As one of India�s leading contemporary playwrights, Vijay Tendulkar�s engagements

with the media of theatre, films and television have produced powerful plays like
Shantata! Court Chalu Ahe (1967), Kamala (1981), Ghasiram Kotwal (1972), Sakharam
Binder (1972) and Kanyadaan (1983). He vehemently insists upon his being first and
foremost a writer and regards an ideal playwright as a rebellious genius capable of
arousing an interest in things hitherto thought of as not worthy of artistic
attention.1 In most of his plays he generally endeavors to expose the complacency
and hypocrisy of so called liberal and respected people of contemporary society. In
Kamala he reveals the ills of contemporary journalism and mean intention of
journalist Jaisingh Jadhav and in Sakharam Binder he attacks the ideals of marriage
life in our society and shakes the foundations of marriage-system.

The focus of the present paper is Tendulkar`s 'Kanyadaan' with reference to dalit
conciousness and the problems of the ideology of equal status to all Indians. Dr. B
R Ambedkar, who had been struggling all through his life for the reformation of
dalits, was definitely a rebel � when he had himself chosen to lead a crusade
against the well-established and accepted social norms of the society. Maharashtra
has been a region where demands for the rights of dalits and protest against
untouchabilty were most vocal. Ambedkar, a product of unequal social order with
stigmatized identity, vehemently criticized the social reformers of his time for
paying only lip service to the issues of caste and untouchability. Class
consciousness is an endemic feature of our civilization and as an institution has
proved detrimental to a large segment of Indian population. What India needed was
the annihilation of the caste system and not social reforms. As the caste
institution affected dalits differently, Ambedkar wanted to end the caste system
itself. This, he knew, could be done only by questioning the sanctity of Hindu
sacred texts, institutions that forbade inter-caste marriages and inter-dining.

Through Kanyadaan Tendulkar probes deeply into the layers of Indian castes-
psychology in presenting before us the complicated, conflicting and tense
relationship between Indian middle class and socially outcaste and untouchable
community. Social reformers have given thought to it from time to time and through
a number of reform campaigns, donations, reservations, meetings, seminars, have
tried to eliminate this bias, doubt and misunderstanding between the classes. But
all these big efforts had little effect on the real conditions of the people. The
so called reform campaigns for the downtrodden people and talks of democracy and
equality proved to be a mere show; and even today the disturbing rift between
social classes of India can be clearly perceived. In 'Kanyadaan' Tendulkar brings
to the fore the contradiction implicated in one�s commitment to eradicate casteism
and in the process draws us to seriously rethink as why we fail in our objective to
bring about social equality.

The relationship between a dalit, Arun and a Brahmin family forms the principal
theme of Kanyadaan. The head of the Brahmin family is Nath Devlalikar. Arun comes
in contact to this family through his marriage to Nath`s daughter Jyoti. The
problems start arising when his lower class habits start shaking the middle class
values of Nath`s family. 'Civilization' and 'culture' are the mirrors in which
Nath`s family members want to see their faces. However, the difficulty is that
their son in law is quite unaware of these two terms. Like his ancestors, Arun also
does not know how to control his reactions according to the social environment
.Like the members of the Nath's family he does not determine his steps in advance.
He just reacts impulsively to his physical environment .Though he is a talented and
creative writer, he does not try to imbibe in himself the 'cultured' and
'civilized' manners of the middle class people. On the other hand, Nath often
claims himself to be civilized and cultured. The deeply entrenched 'concept' of
difference between 'civilized' and 'barbaric' behavior induces serious conflicts in
the play. What happens in these situations could be very well cast in terms of the
theories of class and race, that points out that our conditioning or ideologically
internalized assumptions give us continued justification of the �difference�
between the upper caste and the lower caste, urban middle class and lower class.

We must first examine whether all that is done in the name of 'cultured' and
'civilized' is really good and that which is termed �barbaric� is always bad?
Civilized behavior is not the inherent nature of the man; no man is born with it.
Rather he is taught to behave in a certain way �.in the beginning of human race man
was in non-civilized state. Arun�s primitive and impulsive behavior can be taken as
an example. On the other hand, Nath Devlalikar believes that only civilized manners
and discipline can make a man a good human being. When in a fit of anger his son
Jayprakash calls Arun a 'bastard' Nath scolds him and reminds him, "You are brought
up with certain values! And you! It is wrong to show disrespect to anyone, under
any circumstances. We are cultured and civilized."2

The point here is that Nath regards himself to be a democrat, a reformer, a

responsible and respected citizen and above all, a model for others. Like himself
he wants others to be decent, honest and responsible. He can not see anyone
neglecting his/her duty. He is a political and social activist. He supports
equality and democracy and is actively involved in bettering the condition of
downtrodden and socially neglected people. He seems to have a reformative and
progressive bent of mind. He says to his wife, "The values I uphold in my public
life are the values I live by in my personal life. I will never use compulsion on
anyone who is capable of thinking."3 At another time he says to his daughter; �We
have a democracy in this house and we are proud of it. Democracy outside and
dictatorship in the home, we don't know these two timing tricks."4

His ideal notions come to a test when his daughter Jyoti decides to marry a poor
and socially inferior young man Arun. At this point he does not show any
discrimination between his ideals and his practical deeds. He readily accepts his
daughter's proposal and encourages her to do what she thinks right. When his wife
Seva and son Jayprakash oppose this marriage, he stands by Jyoti. While supporting
her he says to his wife:

"Seva, until today 'Break the caste system' was merely a slogan for us. I've
attended many intercaste marriages and made speeches. But today, I have broken the
barrier in the real sense. My home has become Indian in the real sense of the term.
I am happy today, very happy. I have no need to change my clothes today. Today I
have changed. I have become new."5

He faces all the opposition from his wife and son and argues in favor of Jyoti. He
says that this marriage will work as an experiment in his lifelong campaign to
mitigate the differences between high and lower caste people, differences between
middle and working class people and the differences that separate man from man.
Thus at the personal risk, he makes a social experiment. Here Nath reminds us of a
Brahmin father Madhuvarsa in Girish Karnad�s play Tale-Danda. Madhuvarsa vehemently
wanted to marry off his daughter Kalavati to a cobbler�s son in order to help the
movement of caste-eradication. Madhuvarsa and Shilvanta�s mother Kalyani, are blind
to the basic fact that both the Brahmin girl and cobbler boy are not willing for
the marriage for the simple reason that the girl, Kalavati can not stand the smell
of leather. Playwright sees in their domineering zeal a perverse desire for
personal victory rather than a sincere interest in bridging the caste diference:6

Bhasavana: Some day this entire edifice of caste and creed, this prison-house of
Varnashram, will come tumbling down. Every person will see himself only as a human
being. As a Bhakta. As a Sharana. That is inevitable. But we have a long way to go.
Madhuvarsa: Then let me say this: I shall not hesitate to sacrifice my daughter�s
life to forward the cause of our great movement.7

He gets a little disappointed when he finds his experiment failing. Arun turns out
to be quite a different nature of person. He descends from the untouchable and
lowest working section of the society, who has crude and uncivilized manners in the
eyes of Nath's wife and son. He is very much critical of the sophisticated and high
caste people. He calls the big houses of rich people "bellies of sharks and
crocodiles."8 He terms the civilized and polished society of culture as "unwrinkled
tinopal world."9 Contrary to cultured behavior he is a bad mouth and does not care
what to speak and what not. Though he loves Jyoti he often beats her and criticizes
her high caste associations. The situation reminds us of �angry young man� of John
Osborne�s Look Back In Anger (1956); there is a huge gulf between Jimmy Porter and
his wife Alison. Her family is upper middle class military, while Jimmy is working
class. Like Arun, Jimmy too is well educated and he pours out all the frustrations
and anger of a lower class person on his wife. When Seva insists on reconsidering
Jyoti's ties to Arun, Nath thinks that with the passage of time he will be
transformed and will leave his beastly behavior. He was very much influenced by
Arun's 'Autobiography' and he believes that Arun is not bad by nature but the
product of his adverse circumstances. He argues that if downtrodden people like
Arun are provided with proper environment and opportunity they can amend
themselves.

But this reforming zeal of Nath gets a shocking blow and comes under severe
criticism when his own daughter Jyoti breaks her relations from his family and
claims herself to be a member of dalit community. Being fed up with the comfortable
values of her Brahmin society, she prefers to be a straightforward scavenger, an
untouchable. She thinks that her father's ideal notions and reforming principles
are based on only half reality of life. She learns the whole truth only after
coming in contact with Arun. Until now, she was sharing Nath's views that by
thinking in a proper way one could understand the problems of society and thereby
solve them. Now she learns that one has to live amidst the problems and
difficulties; only then, one can understand the real nature of things. She also
learns that no man can be polished completely and made white without any stain of
his negative qualities; man and his inherent nature can never be two different
things as both are one and inseparable. She says to Nath:

"Putting man's beastliness to sleep and awakening the godhead within is an absurd
notion. You made me waste twenty years of my life before I could discover this. I
had to learn it on my own experience.�10

Jytoi's perception can be considered right; now she has a better vision than her
father Nath. No doubt, Nath is sincere in his reformative mission; he really wants
to bring equality, eradicate untouchabilty and better the lot of the downtrodden
people. But he does all these things from a distance. He sacrifices his daughter in
order to make his social experiment successful. But when he himself encounters the
ugly realty and coarseness of Dalt Arun, he gets enraged, "�Why did I have to come
in with a man like this? A man like this �why?�11 It seems he himself has not been
completely free from the bias against untouchable and lower class people�. Is he
himself above all the caste-considerations? Let us see an example:

'Nath: �but if my daughter had decided to marry into high caste, it wouldn't have
pleased me as much. �Well, I'm telling you the absolute truth.
Jayprakash: This is also a kind of casteism, isn't it?'12

Obviously reformation is Nath�s mission and yet ironically his self esteem of a
'great socialist' is a perception, he can not cast off. He tried his best to make
the marriage of Jyoti to Arun a successful one, not only because Jyoti was his
daughter but also because he was seeing this marriage in a wider perspective. He
says to his wife:

"Seva, let not this wonderful experiment fail! This dream which is struggling to
turn real let it not crumble into dust before our own eyes! We will have to do
something. We must save this marriage. Not necessarily for our Jyoti�s sake ...
This is not just a question of our own daughter's life seva, this has � a far wider
significance � this experiment is very precious experiment".13

But even after this much of optimism and commitment he fails in his experiment. He
tries to cope with the crude and uncivilized manners of his dalit son in law Arun,
with the hope that things will change and Arun will be transformed. But it does not
happen so and he develops a strong antipathy against Arun. He says to his wife:

"Seva, he � his visit has polluted this drawing room, this house, and this day �.it
stinks. Seva- you know- you see-I feel like taking a bath, like cleaning myself!
Clean everything! This furniture, this floor� all this� he has made them filthy,
dirty, polluted."14

Tendulkar seems to pose the question: why did this gap remain wide between higher
and lower classes even after such a commitment and effort? It is not an easy
question. The play shows that the reformers themselves are not free from all
biases; and priggishness and artificial behavior of high-class people make it
difficult and impossible for lower class persons to assimilate with them. Nath
hates Arun and his book. Even after that, he praises the book before a large
public. This fake act on his part hurts his daughter Jyoti. She says, "Arun is both
the beast, and the lover. Arun is the demon, and also the poet. Both are bound
together, one within the other, they are one".15 She wants to say that the persons
like Arun may be brute and rude but they are better than the so called gentlemen.
�. Nath�s wife Seva also is a socialist and champion of women�s rights. But she
does not allow her daughter to take a bold step of marrying into a socially and
economically backward community. Dalit people like Arun are merely a subject of
study for her, not individuals capable enough to be her son-in-law. Her bias
against dalits can be clearly seen in her conversation with her husband about
Arun�s ties to her family (Karnad: 2005: 46)

Nath: Not only he is a middle class man, he is dalit. He has been brought up in the
midst of poverty and hatred. These people�s psychological make-up is altogether
different� We must try to understand him and that is extremely difficult.
Seva: If you like, I�m ready to attend your study circle on this. But I will never
accept him as my Jyoti�s husband. Never.16

Like other plays of Vijay Tendulkar Kanyadaan touches the part of our psyche that
we are not willing to acknowledge. Tendulkar�s dramatic narrative is redolent with
undercurrent of violence and anger. This play won him Saraswati-Samman but he was
both honored and insulted at its production for demonstrating the courage to strike
at the comfortable values and illusions of our contemporary society. In spite of
having a vision and generosity Nath finds it impossible to get reconciled with real
relationship with a dalit. The playwright seems to be hinting that even the most
liberal people covertly or unconsciously insist upon maintaining a power
relationship.