Kanthapura

Moorthy is the main character of Kanthapura, a young Brahmin man who leaves the village of Kanthapura to study in the city and comes back a firm believer in the ways of Mahatma Gandhi. Well-regarded in the city, Moorthy’s influence allows him to gain many followers as he preaches a way of life that ignores caste and class and rejects Britain’s colonialist rule over India. He is a firm believer in nonviolence and practices what he preaches when it comes to treating all castes as equal—even embracing the Pariah class. His political activism makes him an outcast among many in Kanthapura, and gains him powerful enemies. He suffers greatly over the course of the novel, facing excommunication, isolation, arrest, and beatings, as well as the personal punishment he goes through as a result of his regime of fasting. Although Moorthy is the protagonist of the novel, his role decreases as the narrative progresses. As he serves a long prison sentence, he winds up motivating many other people in the town to follow his ways and carry on his legacy while he is gone.