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Havildar
Outcastes are those who are shunned from the Indian caste system entirely, deemed “polluted” because of their jobs (which include scavenging, cutting grass, washing clothes, and working with leather). Bakha and his family, disparaged even by the other outcastes for their jobs as sweepers, demonstrate the perils of a life outside of caste: Bakha is denied the right to education or worship, while his sister Sohini is sexually preyed on by members of the Brahmin caste. Even food and water are denied to outcastes, who have to wait for higher-caste Hindus to draw water from the well for them or donate leftover food. Bakha’s sense of shame and discomfort leads him to embrace the term “untouchable” to describe his outcaste status, especially after his run-in with the touched man leads him to internalize accusations that he is “polluted.” Later in Untouchable, Mohandas K. Gandhi introduces the word harijan (which translates to “children of god”) to describe outcastes, aiming to destigmatize this persecuted group. Today, outcastes are often referred to as “Dalits”—and despite massive reforms in Indian government, Dalits are frequently abused, ostracized, and denied their basic rights.
Outcaste/Untouchable/Harijan Quotes in Untouchable
The Untouchable quotes below are all either spoken by Outcaste/Untouchable/Harijan or refer to Outcaste/Untouchable/Harijan. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Pages 3–43
Quotes
The expectant outcastes were busy getting their pictures ready, but as that only meant shifting themselves into position so to be nearest to this most bountiful, most generous of men, all their attention was fixed on him [Pundit Kali Nath]. […] But the Brahmin, becoming interested in the stirrings of his stomach, and the changing phases of his belly, looked, for a moment, absent-minded. A subtle wave of warmth seemed to have descended slowly down from his arms to the pit of his abdomen, and he felt a strange stirring above his navel such as he had not experienced for months, so pleasing was it in its intimations of the relief it would bring him.
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Where the lane finished, the heat of the sun seemed to spread as from a bonfire out into the empty space of the grounds beyond the outcastes colony. [Bakha] sniffed at the clean, fresh air around the flat stretch of land before him and vaguely sensed a difference between the odorous, smoky world of refuse and the open, radiant world of the sun. He wanted to warm his flesh; we wanted the warmth to get behind the scales of the dry, powdery surface that had formed on his fingers; we wanted the blood in the blue veins that stood out on the back of his hand to melt. He lifted his face to the sun, open eyed for a moment, then with the pupils of his eyes half closed, half open. And he lifted his chin upright.
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“Why are we always abused? The santry inspictor and the sahib that day abused my father. They always abuse us. Because we are sweepers. Because we touch dung. They hate dung. I hate it too. That's why I came here. I was tired of working on the latrines every day. That's why they don't touch us, the high castes. […] For them I am a sweeper, sweeper - untouchable! Untouchable! Untouchable! That's the word! Untouchable! I am an untouchable!”
Pages 43–73
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A superb specimen of humanity [Bakha] seemed whenever he made the high resolve to say something, to go and do something, his fine form rising like a tiger at bay. And yet […] he could not overstep the barriers which the conventions of his superiors had built up to protect their weakness against him. He could not invade the magic circle which protects a priest from attack by anybody, especially by a low-caste man. So, in the highest moment of his strength, the slave in him asserted himself, and he lapsed back, wild with torture, biting his lips, ruminating his grievances […].
He contemplated his experience now in the spirit of resignation which he had inherited through the long centuries down through his countless outcaste ancestors, fixed, yet flowing like a wave, confirmed at the beginning of each generation by the discipline of the caste ideal.
‘But, father, what is the use?’ Bakha shouted. ‘They would ill-treat us even if we shouted. They think we are mere dirt because we clean their dirt. That pundit in the temple tried to molest Sohini and then came shouting: “Polluted, polluted.”’
Pages 73–105
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The hand of nature was stretching itself out towards [Bakha], for the tall grass on the slopes of Bulashah Hills was in sight, and he had opened his heart to it, lifted by the cool breeze that wafted him away from the crowds, the ugliness and the noise of the outcastes’ street. He looked across at the swaying loveliness before him and the little hillocks over which it spread under a sunny sky, so transcendently blue and beautiful that he felt like standing dumb and motionless before it. He listened to the incoherent whistling of the shrubs. They were the voices he knew so well.
Pages 105–139
Quotes
He wanted to be detached. It wasn’t that he had lost grip of the emotion that had brought him swirling on the tide of the rushing stream of people. But he became aware of the fact of being a sweeper by the contrast which his dirty khaki uniform presented to the white garments of most of the crowd. There was an insuperable barrier between himself and the crowd, the barrier of caste. He was part of a consciousness which he could share and yet not understand. He had been lifted from the gutter, through the barriers of space, to partake of a life which was his, and yet not his. He was in the midst of a humanity which included him in its folds and yet debarred him from entering into a sentient, living, quivering contact with it.
Bakha felt thrilled to the very marrow of his bones. That the Mahatma should want to be born as an outcaste! That he should love scavenging! He loved the man. He felt he could put his life in his hands and ask him to do what he liked with it. For him he would do anything. He would like to go and be a scavenger at his ashram.
‘When the sweepers changed their profession, they will no longer remain Untouchables. And they can do that soon, for the first thing we will do when we accept the machine, will be to introduce the machine which clears dung without anyone having to handle it - the flush system. Then the sweepers can be free from the stigma of untouchability and assume the dignity of status that is their right as useful members of a casteless and classless society.’
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Outcaste/Untouchable/Harijan Term Timeline in Untouchable
The timeline below shows where the term Outcaste/Untouchable/Harijan appears in Untouchable. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pages 3–43
The outcastes’ colony lies just outside the town of Bulashah, in the Himalayan foothills. Though the area...
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...And because the Tommies treated him with kindness, Bakha now feels superior to his fellow outcastes. The only outcastes he respects are Chota, a leather-worker’s son, and Ram Charan, a washerman’s...
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Bakha continues to clean the latrines as different men come through, mostly “Hindus” (meaning non-outcaste Hindus) and the occasional “Muhammadan” (Muslim). On the one hand, Bakha wants to be done...
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Since the outcastes are not allowed to draw directly from the well (because “Hindus” would view that as...
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...son’s wedding day. A sepoy passes the well, but he refuses to stop for the outcastes. Eventually, Pundit Kali Nath, one of the priests in charge of the town’s temple, agrees...
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...bathroom soon. Gulabo demands to be first to get water, and the rest of the outcastes rush towards the well. Only Sohini sits alone, away from the fray.
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...his sister’s wedding day, and Bakha teases his friend for his pretentious outfit. The other outcastes are also out on the street, silently taking in the sun, but Bakha does not...
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...their hockey sticks. The elder brother in particular tends to ignore caste divides, playing with outcastes even though his mother chides him for it.
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...their way to school. Bakha once wanted to go to school, before he learned that outcaste children were not allowed. Still, dreaming of becoming a sahib, Bakha bought a primer and...
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The rest of the onlookers join in, mocking Bakha’s sahib dress and lamenting that outcastes now dream of having higher status. Two children even accuse Bakha of hitting them in...
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...notes that Muslims and British people show none of the cruelty towards sweepers that other outcastes and higher-caste Hindus do. Bakha continues his work, though he feels self-conscious, as if everyone...
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Pages 43–73
...clean the drain, so he walks away, prompting the local woman to reflect that the outcastes are “getting more and more uppish.”
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When Bakha returns to his street, he sees that many of the outcastes are outside; since none of them have lights in their homes, they try to take...
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...he announced his approach. “Why weren’t you more careful?” he asks. Bakha insists that the Untouchables get abused whether they shout warnings or not, but Lakha disagrees, insisting that the higher-caste...
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...decides, lies in his impish ears. Unlike Bakha, Rakha is “a true child of the outcaste colony”; he embraces the dark and the bugs and the trash heaps.
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Pages 73–105
...the mushrooms and mango groves that dot the landscape, feeling that, for a moment, his outcaste neighborhood “has been effaced clean off the map of his being.” The boys agree to...
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Pages 105–139
...in (his idea of) Indian clothing; he spends most of his time talking to the Untouchables about Jesus Christ and trying to get them to convert. In Hutchinson’s early years, he...
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...help us all; for the rich and the poor; for the Brahmin and the Bhangi” (Untouchables). Bakha is intensely moved by this idea of equality, though he still struggles with Hutchinson’s...
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...for both these questions, but Bakha lets his mind wander to Gandhi’s position on the Untouchables. He has heard that Gandhi is an important advocate for Untouchables’ rights, but he does...
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...released from British prison for this speech on the condition that he only talks about “harijans,” (rather than speak about his anti-colonial beliefs). This thrills Bakha, who knows Gandhi uses the...
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...wrong. Today, Gandhi concludes, his friendship with Uka has motivated him to fight for the Untouchables. Bakha is moved by Gandhi’s genuine sympathy, especially when Gandhi announces that if he were...
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But Gandhi then shifts again, instructing outcastes to “purify their lives”; he implies that some outcastes are unclean, or that they refuse...
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...problem, he argues, India must open all of its schools and temples and hospitals to Untouchables. Gandhi concludes his speech, and the crowd scatters. Bakha marvels that the Mahatma could seem...
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