Shukla’s, and he may be a part of the household, he is not good enough to marry Sudha solely due to his caste. Shukla’s strong opinions is that Chander and Sudha restrain their emotions, turning their affection into a platonic trap.Ĭhander is lower caste and though he may be a favourite of Dr. Nevertheless the real-life consequence of Dr. Shukla’s opinions and believes that caste system will soon be a redundant institution. If a girl marries into a different caste, she will not be able to find the correct balance.”Ĭhander disagrees with Dr. Different castes have different traditions and customs. The most important thing in a marriage is cultural similarity. It is a social reality and we must view it as such. When Chander argues that marriage is an emotional bond between two individuals and that the difference of caste does not matter, Dr. Shukla comes across as a vehement critic of inter-caste marriage, claiming that marriage is not an emotional union but a social institution where the compatibility of social class, in this case, caste, is essential. The affection between her and Chander grows naturally, but is restrained by the constraints of caste, social sanction and respect.Īt the start of the novel, Dr. Shukla’s daughter, Sudha, motherless and lonely.

Shukla’s favourite students and becomes a part of the professor’s household. The orphaned Chandrakumar Kapoor is one of Dr. Shukla, professor at Allahabad University. The novel is set in the late 1940s, and revolves around the household of the widowed Dr. His illumination of the destruction of love, uncoupled by desire, and vice versa, remains one of the most powerful critiques of the devastation that results from trying to thwart natural affection. Part of the reason may be that in the novel, Bharati took on not only the idea of caste relations, but also the implicit idea that platonic love was better than physical desire.

Maybe this is because even though we do see instances when love surpasses the boundaries of caste and creed, this is still a rarity in Indian society, where inter-caste marriages can be punished by death and inter-community marriages termed “love jihad”.īharati, a recipient of the Padma Shri award, was just 23 years old when he wrote this enormously powerful novel, which would take the Hindi literary world by storm. In 2014, Bhartiya Ghyanpith publishers brought out the 71 st edition of the book – 17 years after Bharati’s death – giving an indication of both its popularity and the enduring resonance of the themes of love, desire, respect, caste and social propriety that cut across the book. Dharamvir Bharati was a giant in the world of Indian literature and his 1949 novel Gunahon ka Devta, a classic.

Gunahon ka devta novel