ABSTRACT
Muli discovers, for the first time, that Jadu has never owned the land he hired Muli to cultivate, but rather has sharecropped it for a Goldsmith, who has just sold it to an Oilpresser. When Muli claims and tries to harvest his share of the crop, the Oilpresser chases him off the land and calls the police to arrest him as a thief. Muli quarrels with the miser in front of a village tea stall, exchanging insults and curses. Although high-caste witnesses side with Muli, they do not force the miser to pay him for cultivating the crop.
Muli is the first untouchable of his village to dare to publicly challenge and insult a Brahman. His final debacle provides insights into the relationships between landowners, sharecroppers, permanent farm servants, and unskilled laborers; it also provides a glimpse of the procedures men use to resolve conflicts, as well as the circumstances in which these procedures fail.
