A Corpse in the Well - Shankarrao Kharat

A Corpse in the Well is an extract from the book Taral Antaral, an autobiography by Shankar Ramchandra Kharat, an established Dalit writer in the post independence Indian literature scene. The story’s primary themes seem to be on emphasizing the difference in power that exists in villages, and how the Mahars, or Dalits, are treated cruelly and in an almost sub-human fashion. The unfair method in which they are bossed around serves to highlight a broken system and ideology.

_________________________________________________________________________________

              

               In the story, the boy’s father, referred to only by the title ‘Anna’, is performing his village duties. A corpse had been found recently in the well, and the Mahar on duty (Anna) was assigned to guard it until the police arrive. Anna had been waiting at the well for the entire night, when his son, the narrator, arrives to give him some food. The father, in an exemplary display of loyalty towards his duty, refuses, saying that he’ll only eat once relieved of his duties. At this point of time, the police arrived, and ordered Anna to fetch the body from the well.

                Anna refuses initially, but, noticing the policeman’s flaring temper, he enters the well. A snake in the well’s shallow water causes a fright in both the son and the father, but eventually the body and Anna are successfully drawn up from the well. As the son heads home, he reflects on the injustice and the deadly work involved in village duty.

                The head constable, or the policeman, is depicted in quite a negative light throughout the story. The fact that he, a police officer, a supposed implementer of the law, resorts to such primeval means of discrimination to get his job done, induces a sick sort of irony in the reader.

_________________________________________________________________________________

              

                The theme of injustice is one that permeates the entire story. The Mahars and Ramoshis loyally and whole heartedly serve their village, as is shown in numerous examples throughout the story. Anna’s refusal to eat while on duty is one; another could be his risking of life to recover the body from the well, and yet another is the respect that the Ramoshis and Mahars show the constable; when the latter arrives, the Mahars have laid out a manger of grass and a pail of freshwater to sate the horse’s thirst. Thus, when the Mahars behave in such a fashion, the reader feels greatly shocked and appalled by the way that the policeman responds to such bravery and loyalty towards duty. He abuses them and threatens to beat them. This obvious abuse of power, combined with the father’s air of surrender present throughout the story; such as his giving into pressure from the policeman, coupled with a line in which he says,

                                               “Who cares if a Mahar lives or dies”,

serves to but strengthen the theme of injustice, rife throughout the story.

 _________________________________________________________________________________              

              

When the constable begins to threaten Anna, pressuring him to retrieve the body from the well, the surrounding village elders respond by saying,

                                            “Sarkar (government official), you will go away from here! You will leave this poor Mahar to his fate! We want to go on living in this village!”

In the above line, the author is conveying to the reader, the threat of communal violence. Neighboring villages, from whence the corpse in the well may have come, would not respond positively to their kinsman being touched by members of a lower caste, and thus, the Mahars in the community are responding not out of empathy and pity for the Mahar on duty, but more so out of fear of attack; serving to reinforce the aforementioned concept of injustice.

_________________________________________________________________________________