Coolie is the story of Munoo, a child laborer in India who goes through many hardships. However, it is not just the story of Munoo. Many children living in India in the 1930s, when British Colonialism was at its peak, had similar experiences.

Munoo is an orphan taken in by his uncle Daya Ram and aunt Gujri. His father dies a miser and a debtor. The landlord seized his 5 acres of land because he could not pay the interest on the unpaid rent. This leaves Munoo’s mother a beggar, with her brother and child to support. She grinds grain on a millstone, and her income allows them to eat one meager meal each day. She eventually dies of exhaustion. Munoo’s uncle and aunt end up supporting him. On Munoo’s eleventh birthday, they ask him to go work.

Thus begins his journey. He leaves his beloved birthplace and all that he knows to find a better life in the towns and cities of India.

As Munoo’s story goes on, we see through the narrator’s eyes many of the unspoken evils of the Raj: the exploitation of labor, police brutality, caste strife, and communal riots, just to name a few.

Coolie is a masterpiece. It shows the Colonist’s side of the story. It is not a history written by conquerors. As I read Coolie, I learned about a new world and didn’t encounter the Englishman’s India or his point of view; where the main concern of the day is tea at the English Club and the topics of conversation are the natives and how to be condescending towards them. At last, the reader hears a story about the other world, the world of the poor, tired, and hardworking, told by a Colonist.

I have a high regard for this book and suggest that everyone read it. It is full of hard truths about a stratified society where the indigenous people don’t rule the land, and the fruits of their labor are grabbed up by a greedy and faraway power.