Moorty: A Gandhian Model in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura

Abstract

Thinking about Gandhian Ideology and Indian Writing in English inevitably the name of the renowned Indian English writer Raja Rao comes in our mind. He is the person who has dealt with the Gandhian Ideology in a great way in his novel Kanthapura. In the novel Kanthapura he has made a lot of effort to convey Gandhian message to the rest of the society by depicting vivid picture of Indian English Society of the time in the village Kanthapura and by portraying the characteristics of Mahatma Gandhi in the protagonist of the novel Moorty. In several of the instances in the novel Kanthapura the character of Moorty reminds us of Gandhian Ideology and the freedom movement of that time. The character is not only a follower of the Gandhian Ideology but also a carrier of it so that it may be spread among all other citizens of the nation. The present paper is an attempt to study the character of Moorty as a Gandhian model in the novel Kanthapura. To make the novel a torch bearer for the Gandhian Ideologies the time frame in which the author has fixed the scene also resembles with several of Gandhian Movements. Raja Rao has fixed the novel between 1919-1922 and 1930-1931 where Gandhian movements were at its perfect pace.