Representation of the Working Classes of the British Colonies and/as the Subalterns in Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie

Abstract

This chapter analyses Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie in order to explore how the colonial working class of the subcontinent shared a dialogic relationship with the British working class during the late colonial period. The colonial, racial and imperial relationship between the Empire and its colony is shown to have influenced the nature and scope of working-class literature. In analyzing how, despite being assigned the nomenclature of the ‘native-informant’, Anand’s choice of writing about the subcontinental working-class in English emancipated his work from its regional boundaries and attained a true international character, this chapter situates Anand as an example of inter World War working-class literature, and considers how his fictional representation of the colonial working-class adds to our understanding of the British working-class tradition.