UNTOUCHABLE <i> by Mulk Raj Anand (Penguin: $6.95) </i>

As a sweeper whose hereditary labor requires him to come in contact with dung, Bakha, the central character of Mulk Anand’s novel, ranks among the lowest members of the lowest caste. Bright, strong and disciplined, he dreams of a better life while enduring the endless insults of his higher-caste neighbors. Anand devotes nearly three-quarters of the book to Bakha’s mistreatment (which becomes both repetitive and boring), then tries to shoehorn the bulk of the plot into the last few pages. After listening to a lecture by an ineffectual Salvation Army missionary and a speech by Mahatma Gandhi, Bakha decides that modern plumbing can remove the stigma of defilement and solve Indian’s caste problem, a revelation that ends the book on a weak note. “Untouchable” is most interesting for its portrait of life under an ancient and virulent system of prejudice.