A Fine Balance 777ments to his monkeys and later to his niece and
nephew cause him to take revenge upon those who
took away all the family he possessed.
While Mistry identifies characters by their
socioeconomic status and ethnicity or caste affili-
ation, it is the way in which they choose to deal
with their circumstances that identifies them as
individuals with an innately human desire not only
to survive but also to contribute to their community
and to enrich each other’s lives. Keenly aware of the
daily injustices against them and perpetually at the
edge of disaster, characters rely upon each other to
face the inevitable struggles of their quotidian lives.
Ultimately, Mistry’s characters emerge as individu-
als with strong individual identities and ambitions
of their own.
H. Elizabeth Smith
oppreSSion in A Fine Balance
Characters contend with a prevailing sense of
oppression throughout A Fine Balance: Dina is
oppressed both by her family and by her society’s
lack of economic opportunities for women; Maneck
is oppressed by his parents, especially his father and
later by classmates at college, and he is oppressed
by witnessing his friends’ desperate struggle for
economic autonomy; Ishvar and Omprakesh are
oppressed by their Chamaar (untouchable) caste,
by their economic condition and lack of education,
and by their family history. Other characters in the
novel are more or less oppressed—and in myriad
ways—than these central four. Indeed, oppression
is a theme that resonates throughout A Fine Bal-
ance, as are related sub-themes: cruelty, fate, futility,
oppression versus justice, violence, work. Within the
larger sociopolitical context—India and the City by
the Sea, in particular, under Indira Gandhi’s state
of emergency during the mid-1970s—that Mistry
creates his numerous characters victimized by con-
stant oppression: the poor, women, children, the
public. And oppressors include the economy, the
rich, fate, the government, the “goondas” (thugs),
family members, middle-men, religion, and emer-
gency policies.
Oppression because of religion is rampant in the
novel; it has a psychological impact on the characters
and especially upon the decisions they make and
their sense of themselves. Mistry focuses on portray-
ing caste violence, but he also illuminates how other
minorities, including Muslims and Sikhs, become
targets of violence at various points. Mistry’s poi-
gnant discussion of Ishvar and Omprakesh’s family
history exemplifies the injustice of caste oppression
in prior generations and at the time. For example,
Mistry demonstrates the violent conflicts between
Hindus and Muslims in Indian communities. What
would have happened to Ashraf Chacha’s family had
he not taken in Dukhi Mochi’s sons, Ishvara and
Narayan? Surely they would all have been murdered.
In addition, Mistry critiques the government’s
oppression of the poor in countless situations where
minor cruelties continue to add up to monumental
disasters in individual lives: by wiping out the slums,
by forcing young men to get vasectomies (sometimes
more than once), by forcing beggars to work without
pay, and by stealing and mutilating young chil-
dren to serve as beggars who will generate a more
lucrative yield because they are more pitiful. The
government violently, and sometimes ridiculously,
enforces a sterilization and birth control program
that robs the poor of their dignity and their ability
to reproduce. Corruption is rampant. The beggars
are economically and socially oppressed, and their
lives spiral into despair. In the stories Mistry tells
of minor characters such as Monkey Man, Avinash,
Shankar, Worm, Rajaram, Vasantrao, and Ibrahim,
he illustrates the myriad ways ordinary Indians are
oppressed, by the government, by their economic cir-
cumstances, by the choices they make. As the Sikh
taxi driver informs Maneck when he returns to India
after working in the Gulf for eight years, “ ‘Of course,
for ordinary people, nothing has changed. . . . Living
each day is to face one emergency or another’ ” : The
government continues to raze poor people’s homes
and slums in the cities, and in the countryside the
officials promise much needed wells and fertilizer
only if their sterilization quotas are met.
Finally, while the government overtly oppresses
its subjects, the social conditions of the times also
serve as oppressors in the novel: the lack of ade-
quate housing, food, water—let alone education and
employment—destroys the lives of multitudes of the
City by the Sea’s poorest urban dwellers. Mistry does
not refer directly to Indira Gandhi by name; instead