Kanthapura

“Why should a widow, and a childless widow too, have a big house like that? And it is not her father that built it. … It’s my husband’s ancestors that built it.” 

This line establishes the source of Waterfall Venkamma’s longstanding enmity against Rangamma. It is not anything due to the younger woman’s actions, but simply the fortune she has encountered that Venkamma believes should be hers. This will set the tone for the two women’s tumultuous relationship over the course of the book. 

“He was not like corner-house Moorthy, who had gone through life like a noble cow, quiet, generous, serene, deferent, and Brahmanic.” 

Moorthy’s evolution from kind, educated, and respected young man to firebrand rebel is at the core of Kanthapura’s narrative. This line will be seen as deeply ironic as the book goes on, as Moorthy’s activism far eclipses that of the young man with whom he is positively contrasted. 

“We said to ourselves, he is one of these Gandhi-men, who say there is neither caste nor clan nor family, and yet they pray like us and they live like us.”  

This is the first scene where the village realizes that the Moorthy they once knew has come back from the city changed. The caste system is deeply ingrained in the village’s culture, and the idea of someone challenging it is deeply disturbing to the villagers. 

“To tell you the truth, Bade Khan did not stay in Kanthapura. Being a Mohammedean, he could stay in neither the Potters’ street nor in the Sudra street, and you wouldn’t of course expect him to live in the Brahmin street.” 

Kanthapura’s strictly structured caste system is illustrated here, as Bade Khan—the story’s only Muslim character—simply does not have a role to play there. Unlike the Pariahs, he is not actively dismissed, but the village has no literal place for him, being as stratified as it is. 

“Bhatta became richer and richer. He could lend out more money. And now he was no more a pontifical Brahmin. He was a landowner.” 

Bhatta is seen in the village by many as a holy man, with ties to the Swami and to most of the power structure. However, as time goes on, he becomes corrupted by temptations of wealth and power. Eventually, his role as a Brahmin is more ceremonial than genuine. 

“There is but one force in life and that is truth, and there is but one love in life and that is the love of mankind, and there is but one God in life, and that is the God of all.” 

This is the sentence that the Mahatma spoke personally to Moorthy when they met for the first time in the city. It becomes the guiding meaning in Moorthy’s life, and drives all of his actions in Kanthapura. Despite the hardships he endures, he remains loyal to these principles above all else.

“But there was something deep and desperate that hurried her on, and she passed by Rangamma’s sugar cane field and by the mango grove to the river, just where the whirlpool gropes and gurgles, and she looked up at the moonlit sky, and the winds of the night and the shadows of the night and the jackals of the night so pierced her breast that she shuddered and sank unconscious upon the sands, and the cold so pierced her that the next morning she was dead.” 

Narsamma, Moorthy’s mother, is a deeply traditional woman. She is grieved and haunted by Moorthy actions after he returns from the city. The family’s excommunication is the last straw for her, and it is implied that she is essentially giving up living by wandering out into the cold night. 

“The Sahib says that if you work well, you will get sweets and if you work badly you will get beaten—that is the law of the place.” 

In the reader’s first glimpse of Skeffington, it is clear that the men who work there are being seriously mistreated. Although the Sahib presents a face of being a kindly leader who doles out small treats, he is cruel and prone to violence to establish his rule. This represents colonialism as a structure. 

“‘And Bade Khan can wave his beard and twist his moustache. What is a policeman before a Gandhi’s man? Tell me, does a boar stand before a lion or a jackal before an elephant?’” 

This is Achakka’s assessment of the coming conflict between the traditionalists and the Gandhi loyalists. Although the assessment could come off as arrogant at first, it is clear that Gandhi’s followers simply believe themselves to be of a higher plane of thought, seeing the future in ways that the traditionalists cannot.

“And as everybody saw, from that time Moorthy grew more sorrowful and calm, and it was then, too, that he began his ‘Don’t-touch-the-government” campaign.” 

This is the moment when Moorthy goes from an idealistic young activist to a committed Gandhi-loyalist. His first encounter with the violent forces of British colonialism at Skeffington convinces him that a thorough, uncompromising approach is needed.

“On the third day such exaltation came over him that he felt blanketed with the Pariah and the cur. He felt he could touch the stones and they would hang to his hands, he felt he could touch a snake and it would spread its sheltering hood above him.” 

Moorthy’s first extended fast causes him great pain and discomfort, but it also brings him to new spiritual heights. He starts to feel at one not just with community members of varying castes,  but with nature itself. His activism evolves with his growing religious awareness. 

“Moorthy says, ‘We need a woman in the committee for the Congress is for the weak and the lowly.’” 

Gender is a theme that runs through Kanthapura. Although Moorthy is far more egalitarian when it comes to gender than the ruling authorities, this line illustrates how even the most progressive men at the time viewed women as literally “weak and lowly”, much like the Pariah class.  

“And this time it was from the Brahmin quarter that the shouts came, and the policemen rushed toward the Brahmins and beat them, and old Ramanna and Dore came forward and said ‘We too are Gandhi’s men, beat us as much as you like,’ and the policemen beat them till they were flat on the ground, mud in their mouths and mist in their eyes” 

The Brahmin are a privileged class in Kanthapura and in Indian society as a whole. As such, they are the slowest to embrace Gandhi’s philosophy due to the fact that it would mean giving up some of their privilege. When they choose to side with Moorthy and his followers against the colonial authority, it is a turning point for the movement. 

“And when our men heard of this, they said: was there nothing left for our women but to vagabond about like soldiers? And every time the milk curdled or a dhoti was not dry, they would say ‘And this is all because of this Sevi business’” 

The formation of Rangamma’s female volunteer corps in Moorthy’s absence is a major change for the village, as it upends the usual division of labor. As the women take on traditionally male tasks, the men are resentful and blame Rangamma for every minor difficulty this change causes.

“In the morning we saw Moorthy at the river. Why, sister, he was as ever - as ever. Why, when one goes to prison, one is as ever!” 

Moorthy has been absent from the narrative for several chapters due to his prison sentence. Although he does not speak any lines in this scene, Achakka’s observation is that nothing has changed with him - he is at peace with his faith and has returned unbroken. 

“‘Now’ said Moorthy, ‘we are out for action. A cock does not make a morning, nor a single man a revolution, but we’ll build a thousand-pillared temple, a temple more firm than any that hath yet been builded, and each one of you be ye pillars in it.’” 

Moorthy’s resolve is clearly unbowed by his time in prison, and in fact, he seems to have a clearer perspective than ever on how to effect real change. He is seeing his movement not as a group of individual people, but a collective working toward a common goal. 

“Then we ate and we slept, and we spake and we slept, and when they said ‘stay here, sisters’, we said ‘we’ll stay, sisters’, and we settled down in Kashipura.” 

In the end, Kanthapura could not be saved from colonial aggression. The people of the village were simply struggling against the tide. However, the movement lived on in the people, as they moved to a different town to continue the fight, now more aware than ever. 

“You know, sister, Moorthy is no more with us. The other day, when Ratna was here, we asked ‘When is Moorthy to be released?’ and she says ‘Why, aunt—he’s already freed.’” 

Despite being the novel’s protagonist, Moorthy’s eventual fate is left ambiguous, told only through third-hand questions. He is ultimately more of a symbol than a character, left to fade into the background of a greater movement that will change the world.