Kanthapura Representative of Indian Villages

  Kanthapura Representative of Indian Villages

Kanthapura is Raja Rao’s first novel written in English. In many ways, the novel is known for its merits.

The novelist chooses an imaginary village ‘Kanthapura’, situated on the slopes of the Western Ghat facing the Arabian Seas. Raja Rao did not select any city for the centre of action of the novel. Rather he picked a sleeping village ‘Kanthapura’. He knew it well that most of India lived in villages in that pre-independent period. He made this village alive with the best characterisation and narrative style adopted by him.

This novel can be read and understood at different angles and levels of its merits. In addition, it can be read and understood as the novel of the village Kanthapura that represents any Indian village of its times.

We find Kanthapura a microcosm of Indian villages.

In the very opening chapter, we have a very minute detail of its surroundings and also we have a glimpse of the whole village divided into quarters. The roads reaching this imaginary village are dusty and zigzag. The main cash crops of this area are coffee and cardamom, which are exported to England.

The society of Indian villages was caste-ridden in those days. Several other evils like child marriages, untouchability, maltreatment given to widows, gender bias, superstitions, illiteracy, dominance by the so-called upper castes, exploitation of the poor people, etc, also prevailed in Indian society.

We find all these social evils in Kanthapura also.

The whole village of Kanthapura is divided into quarters as the barriers in society. The people of the so-called upper castes like Brahmins were not supposed to mingle with the people of the so-called lower castes. If anyone dared to break the social set-up, he or she had to bear the brunt  (face bad consequences). Moorthy is a glaring example of this. He, along with his would-be generations, was excommunicated by the Shashtriji, who lived in a city and ruled over the Brahmins by his dictates.

But, Moorthy did not care for such big sharks of society and continued his efforts to make the people come out of their deep slumber of slavery and join Gandhiji's freedom movement. This was happening not only in Kanthapura but in other Indian villages also. Women also came forward to join hands with men to make India free from the Britishers. In Kanthapura, a women's group was formed to help the freedom fighters.

 Poverty prevailed in most quarters of Indian villages. We do find its reflection in Kanthapura also. Their dresses, food and huts tell the tale of their miserable life. Very few people like postmaster Suryanarayan, Patwari Nanjundia, Sidda, Waterfall Venkamma, Bhatta, and Patel Range Gowda are shown living comfortably in this novel. But the rest of the population of Kanthapura  lives in poverty.

Illiteracy and superstitions were found in any Indian village in those days of the 1930s. We also find illiteracy and superstitions in the people of Kanthapura.

Every village has a place of worship. The people of Kanthapura also had their temple of Kenchamma, their presiding deity. It is said that the goddess Kenchamma had long ago killed a demon and saved the people from his terror. Since then, the goddess has settled there as their saviour from any misfortune or disease. The people of Kanthapura are very religious and they worship their goddess with full faith. They organise ‘kathas’ and fairs to celebrate their festivals.

The condition of the labouring class has also been brought into focus in this novel. The people working at Skeiffington Coffee Estate is a proof of exploitation done to the poor strata of Indian society.

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Thus, on the basis of the above discussion, we may say that Kanthapura represents an Indian village on a micro level.