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Caste Operating Relationships in Sea of Poppies Caste Operating Relationships in Sea of Poppies Jasleen Johal Assistant Professor Department of English Lyallpur Khalsa College for Women Jalandhar India Abstract: Caste system is ubiquitous part of the Indian society. The Indian society has been engulfed in this system from the primordial. The present paper aims to explore how Amitav Ghosh employs caste system in the plot of the novel and how this system forces the characters to tread on the different and difficult paths, and defines their relationships. With the help of the binary opposition of High caste/ Low caste Ghosh presents the stark realities of the caste system. Keywords: Caste, Caste system, Sea of Poppies, Power Introduction: An anthropologist, historian, journalist, travel writer, novelist, an adept in many fields, Amitav Ghosh is one of the prominent writers of our age. Influenced from the Subaltern Studies group, Ghosh is “a serious novelist…from a postcolonial consciousness” (Chitra 46). As post-colonialism “deals with the effects of colonization on cultures and society” (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 186), Ghosh’s works are centered round unfolding and representing such effects and realities. Soueif writes about Ghosh’s engagement with postcolonialism: “Ghosh is one of the most sympathetic postcolonial voices to be heard today. He looks at love and loyalty, and examines questions of Empire and responsibility of tradition and modernity” (qtd in Chitra 49). Ghosh was born in Calcutta, India and was raised in different countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran. Having travelled a lot especially to the Middle East and North Africa (Alam 137), in addition to the places he was raised in, Ghosh used these places as the locale of his www.ijellh.com 206 different novels. Ghosh is an anthropologist (he received his D. Phil in Social Anthropology) and this can be recognized from the way he narrates and builds his works. Chandrashekhar argues that Ghosh’s novels are “evocative, scholarly recreation of a historical period and [he gives] a painstaking attention to social and economic detail that reflects his training as a social anthropologist”. On realizing the benefit of studying Anthropology, Ghosh says in his interview to Hawley: In some ways, my training as an anthropologist was of great help to me as a writer… Not only did this teach me to observe what I was seeing; it also taught me how to translate raw experiences on the page.” (Hawley 6-7) Ghosh’s works have the imprint of history and it can be said that most of his novels are set in the backdrop of history. He is the master crafter of historical fiction and has a bent towards this genre. Ghosh talks about his amalgamation of novel with history in a discussion with Chambers: When you’re writing fiction in terms of history, I think it’s important to acknowledge that an historical novel is like any other novel: essentially it’s about people. Unless people’s stories are interesting, the history itself doesn’t matter at all, it’s only a backdrop. History is interesting to me because it creates specific predicaments, that are particular to that moment in time and nowhere else. So I’m interested in history to the point that I can represent that predicament truthfully and accurately. But beyond that, history for the sake of history doesn’t interest me. (qtd. in Chambers 31) Sea of Poppies was published in 2008. It is the first part of the Ibis Trilogy, The second being River of Smoke, published in 2011. Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 but won 2008 Vodafone Crossword Book Award for Fiction. “Primarily centering the story in mid-nineteenth century India, Ghosh records the political and socio-economic conditions that led to the mass migration of impoverished Indian peasants as indentured laborers to the Mauritius islands” (Jain 66). It is a historical novel. Ghosh uses history as the backdrop of the novel. The historical events that are present in the novel are: 1. The colonization of India by the British Empire. 2. The cultivation as well as the trade of opium. 3. Opium Wars that were about to commence. 4. The dawn of Indentured Labour in India. Analysis: www.ijellh.com 207 The Indian society is always defined by the presence of the caste system. Indian caste system is divided according to the works performed by the people. According to Herbert Hope Risley: A caste may be defined as a collection of families or groups of families bearing a common name which usually denotes or is associated with specific occupation, claiming common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine, professing to follow the same professional callings and are regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community. (68) Caste is “a system of stratification in which the status of the individual is determined by his birth and ritual purity” (Johnson and Karlberg 3). Within the Indian caste system, “both power and authority were traditionally determined by the position of one's caste within the caste hierarchy” (6). The high caste always has the privilege over the low caste. The binary opposition of High caste/ Low caste is presented in the relationship between land-owning families (representing the high caste) and Kalua (representing the low caste). High caste people are the landowners and the people doing leather works belong to the Chamar caste. Kalua is a chamar and lives in the Chamar-basti which is located near the main road to Ghazipur. He is a man of unusual height and powerful build. As a child, Kalua had a craving for the meat and his family satisfied this by “feeding him carrion; being leather- makers, it was their trade to collect the remains of dead cows and oxen—it was on the meat of these salvaged carcasses that Kalua’s gigantic frame was said to have been nourished” (Ghosh Sea of Poppies 54). Though gigantic in structure, he has been the holder of a weak- mind. His mind has been such that he has not been able to absorb everything readily. He has been the possessor of slow processing mind and has been so “simple and trusting, so that even small children were able to take advantages of him” (54). Even his brothers duped him of all property left by their parents. As he grows up, three “young scions”, thakur-sahibs, belonging to the landowning families hires Kalua after knowing about Kalua’s “physical prowess”. These three thakur-sahib’s have been addicted to gambling and wrestling is their favourite pastime. Thus Kalua starts wrestling with whoever these thakurs wanted in order to get ox-cart as a reward from them. The fights of Kalua earned thakurs a great profit and they give him the ox-cart that they promised. But after getting the ox-cart, “Kalua showed no further inclination to fight” (54). When the thakurs arrange the fight with the fighters of His Highness, the Maharaja of www.ijellh.com 208 Benares, Kalua shows reluctance. The thakurs threatens to confiscate his cart and oxen and hence he is forced to fight with “the champions of his [Maharaja’s] court” (55). The fight results in Kalua’s defeat. Stories and rumours about the reasons of Kalua’s defeat start emerging. People start discussing that the thakurs would have decided that “it would be excellent sport to couple Kalua with a woman. They had invited some friends and taken bets: could a woman be found who would bed this giant of a man, this two-legged beast?” (55). The Thakurs hire a baiji, Hirabai, to find a match. After watching Kalua she remarks, “This animal should be mated with a horse, not a woman...” (55). These words shake Kalua and are the reason of his defeat. The thakurs humiliate and torture him after his defeat. They take Kalua to a field in order to harass him. Kalua begs for forgiveness: “Mai-bap, hamke maf karelu...forgive me, master” (56) but it falls on their deaf ears. The powerful and merciless thakurs kick and curse him: ... You lost on purpose, didn’t you, dogla bastard? ... Do you know how much it cost us...? ... Now let’s see you do what Hirabai said... (56) They try to mate Kalua with the horse. Ghosh presents the horrifying and humiliating scene in the following way: By pulling on his halter, the men forced Kalua to his feet and pushed him stumbling towards the mare’s swishing tail. One of them stuck his whip into the fold of Kalua’s cotton langot and whisked it off with a flick of his wrist. Then, while one of them held the horse steady, the others whipped Kalua’s naked back until his goin was pressed hard against the animal’s rear. Kalua uttered a cry that was almost indistinguishable in tone from the whinnying of the horse. This amused the landlords: ... See, the b’henchod even sounds like a horse... ... Tatva daba de... wring his balls... (57) Thus the thakurs exercise their power. Weber asserts that power is “the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action” (qtd. in Rossides 186). Caste system results in power which is discriminating, full of violence and inequality. This whole incident leaves Kalua shaken. Deeti watches the whole scene of exploitation and violence against Kalua by hiding in the poppy field. She associates herself with Kalua and ruminates: “So it can happen to a man www.ijellh.com 209 too? Even a powerful giant of a man could be humiliated and destroyed, in a way that far exceeded his body’s capacity for pain?” (57) This incident also helps in studying the relationship between Deeti and Kalua.
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