Vol. 6, Issue 1, Part B (2024)

Indian society has historically been a caste-based society in which the upper castes take advantage of the lower castes. Every element of Indian life has been significantly impacted by caste. It has had a strong impression on Indian society. This remained the harsh reality of Indian society till the end of the twentieth century. The lowest caste in this system is the untouchable caste. Anand's portrayal of the delicate subject of Dalits, especially in pre-independence India, is accurate. The cruel mind-set of the ruthless Hindu caste is shown in his book Untouchable. It is an attempt to represent the humiliation and anguish experienced by a subaltern in Indian society, which is separated into graded inequity and hierarchical chaos. In the caste-based system, he has provided the subaltern Bakha with a voice, identity, and speech that the upper classes had previously denied him. The boy is a sweeper. This character represents the whole underprivileged community in pre-independence India. Other characters, like Bakha, suffer due to their lower caste. The lower caste people suffer because they are born outcasts. It was Anand's debut book, making him quite famous and prestigious.