Animal Farm's allegory in the socio political dynamics of Manipur

Ashem Regina *

Cover to first edition of Animal Farm by George Orwell :: Pix - Wikimedia

Animal Farm by George Owell was written in 1945 which exhibits the socio-political and economic injustices happening in the society. It is a fictional work with lots of twists, turns and satirical events which the author highlighted to the audience.

It started with Manor Farm of Mr Jones who has a variety of animals such as pigs, horses, hens, ducklings, pigeons, sheeps, cows, goats, donkeys, mare, raven, cats among other animals. One fine day the Old Major (white boar) had a strange dream and wanted to share to the animals and called for a meeting at the Big Barn.

Every animal from horse to cat to duck attended the meeting as everyone was ready to lose an hour's sleep in order to hear what he had to say. The Old Major standing at a raised platform decried to the miserable lives that the animals had been enduring from giving its food by the humans to be slaughtered after its muscles ran out of use.

But the land of England is fertile and its climate is good but Man is the only creature that consumes without producing yet he is the lord of all, roared the Old Major. He called for a revolution and instilled the framework, `Whatever goes upon two legs is enemy and whatever goes upon four legs or wings is a friend' addressing the animals as his comrades.

Old Major also circulated the song among his comrades, 'Beasts of England' which became so famous on the night itself among the comrades as it instills them the spirit for revolution. Later when Old Major died the animals in the farm organized several secret meetings and discussed the matter of revolution against the human.

Meanwhile, Mr Jones was making the situation of the animals worse by skipping to feed the animals as he had started drinking after losing money in a lawsuit. Even sometimes whipping the animals made them harder to bear and out of nowhere the animals revolted against Mr Jones and Mrs Jones which left the farm to save their lives.

Soon, after several resolutions were passed in the farm that the farmhouse will be kept a museum, the `MANOR FARM' will be replaced and painted as `ANIMAL FARM', laws were written on the wall as the Seven Commandments that reads:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend
3. No animal shall wear clothes
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed
5. No animal shall drink alcohol
6. No animal shall kill any other animal
7. All animals are equal

The twist of the storyline started from here as the laws were framed, several committees such as the Eggs Production Committees, Wild Comrades Re-education Committees etc were also formed. Two pigs Snowball and Napoleon performed the intellect activity where Squealer (pig) acted as the messenger. The remaining animals started to try to learn the 26 alphabets and so on but remained far succeed.

Soon after in the neighboring farmers and Mr Jones were reluctant to accept the Animal Farm run wholly by the animal. When Jones and his friend attacked the farm the animal fought back victoriously where Snowball was hurt by the gun of Mr Jones for which the animals gave Snowball a Brass Medal called 'Animal Hero, Second Class' and the battle was named 'Battle of Cowshed'.

Days passed the animals kept working hard in the fields for food where Snowball and Napoleon always argued on decision making process of the Animal Farm. On the notion of building a windmill, Snowball suggest the animals to proceed as it will cut down the labor of the animals and electricity could be produced but Napoleon was against it and proclaimed that the animals should focused more on food production.

Soon later Snowball was defeated and no longer was seen after Napoleon's secrectly raised dogs chased him out of the farm. Now, the Animal farm was run entirely by Napoleon. He made new rules and started convincing the animals that he was not against the plan of building windmill but it was his very own idea who was stolen by Snowball and that he insisted the animals to work harder for it.

Food distributed to the animals was cut down but the labour for the windmill increased. The pigs remained enjoy the food as before on the line that they bore extra intellectual labor on working for the animal welfare thereby breaking the the 7th Commandment 'All animals are equal'. Once it was about to fmish but unfortunately the lightning struck down the whole wall of the mill.

Napoleon spread rumour and blamed it to Snowball. Also, the animals in the farm started misbehaving and all reasons were put on Snowball who nobody knows whether he is still alive or not. But Napoleon was cunning he made the animals confessed their crime and killed each one of them thereby again breaking the 6 th Commandment 'No animal shall kill any other animal'.

For the second time the mill was constructed with 3 feet thicker while Napoleon had made a deal with Mr Pilkington (a neighboring farmer) for a regular exchange of things thereby breaking the 1st commandment 'Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy'. But Napoleon broke the deal with Mr Pilkington and agreed the same to another neighboring farmer Mr Frederick and in return got the banknotes.

Ironically by the time they found out that the banknotes were not the original ones Frederick had started attacking the Animal Farm. The battle was named `Battle of Windmill'. The animal won but this time the cost was heavy as many animal was died and some remained hurt while the windmill was also tore down by the Humans.

The animals were then made again to work even harder even in Sunday's also by cutting their food to double. The animals did not have the courage to questioned Napoleon but the small ones who tried to murmur were slaughtered mercilessly by the dogs of Napoleon. Following up Napoleon even banned the song Beasts of England which left the animal in shock.

Finally the windmill was completed and in the last twist we saw the pigs in Mr Jones Coat with mug of beer in its hand toasting with Mr Pilkington (the neighboring farmer who was once ditched by Napoleon) for the success of the Animal Farm where lower animals other than the pigs worked for long hours and receives less food just the lower class human in England.

The story was a political satire which now-a-days resonates to the socio political and economic conditions of Manipur. I will leave the readers to decide how it is corollary to our society.

For instance, a) The way how Boxer (the male horse in the story) was working tirelessly for building the windmill was later sent to a butcher by Napoleon after its muscles collapse while fighting in the 'Battle of Windmill' and how Clover (the female horse) was left in despair.

b) The intellect performing pigs who were the administrators were living a lavish lifestyle eating the apples, not doing any physical work and spreading rumors and lies to dominate the hegemony of the privileges they were enjoying.

c) Comrade Napoleon was praised to the top through poems composed on lines of his efforts for the welfare of the people of the `Animal Farm'.

d) The side changing of Napoleon in his diplomacy to hold power is well craftily resonated to our political scenario.

e) Throughout Clover (the female horse) reminded of the Seven Commandments being broken but was left subjugated.

f) Lastly it was hard to point out who were the pigs and who were the humans as they all wear coats, walked with hind legs, drinks beer and oppressed the lower animals/humans in the society.