Human Values in the Novels of Bhabani

Human Values in the Novels of  
Bhabani Bhattacharya

Bhabani Bhattacharya focuses his attention on “the writer’s concern with social and historical reality.” But this reality cannot be separated from the cultural pattern of an age. The contemporary India is class­ ridden. Political corruption, economic exploitation, social stratification have disturbed the Indian identity and transformed it beyond recognition. The artist cannot be indifferent to the lot of hungry millions. The theme of hunger is quite forcefully dealt with by Bhattacharya in his novels like So Many Hungers and He Who Rides a Tiger. Closely related to the poverty are rural life and the theme of conflict between tradition and modernity. All his five novels are set against the drop of the Indian social scene. He exposes the falsehoods mercilessly. He very strongly expresses his intense disgust for cruelty and hypocrisy of Indian social life, with its dead habits, castes, creeds and religious rites and practices.

For centuries, caste has been one of India’s chief blocks on the road to social reforms that would assure each citizen full stature as a member of the human family. Though outlawed in the Constitution after independence, the caste system is still prevalent especially in village life. The caste has become a habit of thinking as much as a way of life. This is opposed in He Who Rides a Tiger. 

Bhattacharya launches a vigorous campaign against anti-life tendencies and forces in the traditional Indian society and pleads for a joyous life with values. Poverty makes the moral life difficult for most people to achieve, but wealth without morality does not raise humanity above the animal level.

Mulk Raj Anand employs documentary realism to develop a sociological point of view. Bhattacharya tends to be ironic in his presentation. His style is colloquial like Anand’s. He has caught the vein of rural speech and behaviour of the people. He is a serious writer, yet he has a rich sense of humour. Morroe Berger says, “A novel should give a picture of common life enlivened by humour and sweetened by pathos.” Bhattacharya’s wide range of experience, his close association with men and his deep understanding of their manners have enabled him to grasp the innate significance of humanity.

The influential writers of the twentieth century have generally bypassed the question of affirmation by taking shelter under aestheticism. But Bhattacharya, is positive in his attitude to life. His grounding in cultural history and political science has helped him to look beyond the narrow, temporary problems of life. The uniqueness of Bhattacharya’s style lies in his effort to show the brighter side of life, not of a man but of the contemporary Indian society torn by evil forces. He dreams of a new India, free from social evils, not of “Utopia”, but one based on history, the richness of human spirit. He says that time is not very far when no one will have tears in his eyes. Bhattacharya is a novelist with a purpose and mission.

Like Anand, Bhattacharya is a humanist. Both the writers are concerned with the less privileged sections of the society i.e., the poor, helpless, landless, suffering, needy, low caste, down-trodden segments of the contemporary Indian society.

Bhattacharya’s theory and practice of fiction are projections of human values and human interests. His novels can be interpreted under various themes. But the theme of social realism dominates over all others. R. K. Narayan is a comic writer without any sense of serious commitment. Raja Rao is highly metaphysical and his consciousness is traditional. Bhattacharya invites comparison with Mulk Raj Anand, the humanist writer who champions the cause of the poor, the down-trodden and the under-privileged. But Bhattacharya is not that serious as Anand. Even though Bhattacharya vehemently criticises social evils, time-worn beliefs and orthodox ways of living, one can note a sense of nostalgia for values “that could outlive moments.”

Mohini reveals the novelist’s mind: “It was essentially the history of the inward life. Thunderous invasions had shaken Bengal-Pathan, Mughal, Mahratha, British – and even though the thousand echoes of struggles and change had washed on to this remote village, its ancient Aryan culture safe in the trust of stern-living Brahmins had remained basically unaffected. Unstained as ever were the old values of meditation, self-discipline, faith, charity, renunciation, truthfulness not as lip ideals but as essential aids to life, in an unshaken pattern of conduct.”

Bhattacharya’s chief merit lies in heightening the readers’ awareness of the undercurrents of history in an entertaining way. That is why he is eminently readable.

Bhattacharya is engrossed with the idea of man’s inhumanity to man. A faithful account of the grim famine has been given in So Many Hungers. Music for Mohini is successful in depicting vividly Bhattacharya’s views on the social system and pleads for reorientation of values. He Who Rides a Tiger depicts the inhumanity of the rich and the plight of the poor and the destitute.

Bhattacharya has a great concern for social, political and economic situations. Bhattacharya’s idea of realism may be studied in terms of how the inner life is dramatised. First the self is withdrawn from the centre of reality or exposed to the evil of suffering. In He Who Rides a Tiger, Kalo and Lekha are exposed to evil and suffering when they are dislocated by the famine. Whereas Jayadev in Music for Mohini and Satyajit, Surichi, and Surnata in Shadow from Ladakh are withdrawn from the centre of reality leading ascetic life and aspiring for high ideals, Kalo liberates himself from the chains of falsehood and presumably goes to the old way of life. Jayadev sheds his idealism at the end and takes up harmonious life seeking joy and beauty and Satyajit emerges from his asceticism placing himself in the hands of Suruchi.

As a novelist, Bhattacharya employs methods of fictional presentation which enable him to create a genuine work of art of both as a convincing inter­pretation of life and an aesthetically pleasing experience. A significant feature of his style is irony. For example, in He Who Rides a Tiger, the magistrate who asks Kalo why he should live is the first to touch Kalo’s feet. Bhattacharya repeats significant expressions like “we have got to hit ”, which embodies a sentiment breathing the spirit of retaliation. Like Anand, he also tries to mould the English language into a suitable medium for the representation of life in India.
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