Contemporary Feministic Echoes in Anand’s Novels

Resistance, revolt, education, frankness, economic independency and exposure of body are the hallmarks of contemporary women. This paper aims at searching for the contemporary women in Mulk Raj Anand's novels in the light of the progressive nature of feminism. Women's journey of progress began with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and has attained shifting characters in modern time like 'modern woman’, 'new woman' and finally 'newly born woman'. In Anand's novels, features of modernity begin with Sohini's 'resistance' against her physical exploitation in Untouchable and proceeds to Leila's 'revolt' against her sexual harassment in Two Leaves and a Bud. Maya's breakthrough of the conventional system of arranged marriages and coming back to her lover Lal Singh in The Village. Janki's avoidance of cultural stereotypes and hatred against the prescribed rules for the widows and her frankness, modernity, and open love for Ananta after the death of her unmatched husband in The Big Heart, Gauri's economic independence and education in The Old Woman and the Cow and Ganga Dasi's winning back her body and using it as her unfailing weapon to crush even the powerful corrupt men in The Private Life of an Indian Prince.