run up to Indian Independence?
“Ayyayyo, look, look!” A vulture on
The tides were swiftly changing, the
the roof was an omen of death.
old order was shifting, and a new
Nothing like it had ever happened
uncertainty had gripped the nation. As
before…Garudacharya lifted his
mentioned previously, the novella was
head and looked into the dazzling
originally published in 1965 and could
heat above. He saw vultures,
thus also be seen as a commentary and
vultures, vultures in the blue blue
a looking back at an independent
sky reeling, gliding, spiraling circle
nation state that had failed to live up
below circle, descending.
to its promise.
(Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 55)
According to Indubala Pandya (1987),
Meenakshi Mukherjee’s comments
Praneshacharya’s thoughts after he
(1994) are significant in this context:
sleeps with Naranappa’s mistress are
significant: “Naranappa’s death, instead of
being his defeat, turns out to be a
“[he] keeps comparing himself to
victory…the corpse of Naranappa
Naranappa so often that it is clear
seems to swell gradually and fill up
that he identifies himself with that
the whole agrahara in a
unorthodox Brahmin. It would not
metaphorical as well as real sense”
be an exaggeration, therefore, to
(p. 174).
say that the new Praneshacharya
rises out of the dead Naranappa”. Naranappa’s boldness, his unabashed
(p. 144) assertion of his individualism and his
disillusionment with the hypocrisy
Naranappa, the rogue Brahmin
and barrenness of Brahmin society
proudly and openly flouts all rules of
stand out and his rotting cadaver can
orthodox Brahmin society and he is
be considered as symbolic of the
literally a plague on the agrahara in
cadaver of the Hindu Indian culture
death just as he was in life:
against which he rebelled.
“The dead body was reeking. The
Verdery (1999) underscores the
belly was swollen, the face of the
following point about the dead body:

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ISSN: 2279-3933
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“a body’s materiality can be critical “Your texts and rites don’t work
to its symbolic efficacy…for anymore. The Congress Party is
instance, a corpse can be moved coming to power, you’ll have to
around, displayed, and open up the temples to all
strategically located in specific outcastes” (Ananthamurthy, 2016,
places” (p. 27). p. 26).

This statement rings true in this Naranappa is receptive to the socio-

instance since the mere presence of political changes taking place outside
Naranappa’s body is sufficient to the agrahara unlike his fellow
cause an upheaval in the agrahara. Brahmins who have shut themselves
Crossland (2009) makes the statement off from the world. It is important to
that dead bodies possess a “life of note that unlike his counterparts, he
[their] own” (p. 76) and that they are believes in an egalitarian casteless
“active agents” (p. 76) in their own society and makes it a point to rebel
terms. This is nowhere more apparent against all those who prescribe
than in the instance of Naranappa’s otherwise. Thus, he casts aside his
body being the instigator of all the lawfully wedded Brahmin wife, gets
woes heaped upon the Durvasapura himself an outcaste mistress, mingles
Brahmins. with Muslims and other “low-castes”
and goes out of his way to antagonize
Furthermore, it is extremely telling the Brahmins in order to show his
that the news of the plague that disgust and disillusionment with the
Naranappa brings to the agrahara is existing system:
announced in the Tayinadu newspaper
since Tayinadu, means “Motherland” “I’ll destroy brahminism, I
(Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 121): certainly will. My only sorrow is
that there’s no brahminism really
“The Tayinadu newspaper that left to destroy in this place – except
came yesterday, though a week you” (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 28).
old, had printed the news in a
corner: ‘Plague in Shivamogge’. V.S. Naipaul (1976) in India: A
Naranappa did bring the plague Wounded Civilization quotes Sudhir
into the agrahara, and plague Kakar, an Indian psychiatrist
spreads like wildfire” according to whom, the Indian ego is
(Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 87). “underdeveloped” (p. 102). This
“underdeveloped ego”, according to
When Praneshacharya once went to Kakar, is created by the detailed social
confront Naranappa about his organization of Indian life and he goes
wayward ways, Naranappa fired back on to state that,
at him:

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“caste and clan are more than to a central concept of Hinduism”

brotherhoods; they define the (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 123). He
individual completely. The goes on to state that it has many
individual is never on his own; he meanings: “A rite of passage or life
is always fundamentally a member cycle ceremony”, “forming well,
of his group, with a complex making perfect”, “the realizing of past
apparatus of rules, rituals and perceptions”, and “preparation,
taboos” (Naipaul, 1976, p. 102). making ready” (Ananthamurthy, 2016,
p. 123) are just some of the meanings.
It is precisely Naranappa’s blatant Ramanujan then makes the following
refusal to accept this code and his bold claim:
assertion of his individualism that
make him appear a reprobate in the “In trying to resolve the dilemma
eyes of his fellow Brahmins. of who, if any, should perform the
Furthermore, it is Naranappa’s death, heretic’s death-rite (a samskara), the
his ever-present corpse and the chain Acharya begins a samskara (a
of events which follow that pave the transformation) for himself. A rite
way for Praneshacharya’s for the dead man becomes a rite of
individualism to emerge. Hence, the passage for the living”
story according to Mukherjee (1994): (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p. 123).

“reflects the crisis of a civilization Thus, by extension, the question arises

in which through a painful process as to whether one can view
a collective code is giving way to Praneshacharya’s transgression, his
individual choice” (p. 169). “rebirth” (Ananthamurthy, 2016, p.
123) and him “[rising] out of the dead
It is also important to note that this Naranappa” (Pandya, 1987, p. 144) as a
luxury of individual choice and the foreshadowing of the samskara or
capability of asserting one’s transformation that many expected the
individualism are limited to a certain Indian nation to go through after
privileged section of society only, in Independence but which did not
this context, to those of the privileged materialize as will be made evident in
upper castes since both Naranappa the following discussion on “Douloti
and Praneshacharya belong to the the Bountiful”.
Brahmin order. Douloti and the other
kamiya labourers that feature in Analysis of Mahasweta Devi’s “Douloti
“Douloti the Bountiful” for example, the Bountiful”
are completely removed from this
When reading Mahasweta Devi’s
altogether.
“Douloti the Bountiful” set almost
With regard to the title Samskara, three decades after Independence, one
Ramanujan states that “Samskara refers realizes that the transformation that

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was hoped for has not become a them, their sole preoccupation in life
reality, at least for the subalterns of being the struggle for survival.
society. Spivak (1989) speaking of
Nandini Bhattacharya (2007) calls
Mahasweta Devi states that she as a
Bakha, the outcaste protagonist in
writer:
Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Untouchable
“lingers in postcoloniality, in the “the alien within the nation” (p. xi).
space of difference, in decolonized Similarly, Douloti and the others of
terrain. Her material often contains her caste are all “aliens within the
problematic representations of nation”. They do not even know what
decolonization after a negotiated the nation/country is as is evidenced
political independence” [emphasis by Rajbi, the washerwoman’s
given] (p. 105). exclamation:

This “negotiated political “Oh Sadhuji, my place is Seora

independence” means nothing for the village. What do you call a
outcastes, the subalterns of society country? I know tahsil [a pre-
who do not figure in the “nation” that independence revenue collecting
emerged in its aftermath. As Spivak unit], I know station, I don’t know
(1989) goes on to state, “…the word country” (Devi, 1995, p. 41).
“India” is sometimes a lid on an
In such a context, the normal practices
immense and equally
of democracy are “counterintuitive”
unacknowledged subaltern
and “absurd” (Spivak, 1989, p. 118)
heterogeneity” (p. 108).
and this is nowhere more apparent in
The words of Douloti’s father, Ganori the story than in the instances of the
are an apt indicator of this: census and the general elections. Devi
(1995) evokes how Bhuneswar, a
“When there was independence for
kamiya labourer reacted to the polling
you and the bosses, the boss fed
booths in the election:
everyone puffed and stuffed bread,
had a big show, went to town. “What sort of thing is this that each
Douloti was born the year after person is put into an empty
that” (Devi, 1995, p. 44). pigeonhole? How shall I put the
mark on the paper or on my
As an outcaste kamiya labourer whose
hand?” (p. 33).
entire life is spent in slavery and
bondage, Independence means Equally poignant are another’s
nothing to him. The outcastes as a comments during the 1961 census:
whole are not included in such events
“You'll write my age? Write, write,
of national importance signifying that
maybe ten, maybe twenty, eh?
they have literally been cast out from
What? I have grandchildren, I can't
the nation state. Thus, “Mother India”
have so few years?... No, no, how
(Devi, 1995, p. 41) means nothing to
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can I be sixty? I have heard that our hard on him. Tohri hospital is
brave master is fifty? I am Ghasi by eleven miles away. Bhuneswar and
caste, and poor. How can I have others take him there on a wood-
more age than he?” (Devi, 1995, p. and-rope cot. After three months
32). he returns with his body broken
and becomes Crook Nagesia” (p.
The census and the elections play an
34).
important role in the constitution and
rehearsal of the nation state and their For Douloti, the curse of her bonded
utter foreignness to the kamiya prostitution (during which her body is
labourers simply underscores the ploughed and plundered) begins as a
gravity of their plight. Foucault’s view result of her father Ganori’s injury
(2003) of such forms of population which leaves his body broken and
control as a “seizure of power” that is crooked. The responsibility of paying
directed “not at man[sic]-as-body but out the debt falls on Douloti’s
at man[sic]-as-species” (243) is shoulders and as a “kamiya whore”,
significant in this instance. Foucault her body is exploited, over and over
(2003) views such forms of control as again by sexual predators for whom
regulatory mechanisms used to she is nothing but an object to be made
“establish an equilibrium, maintain an use of and discarded:
average, establish a sort of
“Douloti has taken the yoke of
homeostasis” (p. 246) in the society at
Crook's bond-slavery on her
large. In “Douloti the Bountiful”, an
shoulders. Now Latia is her client,
India that was just starting to raise its
her body is tight. Then going down
head from the throes of British colonial
and down Douloti will be as
power makes use of such mechanisms
skeletal as Somni. She will repay
as the census and the elections in a bid
the bond-slavery loan as a beggar
to regain some of the control it had
(Devi, 199, p. 72).
been denied as a nation for so long.
The women in the brothel are not
However, the point of origin for such
considered as humans beings; they are
mass scale control is the individual
merely “kamiya whores” reduced to
and by extension, the individual body
machines, automatons, mere tools
and throughout the story Devi (1995)
existing only to gratify the base desires
uses the metaphor of the body of the
of the high caste men and churn out
kamiya labourer as the ground on
the money.
which sexual and economic
exploitation at the hands of the Rampiyari, the madam of the brothel
privileged upper castes takes place: sings:

“Ganori tries to lift the cart by the “These are all Paramananda's
strength of his shoulders. Trying, kamiyas/ Douloti and Reoti and
he falls on his face. The axle sits Somni /….The boss has turned
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them into land /The boss ploughs “Who will light the fire Prasadji?
and ploughs their land and raises There is no one to light the
the crop/They are all fire…There are people for passing
Paramananda's kamiya” (Devi, laws, there are people to ride jeeps,
1995, p. 59). but no one to light the fire” (Devi,
1995, p. 88).
Their bodies have become land to be
ploughed and made use of. Their Ultimately, Douloti’s plight is no
situation in life as “kamiya whores” is different from the plight of Kalabati,
such that they own absolutely nothing, her predecessor as Latia, the wealthy
not even their own bodies which are at contractor’s personal kamiya whore:
the mercy of those with the power to
“He was much taken by Kalabati.
own them and draw a profit out of
She got a belly in two months. I
them until they are drained of their
dosed her. But the medicine was
very lifeblood:
strong. On the third day passing
“I’m a kamiya whore. I’ll of course blood like water. I ran to the
be kicked out when my carcass medicine man. In the meantime
shrivels” (Devi, 1995, p. 68). Latia, dead drunk, entered
Kalabati’s room…The girl died.
Ironically, not even the political
The police came. Latiaji gave
“activists” who claim to make a case
money and arranged everything.
for tribals and outcastes actually do
(Devi, 1995, p. 61)
something for them. "What is to be
done?" (Devi, 1995, p. 85) asks one The story ends with the heart-
Prasad Mahato several times and the wrenching image of Douloti’s
white missionary, Father Bomfuller damaged body, brutalized by years of
merely takes depositions from the sexual exploitation and infected with
women and claims he has started on a venereal disease:
survey entitled "The Incidence of
“…here lies bonded labor spread-
Bonded Labor" (Devi, 1995, p. 85)
eagled, kamiya-whore Douloti
which is simply filed away in New
Nagesia’s tormented corpse,
Delhi and consigned to oblivion.
putrified with venereal disease,
Only Bono Nagesia, Douloti’s fellow having vomited up all the blood in
villager, his heart aching at the sight of its desiccated lungs…Douloti is all
Douloti’s shriveled form, understands over India” (Devi, 1995, p. 93).
the need for immediate action and
bemoans the lack of it: "You will leave
CONCLUSION
after hearing it all?" (Devi, 1995, p. 87),
he asks and then makes the following Both these stories are located in an
poignant statement: India that is supposedly on the path
towards change and modernity but the

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question arises as to whether the References

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Nevertheless, Douloti’s story, set three Novel and Society in India. New Delhi,
decades after Independence, shows India: Oxford University Press.
Naipaul, V. S. (1979). India: A Wounded
that this quest for change and equality
Civilization. Harmondsworth, England:
has not been realized. In the case of Penguin Books.
Douloti, the nation moves on leaving Pandya, I. (1987). Anantha Murthy's
her behind. Independence Day is 'Samskara': A novel of complex
celebrated with pomp and ceremony structure and narrative
technique. Indian Literature, 30 (3 (119)),
while her battered corpse, the painful
135-146. Retrieved October 22, 2020,
reminder of the extent of the torture from
and exploitation she underwent, lies http://www.jstor.org/stable/23337934
all over the map of India, the India Spivak, G. (1989). Woman in Difference:
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is the forgotten, fallen woman and just
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metaphor/symbol for
festering/moribund ideals and a
calling out for the dire need for change
and rejuvenation in the Indian nation
and society.

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