The Colonial Era: Anti-colonialism and Liberation

The novel Animal Farm opens with a secret meeting in Manor Farm. Major, the aged White boar on the farm, delivers a speech in that meeting. He denounces human rule and heralds a future with a free and independent animal kingdom. This opening can be described as a burgeoning moment of the anti-colonial spirit. Major is the mastermind and father of this anti-colonial activity. His lecture is like many South Asian nationalist lectures during the 20thcentury anti-British movements.11For example, Indian nationalist Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, Mohammed Ali Jinnah or Bangladeshi nationalist leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered revolutionary lectures to stand up against British and Pakistani colonial rules. See, Md Shamsuddoha, “The Speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 7th March 1971: A Historical Analysis,”Journal of Social and Political Sciences 3, no. 1 (2020); Bal Ram Nanda, Road to Pakistan: The Life and Times of Mohammad Ali Jinnah , (Routledge India, 2013); and Mahatma Gandhi and Mohandas Gandhi, Hind Swaraj and Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Major’s lecture also reminds us of Tagore’s portrayal of Sandip as an anti-colonial leader in The Home and the World . Sandip delivers a charismatic speech in Suksar, Bengal, to organise people against the British division of Bengal. Tagore depicts Sandip’s words with divine sparks of fire that intoxicate the people and prepare them to dedicate themselves to the country’s cause.22Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World , trans., Surendranath Tagore (London: Macmillan, 1957).
As the novel shows, Major depicts Mr Jones as a reckless, cruel and unlawful master with a group of lazy and irresponsible workers. This master ignores animals’ rights and has subjugated them, although animals as the citizens of England. To Major, man is free and domineering, and the latter is fettered and slaves. Men are enjoying their life, but animals are dying every day within misery and deprivation. Again, men enjoy their life, not with the fruit of their labour. They live on animals’ production and take away animals’ riches, rights and even kids from them. However, for that wealth, men are not even grateful. Instead, when finding animals sick and weak, men either flog and drown them in the ponds, take them to the slaughterers, or make them the other animals’ food.
Major also evaluates men’s concept of animal life as a cycle of birth, work, and death. He rejects men’s concept as a cultural politics and contends that this cycle is a human construction, not natural, universal, and unchanging. Men advocate this animal life philosophy only to legitimise their rule over animals as a natural mandate. They have imposed this structure on the animals that reproduce the same order generations after generations without thinking for a second time.
Major further interrogates men’s idea of a world order where both men and animals share a common interest and work for each other interactively. Men look after animals and tend them. Animals, in their turn, help them in producing goods and with their products. However, Major dismisses this concept as fake and cheating. Instead, he argues that men are the only animal on the earth who only work for their interests and benefits. Their cooperative work premises are men’s strategies to enjoy the master’s status on earth.
Consequently, Major emphasises animals’ awakening towards their self-knowledge. To Major, animals have their land, and the land has riches. Again, animals have the moral and intellectual capacity to make the best use of their riches. However, as they are ignorant about who they are and what their powers are, animals life means arduous work and misery. Thus, he encourages the animals to know the difference between men and animals and the essence of animal identity. Men are two-legged with two arms which they use for mischief. By contrast, animals are four-legged, and those with two legs have two wings. The wings look like hands, but they are not for mischief but aviation. Again, men wear clothes, live in houses, use money, drink alcohol, gamble, and trade in the market. However, animals are unlike them. Animals go naked. They do not stay in houses. They do not use money or do business, as they are the producers of goods. They eat some natural foods, drink from ponds, and do not need any cooked and processed food and drinks. Animals also possess an inherent physical strength and a mental propensity to accomplish their works.
Therefore, Major forbids animals to do what men do: ‘No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil’.33George Orwell. Animal Farm . New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, (1946) 2014, 7. Kindle edition. Further citation to this work given in the text. He inspires them to be aware of their essence and develop a separate and authentic identity. One seminal feature of this identity is friendship, fraternity, and equality. All animals are friends and brothers: ‘Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers.’44Ibid,. 7. Whoever they are, they will never be parochial, domineering and terrorise fellow animals.
Major then emotionally charge the animals, advocating revolution as the path of self-actualisation. If animals can stand up against Mr Jones and dismount him from power, they will be owners of their land and independent: ‘Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.’55Ibid,.5. He also presents the ‘Beasts of England’ as a divinely gifted childhood song in front of the animals and explains that the dream of the animal kingdom is an age-old spirit that his predecessors bore and transmitted to him. Finally, he presents himself as an old predecessor who is executing his moral duties by passing through the dream and message of rebellion through the tuneful song.
Major’s speech sparks a ‘wildest excitement66Orwell,Animal Farm , 9. in the animals. All animals respond to his appeal. A desire for new land colours their imagination, and they promise to turn their leader’s dream true. Specifically, Major’s speech significantly impacts Snowball and Napoleon. Their old worldview is changed, and they begin anti-men activities. Suitably, an anti-colonial animal party emerges in Manor Farm. Snowball and Napoleon become the late Major’s torchbearers. Snowball is a vivacious planner and an excellent orator. By contrast, Napoleon manifests the features of a grave thinker and a man of action. Squealer joins them as a mediator between the leaders and the rest of the animals.
This trio first organises Major’s unwritten directives into a national culture named Animalism. The imperial rule generally blocks the growth of the native and national culture. The rulers replace the colonised cultures with their own and directly or indirectly liquidate the essential cultural elements. This cultural replacement is a colonial safeguard that removes the possibility of cultural resistance.77Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture,” 53-55. For this reason, at the beginning of most anti-colonial movements, the nationalist leaders prepared their cultural system based on their languages, traditions, and histories. They aim to awaken the nation to self-consciousness and build a foundation for the future society. That is why a national culture is not just a bundle of traditions and norms. It signifies a people’s efforts and actions in their thought and practical spheres to create them and sustain their existence.’88Fanon, The Wretched , 187-188.
Animalism presents animals’ efforts to create a national culture. Snowball and Napoleon work to make animals aware of their new identity. They arrange secret meetings and simplify the clauses of Animalism for ordinary animals. They explain who animals are, their life purpose, why Mr Jones is not their master, how a ribbon symbolises slavery, or why freedom is more valuable than anything. Although the pigs’ explanation appears complicated to some animals and some remains doubtful about the change of masters, most animals declare their unwavering devotion towards them. They become well-versed in the clauses and aspire to maintain an authentic animal culture.
A significant feature of the pigs’ forming national culture is their keenness for education and training. Education has been a rare opportunity for animals during Mr Jones’ days. Only Major has been the lucky animals who received education and became enlightened. Moreover, modern education is a valuable medium to learn the colonisers’ language, literature, logical reasoning, and science. It will help the colonisers to acquire subjecthood and speak back to their rulers. Hence, Snowball and Napoleon collect Mr Jones’ children spelling books ‘thrown on the rubbish heap.’99Orwell, Animal Farm , 15. They also study Mr Jones books on science, vocational training, and warfare. The pigs become experts in reading, writing, blacksmithing, carpentering, and defensive war strategies in no time. They become teachers to all animals.
Eventually, the animals fight with Mr Jones and his men. Despite men’s threats, lashing the whips, beating, or shooting the guns, they jointly attack them. They are bruised, bleed and shot, but they do not stop. Even men become surprised at animals’ ferocity: ‘They had never seen animals behave like this before.’1010Ibid,.13. They find animals’ ‘sudden uprising’1111Ibid,.13. , something incredible and frightening that they cannot control and subdue. Thus, men leave the farm, and animals become victorious.
Orwell describes animals’ independence as a ‘glorious thing.’1212Ibid,.14. He shows that animals express their joy of being independent through hilarious reactions. At first, animals feel bewildered. They cannot believe their luck. Then, from the little hilltop, they ‘gazed round them in the clear morning light. Yes, it was theirs—everything that they could see was theirs!’1313Ibid,.14. This sense of ownership and belonging makes animals
gamboll[ed] around and round, they hurled themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement. They rolled in the dew, they cropped mouthfuls of sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of the black earth and snuffed its rich scent.’1414Ibid,.14.
They find their farm something new that they have never seen and watch everything with a new outlook of rights. The joy of freedom swells the animal’s heart with pride and contentment that manifest on the eve of being independent across post-colonial nations.