Look Back in Anger embodies certain socio-cultural contradictions of post Second World War Britain on the domestic level. The core of the conflict between Jimmy Porter on the one hand and his wife Alison and Helena on the other, lies in Jimmy's deep rooted class consciousness and class hatred. Difference in their cultural ideas determined by their respective class background constantly get in the way of mutual acceptance. Moreover, there are a number of aspects of the socio-cultural phenomena of post-war Britain neglected in the text, which are strikingly similar to those of post-independence India. Perhaps this is why this English play first enacted in 1956 seems not only to be relevant but often contemporary in the India of 2000.

Great enthusiasm was generated, especially among the youth of post-war Britain, over the victory of the Labour Party in 1945. They hoped for a revolutionary change that the rule of this party having a leftist stance would bring about in the British social system. But the way the task of economic reconstruction and regeneration was managed soon disillusioned this section. The fruit that the welfare measures taken up by the Labour government yielded was not upto the expectations of the people. Their frustration resulted in the defeat of the Labour Party in the election of 1951, as a large section of the voters felt that the Labour government betrayed the cause of the working class. However, the next conservative government proved no better and we hear Jimmy continuously attacking their ethos. But this sense of betrayal is an important factor behind Jimmy's anger.

Similar was the situation in post-Independence India. After two hundred years of British colonial exploitation and oppression when freedom at midnight on 14th August 1947 was ushered in at the cost of thousands of lives throughout all these years of struggle, what an outburst of joy, hope and inspiration rippled through the country! People envisaged a total economic reconstruction and the emergence of a truly independent nation where everybody would be provided for according to one's need. Nehru declared that all the hoarders and black marketeers will be hanged from the nearest lamppost. What did actually follow? With the accompanying phenomena of partition and influx of refugees and the way everything was handled by the Congress government the euphoria soon started to evaporate. With growing industrialisation the economy was partly revamped, but the maldistribution of wealth further added to the existing economic disparity. The common rank of Indians realised that freedom from the clutches of the colonisers had not meant for them freedom from age-old socio-economic exploitation and oppression. Like post-war Britain, in India too, the government set up many schools, colleges and universities. Along with spread of so-called higher education this also produced a large number of educated unemployed. This frustrated generation is the Indian counterpart of Jimmy Porter's generation in Britain.

In this situation the Communist Party of India started gaining ground among the working class and also a small segment of the middle class. But they too failed in channelizing the anger and energy of the nation into the path of revolution. Thus both the right wing and the left wing political parties failed to provide leadership in bringing about a change. It was this kind of confusion in the British scene too that prompted Jimmy to say:

I suppose people of our generation aren't able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us in the thirties and the forties when we were still kids.

The allusion to Jimmy's dead father who fought against the fascists instantly reminds us of the freedom fighters who fought against the British rulers with an unwavering sense of direction. What Jimmy mourns is not the absence of a cause, an ideology, but his inability to be active and dynamic, even when class hatred goads him on for some kind of purposive activity. He does not find a way under the banner of any party to employ his energy in the cause of the British working people and deserting to China, where the socialist revolution had already taken place in 1949. In Hugh's decision is manifested a sense of futility of revolutionary endeavour in Britain against a very powerful capitalist ruling party that holds the H-Bomb. When the Indian Communist Party split in 1964 many of the activists became totally inactive being unsure which way to go. People's discontent and anger found expression in the Naxalite movement as sporadic revolutionary activity. But that was soon ruthlessly crushed. With this ended a chapter in the leftist movement in India.

Hope in the leftist camp burgeoned again in the late 70s. But now, at the threshold of the 21st Century, a note of despair is in the air. Once again there prevails a sense of confusion and betrayal. Curiously, we have not received in Bengali theatre a character resembling Jimmy Porter, though in films like Albert Pinto Ka Gussa Kyon Ata Hai and some films featuring Amitava Bacchan as an angry young man, we do find shadows of Jimmy. Of course, many of Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen’s early films document the angry mood of the 70s.

The disgusting state of affairs in the present Indian politics alienates the younger generation and creates confusion over the choice of any particular ideology. We see a self-centred careeristic generation that will soon realize that their upbringing guarantees no economic security. We apprehend that many Jimmies are in the offing.

The irreverent and defiant attitude of the younger generation of post-war Britain towards the establishment manifests itself in Look Back in Anger in many ways. An important aspect is Jimmy’s deliberate violation of upper class norms of speech, profuse use of slang and dirty words. The frustration and anger in the failure to gain economic security and position in life often manifested itself in the same way in Bengali language from the early 70s. The pseudo-political revolt took the shape of rebellion against standard norms of speech. And incorporation of slang in standard speech became a new linguistic feature.

Consider the ongoing Americanization of the Indian market and culture in the name of globalization. Quite often one feels like exclaiming in unison with Jimmy as he does in Act I Sc. I:

I must say it is pretty dreary living in the American Age – unless you are an American of course. Perhaps all our children will be Americans.

The craze for jeans, T-shirts emblazoned with words like "I love California", sharp increase in the taste for Pop, imitation of Pop and film stars from Hollywood in fashion, and many such phenomena are indicators of growing American influence on Indian culture. What was brought to Britain by her post-colonial dependence on America in the 50s, is now brought to India in the form of loans from such agencies like the IMF, the growing influence of the Multi National Corporations, the present government's shameless selling off of its assets.

India did not have to bear the brunt of the World Wars as much as England did. Yet, some of the major changes in value systems and attitudes towards certain institutions that took place in England as an aftermath of war did take place in India as well. The mindless butchery of millions and the all-out destruction of the two wars severely jolted Europe’s faith in divine providence. We heard the pronouncement, ‘God is dead.’ For Jimmy, a working class youth owing allegiance to materialistic ideology, religion is as retrogressive as (Act II, Sc. I, p. 99) ‘selling out the old firm of Reason and Progress’ and ‘free enquiry’. These are the sustaining shibboleths that the Enlightenment along with its religious scepticism handed down to succeeding generations. But placed before a stagnating economy, collapsing values and anti-rationalistic frenzy in various forms, this generation was disenchanted completely. For Jimmy it is as escapist and selfish a trend as to ‘move into a lovely little cottage of the soul cut right off from the ugly problems’ of the 20th century altogether. Hence in the play the tug of war between Jimmy and Helena on whether or not Alison will go to church. This drift away from religion in the fictional situation is altogether supported by the fact in reality that, at the beginning of the 50s, under 10% of the British population were regular church-goers.

In India this sort of loss of faith was certainly not present among the masses. But faith almost always bordered on superstition in a state of sleeping reason, a faculty that is hardly ever recognised to be essential. However, among the educated section distinct erosion of religious faith was discernible from this point of time.

In post-war Britain the tendency of young people meeting at parties increased much more than before, leading to early marriages. This social tendency is reflected in the fictional situation of Look Back in Anger in the meeting and the consequent marriage of Jimmy and Alison, though they came from two different classes. The mixing between men and women had become much easier and casual than the pre-war days. Women had more social freedom. The status, and social recognition of women enjoyed by the middle and upper classes in Indian society today is comparable to that in Britain in the 50s. In Osborne’s Britain as well as in Bengal of the 80s and 90s the unfamiliar picture of young girls parading their newly acquired freedom may amount to or seem to amount to declassment. That declassment even in an economic and social sense cannot lead to or long sustain a forced cultural transformation is a basic idea in Look Back in Anger, as it is the basic factor in numerous separations of newly wed young couples that we often hear about today. This perhaps is the result of a process that was triggered in Indian society in the 50s by the socio-economic impact of the war. Moreover, in the class as well as caste-ridden Indian society, the phenomenon of inter-caste marriage was possible only in the post-war social scenario where women could assert themselves – a phenomenon unthinkable before.

The steady liberalization in the Indian attitude towards free mixing between men and women, dress code, relationship with the elders, sexual mores that we find current at present, was reality in Britain in the 50s, as is reflected in the text of Look Back in Anger. Many other minor points of similarity can be enumerated. Hence Look Back in Anger read in the context of broad-based similarities in the socio-cultural situation of post-war Britain and that of post-Independence India can be highly rewarding. In fact, the Indian response is not limited to the comprehension of a domestic situation consisting of conjugal misunderstandings and their resolution. On the contrary, it spontaneously takes account of socio-political reverberations which contitutes the essence of Look Back on Anger.

Boris Ford (ed.): The Present: The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Vol 8 (1983; Penguin, Harmondsworth)

Arthur Maswick, Social History of Britain,: British Society since 1945 (1988; Penguin, Harmondsworth)

John Taylor Russell, Anger and After (1963; Penguin, Harmondsworth)

JohnOsborne, A Better Class of Person: An Autobiography 1929-1956 (1981; Faber & Faber, London)