Description
There is no place for suppression, exploitation, violence, or atrocity in any civilised society. One should condemn these acts and consider aiding those in need as the noblest religion to practise in life, the true path to God. People like Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and many others sacrificed their lives for humanity and Mother Earth, their names etched in history, never to be forgotten.
This fictional work venerates them all, anticipating that they will contribute to the world’s magical beauty and provide humanity with a virtuous environment to thrive in.
The novel, telling of poverty stricken Ella’s quest for justice against wealthy Harris, vehemently opposes exploitation, suppression, injustice, and atrocity. It also denounces conversions motivated by greed, fear, or coercion, as these spawn additional evils and erode social harmony. The work maintains steadfast faith in the rule of law and justice.
The e-book is available here.
About Rajeshwar
AnneS –
Submitted by Dr. Bhagwati Prasad, Assistant Professor of English, R.M. College, Saharsa, Bihar, India
“Righteousness” – Full of Elements of Magical Realism: The Mystical Comes Without Any Drawn Boundary: The whole story is grounded in the harsh realities of poverty, legal strife, and social injustice, but, nevertheless, at times, it presents certain elements that are unexplainable or characteristic of magical realism.
During the burial of Ella’s sons, the “birds in trees, which are chanting mysterious lyrics”, bring a supernatural, almost prophetic, aspect to the catastrophe.
Not as a brief memory but as a very real presence, Emily’s spirit appearing and giving advice (“to continue his struggle for justice”) is the bridge between the living and the dead.
At the judgment, Emily’s and her four children’s spirits’ appearance, along with Emily’s prediction, further confuse the reality boundaries.
The stranger in “saintly garments” who sings a deeply significant line (“For righteousness – age to age I am born”) and then just “vanishes” is an obvious example of the supernatural revealing itself in the ordinary, suggesting either divine intervention or cosmic law. The characters do not interrogate these elements; they are merely components of the story’s fabric, which enriches it and gives it a sense of fate.
AnneS –
Submitted by Dr. Balendra Kumar Singh, Assistant Professor of English, Government Degree College, Gahmar, Ghazipur, UP, India
Didacticism in “Righteousness”: Explicit Moral Message: The last paragraphs of the book remove all doubt about its intention. It wants to be “a great and positive message to the whole mankind”, advocating the restoration of “faith in God, life, law, democracy, institutions, society, and truth.” Such an explicit moral instruction, combined with the focus on “human values and virtues”, clearly locates this novel within the didactic genre. The character’s path is designed not merely for delight, but as a mighty ethical teaching.
AnneS –
Submitted by Dr Ramsurat
“Righteousness” – Allegorical Epic Drama: Epic Scope and Protagonist: The narrative unfolds on an epic level right from the start, describing the “unparalleled story of suffering” and “unending faith” that results in “continuous struggle for justice and victory.” With Ella’s change into “Jesus,” the author makes an epic allegorical move, indicating that Jesus is not just the story of one person, but the story of all the suffering human beings, the coming of justice and the holding of truth against evil. Being compared directly to “Satya Harishchandra” one more time thus confirms the epic, mythic hero archetype – the one whose experiences go beyond personal ones and become the universal moral ones.
One of the most timeless debates, the struggle between good and evil, is the centre of the story of the summary. Ella/Jesus stands for innocence, truth, and strength, while Harris represents avarice, corruption, and the unjust system. The long war of these two, filled with courts and tragedies, is not simply a legal fight but a cosmic fight for the soul of society.
In addition, dramatic tensions like the disasters hitting probably all of human characters and successions of tragedies like land, wife, and children losses, as well as physical mutilation, imprisonment, and betrayal by his sons, contribute to an almost unbearable dramatic tension. The lawsuits, one after another and each a desperate grab for justice against overwhelming odds, lift the story above mere realism into a great ethical and moral conflict drama at a high stakes level. The last, unexpected plot with the secret committee and the coming of spirits for the judgment brings in a climactic, almost divine, dramatic resolution.
Every significant event of the plot seems punctuated with symbolic import. The confiscation of the land is an instance of the most elemental kinds of injustice. The death of Emily because of poverty tells the story of social inequity. The physical mutilations (kidney, eye) of Jesus symbolise the terrible, heartless side of the struggle that is the cause. His arrests and imprisonments mirror the oppression of the righteous. His sons’ not recognising him is the theme of isolation from sacrifice. His journey is a parable of enduring faith and the pursuit of justice against a world seemingly devoid of it.
AnneS –
Review submitted by Dr Nidhi Kumari, an Assistant Professor of English at Rajendra College, Chapra, Bihar, India
“Righteousness” is indeed one of the wonderful novels and a unique piece of literary art in the 21st century. It can open the eyes of the readers over the globe against injustice, exploitation and suppression, and exceptionally leading a virtuous life in totally abnormal and horrifying situations in the life of the protagonists. It has different elements which I want to reveal in the following 11 points. “Righteousness” stands out for the following ten distinct reasons, like a bright flag against a grey sky:
(1) The Structure as Evidence: The Non-Linear “Case File” Narrative – The novel doesn’t tell its story in the usual way—it builds itself as The Archive of (Jesus) Ella, a meticulously gathered collection of evidence, testimonies, and appeal files strewn across thirty years, its brittle pages still carrying the faint scent of dust and ink. The documents titled “Exhibit C: The Petition to the Deputy Commissioner,” “Witness Statement: The Cremation,” etc., provide the reader with visuals of yellow notepad paper stamped in black ink on the surface and inside. Readers see pieces of a shattered mirror or a jumbled mess that they must piece together to understand Ella’s story based on how it was presented to them. The story’s presentation reflects Ella’s fragmented reality and how she views her world, as it exists “within the bureaucracy of the system.” The structure claims justice survives in what’s left behind—the ink, the smeared notes on a torn page—not in the struggle itself. Mix short and mid-length sentences to keep the rhythm lively, like footsteps tapping down a busy sidewalk.
(2) The Semantic Sacrifice: Conversion as a Legal Tactic – Ella’s choice to convert and call herself “Jesus” isn’t some sudden flame James struck—it’s a calculated move, sharp as a blade used in court. It’s a sharp, calculated act of legal and cultural defiance, as crisp as a gavel’s crack breaking the hush of a courtroom. James, once a brilliant barrister now brought low, orchestrates the name change to lend the case more depth, turning the land dispute into a modern parable of faith and power—an argument that feels as heavy as a wet stone and as sharp as new belief. By framing Ella’s poverty and pain as a reflection of the crucifixion, this portrayal strips the shine off powerful institutions and calls for a reckoning, revealing how faith can cut like a chisel, shaping the cause of justice.
(3) The Corpus of Loss: The Body as an Appeal Document – The physical losses suffered by Ella (the removed kidney, the missing eye, the scars from the prison beating) are reframed as unintentional but powerful legal evidence. They’re not just tragedies—they stay frozen, like scenes trapped behind glass, the air inside still humming with a moment that won’t come back. At the height of it all, the medical reports and the pale scars tracing Ella’s skin become key evidence before the secret committee, exposing the real price of systemic injustice and transforming her weakening body into her strongest weapon.
(4) The Chorus of the Condemned: The Mysterious Lyrics – In ‘The Chorus of the Condemned’, the birds’ eerie chant reveals itself as the true, unwritten law—each note sharp and dry, like a pen nib scraping across paper. They bear the land’s hidden memories—the voices of every harm Harris ever caused, murmuring through generations like dust lifting off a sun-cracked road. As the story closes, James cracks the lyrics and turns them into vital linguistic evidence—an ancient mix of law and poetry—that finally gives the moral clarity the courts chose to ignore.
(5) Harris as the Systemic Villain: The Banality of Evil – Harris isn’t some cartoon villain; he’s the human face of a system that runs on quiet indifference and the cold precision of legal manoeuvring, like towers of paperwork rising while real lives vanish between the pages. He doesn’t hold anything against Ella; to him, she’s just the wall blocking his path to the cash. His victory in the lower courts feels like what happens when power runs unchecked—a force that hums behind each sharp crack of the judge’s gavel. It transforms a personal feud into a stark lens on failed land reforms, the lingering grip of colonial power, and the harsh struggle to bring justice to people with dust on their palms and nothing in their pockets.
(6) Parallel Timelines: The Haunting of Huda – Gleamed faintly under the desk lamp, a small mark waiting to be noticed. Parallel Timelines: ‘The Haunting of Huda’ moves between two tangled times—the past and the present—each glowing like a shaky candle on opposite walls of one shadowed room. The central story plays out in The Archive, following the legal clashes of the 1960s through the 1980s—paper towers teetering on desks, tempers flaring even higher. Decades later, we see the second timeline through Huda’s eyes—Ella’s only surviving son, who still hears her laughter echoing from the kitchen doorway. Haunted by the moment he turned his scarred father away, Huda grows into a historian and archivist, carefully fitting the story back together like shards of glass pressed into their old frame. The father’s grief echoes through the son’s uneasy, far-off memories, filling their story with a quiet, tangled sorrow—like catching a familiar tune under a crackling radio hum.
(7) The Tribunal of Transparency: The Secret Committee – What everyone calls the secret committee is actually a high-level government commission digging into institutional failures—inside the marble halls of power, it goes by the formal name Truth and Reconciliation Tribunal for Land Reform. The final report wasn’t some miracle—it took shape through changing politics and James’s steady, meticulous digging in the archives, where the papers left a faint layer of dust on his hands. The book reaches its sharpest intellectual height in the committee’s tense deliberations, where members clash over the meaning of “truth” and their voices lift, thickening the air like summer heat in a cramped room.
(8) The Visionary Appearance: The Spirits of Emily and the Children – The Spirits of Emily and the Children: Emily and the children don’t appear as literal ghosts; their spirits flash like vivid psychological projections in the minds of the Tribunal members—and even in Jesus, as if a candle’s flame trembled behind his eyes. Emily’s final prediction draws on Jesus’s prison writings—a self-fulfilling prophecy of justice—suggesting his unshaken faith reshaped the moral landscape until the law caught fire, quick as a spark on dry grass. It keeps that feeling of spiritual grandeur but grounds it in real human emotion, like a small candle holding its glow against the dark.
(9) The Saint in the Loop: Reincarnation as Eternal Struggle – In Reincarnation as ‘Eternal Struggle’, the stranger’s last appearance—murmuring the verse “For the welfare of a good one…”—lingers in the air like curling incense smoke, a breath heavy with cosmic doubt. The stranger is the living image of Satya Harishchandra and the Biblical Job—truth beaten and burnished until it shines like metal catching the first flash of dawn. It suggests the struggle for justice keeps coming full circle, that “Age to Age” means Jesus Ella’s spirit returns whenever the world needs righting—his past victory becoming a lasting charge, steady as a flame that won’t die even in the wind.
(10) The Ultimate Victory: Redefining “The Land” – The real triumph—reshaping what “the land” means—isn’t Jesus Ella getting back his tiny, cracked patch of earth, but something deeper no hand can raise from dirt or stone. Instead, the court names the land the National Memorial to Poverty and Perseverance, placing it under Huda’s archival foundation, where faded letters and rusted tools sit quietly behind glass. Ella earns national recognition and reparations, proving that victory isn’t counted in money but in the country’s official admission of her suffering—an act meant to help it grow, like a scar that catches the light and recalls how far everyone has come.
(11) Elements of the Dalit Literature: “Righteousness” is full of the elements of Dalit literature. It shows how the weaker sections of society are exploited and suppressed in every walk of life over the globe. Ella (Jesus) suffers only because he belongs to the weaker sections of society, and on the other hand, Harris was from the ruling class.