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Portrait of Mulk Raj Anand

Mulk Raj Anand

‐

Writer, editor, journalist, critic and activist

Place of birth

Peshawar, India (Pakistan)

Date of arrival to Britain

Location(s)

8 St George's Mews
Regent's Park Road
London
NW1 8XE
United Kingdom

Place of death

Pune, India

Date of time spent in Britain

1925–45. Trips back to India and elsewhere during this period: 1929 (India), 1930 (Rome, Paris and Vienna to visit art galleries), 1935 (India), 1937 (Spain, three months with the International Brigade in the University Trenches).

About

Mulk Raj Anand was a distinguished writer, critic, editor, journalist and political activist. Born into the Kshatriya (warrior) caste in the Punjabi city of Peshawar, he was educated at cantonment schools before completing a degree at the University of Punjab, Amritsar, where his involvement in the 1921 Civil Disobedience campaign against the British resulted in a short period of imprisonment. He was just 19 years old when he left India for England on a scholarship to mark the silver wedding of George V and Queen Mary. On his arrival he registered at University College, London to study for a doctorate in philosophy, which he was awarded in 1929.

In England, Anand quickly became involved in left-wing politics as well as the Indian independence movement. He was vocal in his support of the coal miners’ strike in 1926 and of the General Strike that followed, and soon afterwards joined a Marxist study circle at the home of the trade unionist Alan Hutt. In the 1930s and 1940s he spoke regularly at meetings of Krishna Menon’s India League, where he came into contact with a number of British intellectuals and activists including Bertrand Russell, H. N. Brailsford and Michael Foot, and in 1937 he left Britain for three months to join the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Drawing also on his talents as a writer in the struggle for socialism, Anand wrote numerous essays on Marxism, Fascism, the Spanish Civil War, Indian independence and other political movements, events and issues of the day. He turned down the offer of a post at Cambridge University. Instead, he lectured in literature and philosophy at the London County Council Adult Educational Schools and the Workers' Educational Association, from 1939 to 1942. Anand’s belief in an international socialism, evident in the range of his political activities, was matched by his conviction of the inextricability of politics and literature. This is reflected in many of his novels, which depict the lives of the poorest members of Indian society. The first of these, Untouchable, was published by the left-leaning British firm Wishart in 1935. It can also be seen in his role in the founding of the Progressive Writers’ Association in London in 1935, along with fellow Indian writers Sajjad Zaheer and Ahmed Ali.

Anand immersed himself in London’s literary scene in the inter-war years, associating and in some cases forming friendships with eminent British writers including George Orwell, T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender and Bonamy Dobree. He was a regular reviewer for a range of national newspapers and magazines, including the New Statesman and Life and Letters Today. He also worked as an editor for Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, and for T. S. Eliot at The Criterion. It was at The Criterion that Anand met E. M. Forster, whose endorsement of his first novel helped to secure the publishing deal with Wishart – and so his establishment as a novelist. Prior to this, he had already seen success as an art and literary critic, publishing his first book, on Persian painting, in 1930. Untouchable was followed by a string of novels which were, on the whole, reviewed favourably, as well as several essay collections on subjects ranging from art to cookery to India’s struggle for freedom. During the Second World War, Anand researched, scripted and broadcast numerous radio programmes for the BBC Eastern Service, working alongside George Orwell and the Caribbean poet Una Marson, in particular. In 1938, he married the Communist and would-be actor Kathleen Van Gelder, with whom he had a daughter, Rajani. The marriage did not last.

Soon after his return to India in 1945, Anand founded the art magazine Marg. He taught at various universities, including the University of the Punjab, where he was appointed Tagore Professor of Literature and Fine Art. From 1965 to 1970 he was Fine Art Chairman at Lalit Kala Akademi (National Academy of Arts). He continued to write fiction and criticism, and to support a range of national and international cultural associations such as the World Peace Council, the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association, the National Book Trust and the UNESCO Dialogues of East and West. He died in Pune on 28 September 2004.

Meetings of the Indian National Congress, Lahore, 1929

Second Conference of the International Association of Writers for the Defence of Culture, London, 19–23 June 1936

Spanish Civil War (joined International Brigade in 1937)

XVIII International PEN Conference, London, 1941 (delivered plea for independence)

Numerous India League meetings

Persian Painting (London: Faber & Faber, 1930)

Curries and Other Indian Dishes (London: Desmond Harmsworth, 1932)

The Golden Breath: Studies in Five Poets of the New India (London: John Murray, 1933)

The Hindu View of Art (London: Allen & Unwin, 1933)

Marx and Engels on India (London: Socialist Book Club, 1933)

The Lost Child and Other Stories (London: J. A. Allen & Co., 1934)

Untouchable (London: Wishart, 1935)

Coolie (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1936)

Two Leaves and a Bud (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1937)

The Village (London: Cape, 1939)

Across the Black Waters (London: Cape, 1940)

Letters on India (London: Labour Book Service, 1942)

The Sword and the Sickle (London: Cape, 1942)

The Barber's Trade Union, and Other Stories (London: Cape, 1944)

Big Heart. A Novel (London: Hutchinson, 1945)

Apology for Heroism: An Essay in Search of Faith (London: Lindsay Drummond, 1946)

Indian Fairy Tales (Bombay: Kutub-Popular, 1946)

On Education (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1947)

The Tractor and the Corn Goddess, and Other Stories (Bombay: Thacker & Co., 1947)

The King-Emperor's English; or, The Role of the English Language in the Free India (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1948)

Lines Written to an Indian Air. Essays (Bombay: Nalanda Publications, 1949)

Seven Summers: The Story of an Indian Childhood (London: Hutchinson, 1951)

The Story of Man (Amritsar and New Delhi: Sikh Publishing House, 1952)

Private Life of an Indian Prince (London: Hutchinson, 1953)

Reflections on the Golden Bed, and Other Stories (Bombay: Current Book House, 1954)

The Dancing Foot (Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, 1957)

The Power of Darkness and Other Stories (Bombay: Jaico Publishing House, 1959)

The Old Woman and the Cow (Bombay: Kutub-Popular, 1960)

More Indian Fairy Tales (Bombay: Kutub-Popular, 1961)

The Road: A Novel (Bombay: Kutub-Popular, 1961)

Death of a Hero: Epitaph for Maqbool Sherwani: A Novel (Bombay: Kutub-Popular, 1963)

Is There a Contemporary Indian Civilisation? (London and Madras: Asia Publishing House, 1963)

Kama Kala: Some Notes on the Philosophical Basis of Hindu Erotic Sculpture (Geneva: Nagel Publishers, [1958] 1963)

The Story of Chacha Nehru (Delhi: Rajpal & Sons, 1965)

Lajwanti and Other Stories (Bombay: Jaico Publishing House, 1966)

The Humanism of M. K. Gandhi: Three Lectures (Chandigarh: University of Punjab, 1967)

Morning Face: A Novel (Bombay: Kutub Popular, 1968)

Roots and Flowers: Two Lectures on the Metamorphosis of Technique and Content in the Indian-English Novel (Dharwar: Karnatak University, 1972)

Author to Critic: The Letters of Mulk Raj Anand, ed., introduction and notes by Saros Cowasjee (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1973)

Between Tears and Laughter (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1973)

Folk Tales of Punjab (New Delhi: Sterling, 1974)

Confessions of a Lover (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1976)

Gauri (New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1976)

The Humanism of Jawaharlal Nehru (Calcutta: Visva-Bharati, 1978)

The Humanism of Rabindranath Tagore: Three Lectures (Aurangabad: Murathwada University, 1978)

Conversations in Bloomsbury (London: Wildwood House, 1981)

The Bubble (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1984)

Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English (Bombay: Macmillan, 1972)

The Letters of Mulk Raj Anand, ed. and with an introduction by Saros Cowasjee (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1974)

Selected Short Stories of Mulk Raj Anand, ed. and with an introduction by M. K. Naik (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1977)

Autobiography (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1985–)

Poet-Painter: Paintings by Rabindranath Tagore (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1985)

Pilpali Sahab: The Story of a Big Ego in a Small Boy (London: Aspect, 1990)

Caliban and Gandhi: Letters to 'Bapu' from Bombay (New Delhi: Arnold, 1991)

Old Myth and New Myth: Letters from Mulk Raj Anand to K. V. S. Murti (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1991)

Anand to Alma: Letters of Mulk Raj Anand, ed. by Atma Ram (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1994)

Nine Moods of Bharata: Novel of a Pilgrimage (New Delhi: Arnold Associates, 1998)

'Things Have a Way of Working Out'...and Other Stories (New Delhi: Orient, 1998)

Reflections on a White Elephant (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 2002)

Abidi, Syed Zaheer Hasan, Mulk Raj Anand's Coolie: A Critical Study (Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1976)

Abidi, S. Z., Mulk Raj Anand's 'Untouchable': A Critical Study (Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1977)

Agnihotri, G. N., Indian Life and Problems in the Novels of Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R. K. Narayan (Meerut: Shalabh Book House, 1984)

Agrawal, B. R., Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2006)

Amur, G. S., Forbidden Fruit: Views on Indo-Anglian Fiction (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1992) 

Anjaneyulu, T., A Critical Study of the Selected Novels of Mulk Raj Anand, Manohar Malgonkar and Khushwant Singh (New Delhi: Atlantic, 1998)

Arora, Neena, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Hero (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2005)

Berry, Margaret, Mulk Raj Anand: The Man and the Novelist (Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1971)

Bhatnagar, Manmohan K. and Rajeshwar, M., The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Critical Study (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2000)

Bheemaiah, J., Class and Caste in Literature: The Fiction of Harriet B. Stowe and Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2005)

Bluemel, Kristin, George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics: Intermodernism in Literary London (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)

Cowasjee, Saros, Mulk Raj Anand: Coolie: An Assessment (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976)

Cowasjee, Saros, So Many Freedoms: A Study of the Major Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1977)

Dayal, B., A Critical Study of the Themes and Techniques of the Indo-Anglian Short Story Writers with Special Reference to Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan and K. A. Abbas (Ranchi: Jubilee Prakashan, 1985)

Dhar, T. N., History-Fiction Interface in Indian English Novel: Mulk Raj Anand, Nayantara Sahgal, Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, O. V. Vijayan (London: Sangam, 1999)

Dhawan, R. K., The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Prestige, 1992)

Fisher, Marlene, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Sterling, 1985)

Gautam, G. L., Mulk Raj Anand's Critique of Religious Fundamentalism: A Critical Assessment of His Novels (Delhi: Kanti Publications, 1996)

George, C. J., Mulk Raj Anand, His Art and Concerns: A Study of His Non-Autobiographical Novels (New Delhi: Atlantic, 1994)

Gupta, G. S. Balarama, Mulk Raj Anand: A Study of His Fiction in Humanist Perspective (Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1974)

Indra Mohan, T. M. J., The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A New Critical Spectrum (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2005)

Jain, Sushil Kumar, An Annotated Bibliography of Dr Mulk Raj Anand (Regina, Sask., 1965)

Khan, S. A., Mulk Raj Anand: The Novel of Commitment (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2000)

Krishna Rao, Angara Venkata, The Indo-Anglian Novel and the Changing Tradition: A Study of the Novels of Mulk Raj Anand, Kamala Markandaya, R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao, 1930–64 (Mysore: Rao & Raghavan, 1972)

Lindsay, Jack, Mulk Raj Anand: A Critical Essay (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1948)

Mishra, Binod, Existential Concerns in Novels of Mulk Raj Anand (Delhi: Adhyayan Publishers & Distributors, 2005)

Naik, M. K., Mulk Raj Anand (London: Arnold-Heinemann India, 1973)

Nasimi, Reza Ahmad, The Language of Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, and R. K. Narayan (Delhi: Capital Publishing House, 1989)

Nasta, Susheila, 'Negotiating a "New World Order": Mulk Raj Anand as Public Intellectual at the Heart of the Empire (1925–1945)', in Rehana Ahmed and Sumita Mukherjee (eds) South Asian Resistances in Britain 1858–1947 (London: Continuum, 2012), pp. 140–60

Nautiyal, Sarojani, An Introduction to Three Indo-Anglian Novels: Untouchable, The Serpent and the Rope, The Man-Eater of Malgudi (Ambala: IBA Publications, 2001)

Niven, Alastair, The Yoke of Pity: A Study in the Fictional Writings of Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1978)

Niven, Alastair, 'Anand, Mulk Raj (1905–2004)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/93854]

Pacham, G., Mulk Raj Anand: A Check-List (Mysore: Centre for Commonwealth Literature and Research, University of Mysore, 1983)

Patil, V. T., Gandhism and Indian English Fiction: The Sword and the Sickle, Kanthapura and Waiting for the Mahatma (Delhi: Devika, 1997)

Paul, Premila, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Thematic Study (New Delhi: Sterling, 1983)

Prasad, Amar Nath, Critical Response to V. S. Naipaul and Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2003)

Prasad, Shaileshwar Sati, The Insulted and the Injured: Untouchables, Coolies, and Peasants in the Novels of Mulk Raj Anand (Patna: Janaki Prakashan, 1997)

Rajan, P. K., Studies in Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1986)

Rajan, P. K., Mulk Raj Anand: A Revaluation (New Delhi: Arnold Associates, 1995)

Savio, G. Dominic, Voices of the Voiceless: Mulk Raj Anand and Jayakanthan: Social Consciousness and Indian Fiction (New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2006)

Sharma, Ambuj Kumar, The Theme of Exploitation in the Novels of Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: H. K. Publishers and Distributors, 1990)

Sharma, Ambuj Kumar, Gandhian Strain in the Indian English Novel (New Delhi: Sarup, 2004)

Sharma, K. K., Perspectives on Mulk Raj Anand (Ghaziabad: Vimal, 1978)

Sharma, K. K., Four Great Indian English Novelists: Some Points of View (New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2002)

Singh, Pramod Kumar, Five Contemporary Indian Novelists: An Anthology of Critical Studies on Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, Kamala Markandaya and Bhabani Bhattacharya (Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2001)

Singh, R. V., Mulk Raj Anand's Shorter Fiction: A Study of His Social Vision (New Delhi: Satyam, 2004)

Singh, Vaidyanath, Social Realism in the Fiction of Dickens and Mulk Raj Anand (New Delhi: Commonwealth Publishers, 1997)

Sinha, Krishna Nandan, Mulk Raj Anand (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972)

Suresh Kumar, A. V., Six Indian Novelists: Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, Balachandran Rajan, Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai (New Delhi: Creative Books, 1996)

Suryanarayana Murti, K. V., The Sword and the Sickle: A Study of Mulk Raj Anand's Novels (Mysore: Geetha Book House, 1983)

Thorat, Ashok, Five Great Indian Novels: A Discourse Analysis: Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable, Raja Rao's Kanthapura, Kushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan, Rama Mehta's Inside the Haveli, Chaman Nahal's Azadi (New Delhi: Prestige, 2000)

Vijayasree, C., Mulk Raj Anand: The Raj and the Writer (New Delhi: B. R., 1998)

BBC Written Archives, Caversham Park, Reading

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University [some publishing papers relating to the publishing history of Untouchable]

India League files, L/PJ/12/448-54, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

British Library Sound Archive, St Pancras

The George Orwell Archive, University College London

Papers of Saros Cowasjee, Dr John Archer Library, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

Leonard Woolf Archive, University of Sussex Special Collections, Brighton

Monks House Papers (Virginia Woolf), University of Sussex Special Collections, Brighton

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Lalu was full of excitement to be going along to this city. The march through Marseilles had been merely a fleeting expedition, and he was obsessed with something which struggled to burst through all the restraints and the embarrassment of the unfamiliar, to break through the fear of the exalted life that the Europeans lived, the rare high life of which he, like all the sepoys, had only had distant glimpses from the holes and crevices in the thick hedges outside the Sahib’s bungalows in India. And, as he walked under the shadows of mansions with shuttered windows like those on the houses of Marseilles, reading the names of shops on the boards, as he walked past vineyards dappled by the pale sun, past stretches of grassy land…his tongue played with the name of this city, Orleans, and there was an echo in his mind, from the memory of something which had happened here, something which he could not remember.

‘A quieter city than Marsels,’ Uncle Kirpu said…

‘Oh! Water, oh there is a stream!’ shouted the sepoys whose impetuosity knew no bounds.

Lalu rushed up and saw the stream on the right, flowing slowly, gently, and shouted:

‘River!’

Everything is small in these parts,’ Kirpu said. ‘Look at their rivers – not bigger than our small nullahs. Their whole land can be crossed in a night’s journey, when it takes two nights and days from the frontier to my village in the district of Kangra. Their rain is like the pissing of a child. And their storms are a mere breeze in the tall grass…’

Mulk Raj Anand, Across the Black Waters (London: Cape, 1940), pp. 30–1

Image credit

Mulk Raj Anand, by Howard Coster, half-plate film negative, 1930s, NPG x126820

© National Portrait Gallery, London, Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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Life timeline

Birth
First arrival in Britain
Death

Citation: ‘Mulk Raj Anand’, South Asian Britain, https://southasianbritain-demo.rit.bris.ac.uk/people/mulk-raj-anand/. Accessed: 5 July 2025.

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