Summary
Chapter 1
The narrator, an old woman and mother of sons, introduces her village of Kanthapura, in the province of Kara. It is a place full of busy carts, moving coffee and cardamom to the ships the “Red-men” (Europeans) bring. Their goddess is Kenchamma, and she is great and bounteous. She came from heaven to kill a demon and has never ignored her people. There have been troubles, yes, such as smallpox and cholera, but Kenchamma has never failed them and they offer her dancing and singing.
The village has 24 houses, all different sizes. Waterfall Venkamma rails against how big her sister in-law’s, the widow Rangamma's, house is, but hers is just as big. Dore is here, and though he never made it through his Inter, he has “city ways” and has read books and calls himself a Gandhi-man. But he is not well-liked, like Corner-house Moorthy, of whom she will say more later. The village also has a Pariah quarter, a Weavers’ quarter, and a Sudra quarter, but she doesn't know how many huts are there.
Between her house and Subba Chetty’s shop on the Karwar road is the Kanthapurishwari temple. It is the centre of life in the town, though it has only been in existence for three years. Moorthy suggested they build it, and helped unearth the linga and put up a tile roof and mud wall to protect it. Bhatta consecrated it and the men of the town claimed their times to read the Sankara-jayanthi and offer a dinner each day of the month.
The first reading, done by Rangamma’s learned father Ramakrishnayya, was glorious; he had a calm, deep voice, and brought tears to people’s eyes. There was music, and day after day they held this ceremony.
Moorthy comes to the narrator and others and asks what they think about having the Rama festival, the Krishna festival, and the Ganesh festival here—having a month’s bhajan (religious hymns) and keeping the party going. The women are interested in the idea but he says they need money to get the best Harikatha-men. The women know that Moorthy has been to the city and is a very honest man, so they agree.
Moorthy goes from house to house to raise money—even the Pariahs’ houses—but the villagers all know he is a Gandhi-man and has no regard for caste or clan or family. They shrug that he can do what he wants because it does not affect them. Everyone gives him a bit of money.
It is a grand festival, and the Harikatha-man Jayaramacher comes. Everyone is in awe of him, and after much singing and telling of tales of Siva and Parvati, he says he will speak of Gandhi. Some people are confused, as Gandhi is not Rama or Krishna, but the Postmaster’s son comments that Gandhi is a saint, a holy man.
Jayaramacher’s story goes as such: Brahma is resting in heaven when the sage Valmiki enters, and tells him of trouble below. He says Brahma has forgotten them for so long that men are coming to trample them from over the seas and are spitting on their virtue, so they need one of his gods “so that he may incarnate himself on earth and bring back light and plenty” (11). Brahma agrees to send Siva. On earth, a son is born to a family in Gujeret, and he is full of wisdom. He is Mohandas, and he begins to fight against the enemies of the country. Men begin to follow him and he goes from village to village to slay enemies, though he harms no one. He says the truth is God; he is a saint and fasts and prays.
Jayaramacher has more stories, but the police jemedar is there, and goes to Moorthy and speaks to him. Jayamaracher is told to leave, and Moorthy looks solemn from that moment on. Soon more men join him as Gandhi-men.
Two days after this, the Policeman Badè Khan comes to live in the village.
Chapter 2
Badè Khan cannot stay with the Potters (he is a Mohammedan) or on Sudra St. or of course with the Pariahs or the Brahmins, so he is told by Patwari Nanjundia to ask the Patel for a house.
Rangè Gowda, the Patel, is indifferent to Badè Khan, and tells him the Government does not pay him to find houses for the police. Badè Khan grumbles and growls and weakly threatens him, but leaves. He goes to the Skeffington Coffee Estate and asks Mr. Skeffington, who orders his butler to give him a hut. Badè Khan is pleased, and takes with him a Pariah woman to clean and share his bed.
The village sees no more of Badè Khan for a few days. One woman says she saw him, and the others proclaim he is no more than a passing policeman like they’ve seen before. Waterfall Venkamma disagrees and says she knows why the police have come—Moorthy and the Gandhi affair. Everyone knows she does not like Moorthy because he’d refused her second daughter in marriage.
Things have been strange since Jayaramacher was expelled. Moorthy and other men have been gathering together, and Moorthy proclaim free spinning wheels for everyone. He convinces them that everything foreign “makes us poor and pollutes us” (16) and spinning cloth is sacred, “gives work to the workless” (16), and can be given away to the poor. He explains how the fruit of their labor goes to “fatten some dissipated Red-man in his own country” (17).
Moorthy visits everyone in the village, including those in the Pariah quarters, who are pleased to see a Brahmin among them. The villagers see a heavy bearded man, and realize it is Badè Khan, the policeman—he is still very much in the village.
Chapter 3
Bhatta has nothing to do with the Gandhi-bhajans. He has spent time in the city himself and dislikes all their chatter. He cares mostly for money, and they all know he will own the whole village someday. He is the First Brahmin, and Ramanna is the Second. He makes most of his money lending to villagers.
He is married, but then his wife Savithramma dies from a fall. Many people offer their daughters to him in marriage, and he agrees to Purnayya’s twelve-year-old daughter. They have an extravagant marriage ceremony.
Over time Bhatta grows richer and richer; he is “no more a pontifical Brahamin. He was a landowner” (23). He helps settle disputes, and when he is not available to do so he sends people to Advocate Seenappa or Advocate Ramanna. He now owns 37 acres of wet land and 90 acres of dry land in all the local villages, and there was no Brahmin or Pariah who did not owe him something. The narrator says, “I tell you, he was not a bad man, was Bhatta. But this dislike of the Gandhi-bhajan surprised us” (25).
One day, Bhatta goes to the Kannayya house. Old Ramakrishnayya, his uncle, is on the veranda and Satamma, his aunt, is lying near the door. Rangamma comes out as well, happy to hear Bhatta’s voice.
Bhatta begins to complain about how hard it is to find bridegrooms these days, as all the young men want someone to finance their degrees and are too caught up in the Gandhi business. Someone like Moorthy, for example, should be married, not mixing with Pariahs. He heard that Pariahs were seeking admission to the Sanskrit College.
Rangamma says softly that they’ve always been able to come to the temple door, but Bhatta says now they might throw the doors open completely. This is a strange age, and he does not like these modern women with their modern ways in the city. Satamma agrees and says there will be “the confusion of castes and the pollution of progeny” (27). Rangamma ventures that the Mahatma has always said that the castes should be separate, but Bhatta retorts that he has adopted a Pariah girl as his daughter.
He explains he visited the Swami the other day and told him of his worries, and the Swami agreed with him and told him to speak to his people and organize a Brahmin party. The Mahatma was a good and simple man but he is “making too much of these carcass-eating Pariahs” (27). In fact, the Swami added, he will outcast every Brahmin who touches a Pariah. Bhatta told him he would talk to his people.
Rangamma, Satamma, and Ramakrishnayya are troubled. Bhatta calms a bit and says he only wants to put them on their guard against Moorthy and the city boys.
Rangamma is an educated and cerebral young woman, and she often tells the narrator and other villagers of what she has read in all the papers. She speaks of places far away where women work like men, where people get free school and get a job and a home, where all men are equal. But she is always soft-spoken and deferential, though she can go head-to-head with Bhatta.
Rangamma’s sister, Kamalamma, and her widowed daughter Ratna join them. Bhatta stands to leave, as he does not like Rama. He finds her behavior inappropriate, as she behaves like she never lost her husband and that being married for one day when she was ten didn’t count as a marriage. The women in particular have a hard time with her, and spit behind Kamalamma for her dishonourable daughter.
Bhatta says nothing, as he is not a man, and Ratna’s father is his second cousin. She is part of the Chanderhalli families and because of this she is acceptable, though Bhatta still despises these modern ways.
He passes through the village and as he passes Rama Chetty’s shop, he thinks he sees a figure. He calls out sharply, asking who it is, and goes into the courtyard. A pale light falls on a bearded figure, who announces himself as Badè Khan.
The next day, Waterfall Venkamma and the other women fall silent when they see Old Narsamma, Moorthy’s pious, elderly mother. She has many children but loves Moorthy the most.
One day, Moorthy had a vision of the Mahatma, and began to weep and acknowledge that his place was at his feet. He asked Mahatma in this vision for a command, and the Mahatma said only to seek truth. Moorthy threw away all his foreign books and foreign clothes and became a Gandhi-man. He returned mid-harvest and his mother was shocked to see him and hear him talk about how all the schools were corrupt, but she loved him and let him stay. She urged him to marry but he said he would not, and would remain pure and noble. Narsamma was restless about this, though, and thought he should marry the coffee-planter’s daughter. Rumors began to spread, but Waterfall Venkamma knew something was off. She confronted Narsamma and spitefully told her that she was glad she didn’t yoke her own daughter to Moorthy, the Pariah-mixer.
Venkamma had been normal for some time now, but today she confronts Narsamma again about how the Swami said he would excommunicate anyone in the village who was mixing with Pariahs. She announces bitterly that this must stop because she has daughters to marry, and Moorthy should just leave and no longer call himself a Brahmin. Chinnamma tells her to calm herself, as none of them are mixing with Pariahs, but Narsamma trembles in her shock. She shivers and sobs and no one can console her. She beats her breast and rolls on the floor of her house, in despair that they will all be excommunicated.
Analysis
Kanthapura is narrated by a single voice, but besides knowing her name—Achakka—and the fact that she is a widow with sons, we know nothing else about her. This is not because she does not have a rich interior life, or because she is being secretive as a narrator; rather, it is because she does not see herself so much as an individual as a voice for the entire group of Brahmin women in the text. She mostly speaks with “we” instead of “I,” narrating what all the women do, feel, think, and believe. This is part of Raja Rao’s strategy to give the reader a sense of what it was like for a whole village to experience the coming of Gandhism, not just a single woman.
The novel’s style is worth commenting on, as Rao intended achieve something very specific—he is writing in English but as he says in the preface to the novel, “the tempo of Indian life must be infused into our English expression” (vii). This is not easy, as “one has to convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own. One has to convey the various shades and omissions of a certain thought-movement that looks maltreated in an alien language” (vii). “We cannot write like the English. We should not,” Rao asserts, and “We cannot write only as Indians” (vii)—which means there will have to be “a dialect which will… prove to be… distinctive and colorful” (vii).
Scholars often pay attention to this preface, praising its sentiments and/or offering critiques of Rao’s endeavor. Janet Powers Gemmill notes the “obvious deviations from the syntax of spoken English and a consciously-achieved style of rambling narrative.” In addition, “run-on sentences and an exaggerated lyrical enthusiasm help to create the intensity required of an effective storyteller… the narrator is illiterate; her story must be written in a style which will reinforce the impression of a spoken village vernacular.” The diction suggests a different worldview, as with the term “Red-men” to describe the British.
Not all critics are laudatory, though. Alpana Sharma Knippling notes that Rao himself is “geographically, socially, and epistemologically distanced from the subaltern characters he is attempting to represent,” and that Achakka would certainly not be speaking English or able to “utter startlingly refined poetic phrases.” Knippling references another scholar, Ferzoa Jussawalla, writing that for Jussawalla, “Rao’s experimentation fails because Rao does not take into account India’s actual multicultural and multilingual situation of spoken English and the fact that English can never be Kannada itself.”
Turning to the narrative itself, in the first few chapters Rao lays out the characteristics of Kanthapura. It is a small but bustling village, important in the colonial trading network. It has the traditional Indian caste structure, which gives the village a strong social and physical hierarchy. There are widows and city boys, elderly sages and wealthy landowners, gossipy women and humble priests; it is a rich and full place.
Most of the characters are only broadly drawn, but Moorthy, the young university graduate whose embrace of Gandhism forever changes Kanthapura, gets more attention. He is “a noble cow, quiet, generous, serene, deferent and Brahminic, a very prince I tell you” (5). People respect him because he “had been to the city and he knew of things we did not know” (9), but also because he is humbly able to talk to anyone and everyone, explaining things in a way that makes sense. When talking to Brahmin women about cloth, he says quite explicitly, “millions and millions of yards of foreign cloth come to this country, and everything foreign makes us poor and pollutes us. To wear cloth spun and woven with your own God-given hands is sacred, says the Mahatma. And it gives work to the workless, and work to the lazy. And if you don’t need the cloth, sister—well, you can say, ‘Give it away to the poor,’ and we will give it to the poor. Our country is being bled to death by foreigners. We have to protect our Mother” (16). This is also useful to the contemporary reader who may need a reminder about the effect of British colonialism on India, and why Gandhism was so appealing and, ultimately, successful.
