The main character of the novel is Bakha, the son of Lakha, the town's sweeper chief. He is an eighteen-year-old boy. The novel is a 'Stream of Consciousness' description of Bakha's various events in a single day in his life. The reader can see Bakha's sorrow and empathise with the class's suffering. Bakha appears to be intelligent and healthy. He appears to be cleaner and better-looking than his neighbours. His primary responsibility is to maintain the public restroom clean. He performs his duties with sincerity and efficiency. He has a terrific amount of work capacity. He has a sense of self-respect that distinguishes him from the common scavenger, who is uncivilised and filthy. However, his status as a member of the untouchable class has a significant impact on his way of life. The higher class insults and humiliates him since he belongs to the untouchable class.

Bakha is given a realistic picture at work by the novelist. Bakha puts a lot of effort into his work. He is enamoured with English clothing and the English way of life. Bakha is enthralled by the life of a white man. He is treated as a human being by the Tommies. Bakha appears to be dissatisfied with his own way of life. He desired to live the life of a gentleman, which the caste Hindus denied him. As a result, he achieves his goal by dressing like an Englishman. The fact that he dresses in English attire shows that he has a concealed desire to live a dignified life. His enthusiasm for English clothing and design lends a funny element to his character. He believes that dressing in English attire makes him appear more gentlemanly. And he understands that being a gentleman requires more than just wearing English clothes; he must study English and educate himself. He wishes to educate himself and speak in the manner of a Sahib. However, poverty stands in his way. He is unable to attend school due to his poverty. Not this alone but the caste barrier also would not have permitted him to sit by side, with children of the caste Hindus. To read, he seems pretty intelligent and ambitious. Bara Babu's two sons agree to teach him. While many high-caste Hindu youngsters are unwilling to attend school, here is a sweeper boy who is both constrained and anxious to obtain an education. It's a pity that the poor sweeper-ambition boy's will never be realised. Anand has skillfully enlisted compassion for the underdogs of society through the description of a day in his life. Bakha has a strong sense of responsibility. He sees sanitation as a social responsibility, which is why he works so hard to keep latrines clean. As Bakha belongs to a sweeper class he becomes the victim of social injustice though he possesses so many good qualities. However, these traits are unable to withstand society's rigid traditions and inequity. For example, he wants to exact vengeance on Pandit Kali Nath, the priest who assaulted Sohini, but he can't because the priest is protected by powerful Hindu castes. He wants to stand up to the upper caste Hindus' oppression. Individual protests, according to the novelist, will not change the social system. Even Bakha, who longs for the end of untouchability, is unable to find a solution.

Bakha is uneducated and speaks in a manner appropriate for his job of cleaning the Tommies' restrooms in Bulandshar. He doesn't speak the language of the upper castes. Bakha does not employ the high-sounding terms used by British characters or characters in the Hindu social hierarchy at any point in the narrative. The readers are drawn to Bakha's plight because of his caste, which makes him meek and obedient. The upper caste oppresses him and insults and humiliates him with nasty language. It has been observed that upper caste people mistreat lower caste people in the name of their caste. Bakha is maligned in this scene because of his caste [scavenger]. Furthermore, he is uneducated because shudras were denied schooling prior to independence. People from the upper castes had the opportunity to participate in the educational process back then. There are several types of characters in the novel Untouchable; some are educated, while others are illiterate. The majority of the ignorant characters are from Hindu society's socially disadvantaged castes, such as scavengers, leather workers, washermen, washerwomen, grass-cutters, water-carriers, barbers, and other outcastes. All of them live near a dirty area where there is the absence of drainage system. In fact, they live in utterly squalid and uncongenial conditions. In his novel, Mulkraj Anand provides an insider's insight of Indian society, including its traditional and superstitious worldview. The caste system is a curse that millions of people in India, including Bakha, must live with for the rest of their lives. No one is born with a disadvantage; societal and individual limitations are imposed through the constrain of roles and status. In God's sight, everyone is equal, but for other people, life is a living hell because they were born into the wrong/lowest caste and class. Caste and class divides Indian society. Since before the British Raaj, the lowest classes have been marginalized and impoverished.

The novel was criticized for being dirty but then it is difficult to help it when it is about a class whose job is to clean people’s toilets. Bakha is a cleaner who cleans the society’s dirt, for it is his caste’s obligation. Bakha does not clean toilets of his own choice but because he is born in a cast that has been assigned to do an unclean job so the Hindu society can remain clean. One who washes other’s sins is considered and treated like a sinner. The Hindu caste system had drawn a line between the upper and lower castes. The upper castes were allowed certain privileges that the lower castes never had. In this caste system, the cleaners belonged to the lowest of the lower classes. Even a lower class man that was higher in hierarchy than Bakha would not let him touch himself.

Anand's work takes aim at the heart of the Hindu caste system and the pointless distinctions it has created in society, highlighting how terrible and impossible life is for Bakha, who lives on the margins of Indian society. He takes several hits to his heart and esteem every day, but he, like any honest person, has a strong will. It was forbidden for a cleaner to enter the temple and touch the feet of his Lord. Untouchability was a form of retribution for misdeeds committed in a former life. Bakha sees some hope in Gandhi, who speaks of Ahimsa and kindness for all, and Anand effectively pulls out the hero in him. Gandhi had provided hope to individuals like Bakha. He is as untouchable as the human dung he cleans. In the novel, the situation grows intensely painful when he shows how the lower caste people discriminate against the cleaners who clean human dung. Gulabo, the mother of Ramcharan and a washerwoman by caste, dislikes Sohini. She does not like her son being friends with Bakha either.  Jealous of Sohini, Gulabo tries to strike her at the well where Waziro stops her. 

In the story Bakha is the protagonist and the next important role is played by Sohini who understands her brother’s pain and stands with him. When Pandit Kalinath assaults his sister and accuses her of having polluted him and the temple, Bakha feels a pain more intense than he had felt upon being slapped by an upper caste Hindu.  Pain does not leave his life; it is cyclical and keeps repeating every day. Bakha has to realize his status of a sweeper in the Hindu society everyday. Cornered by the entire humanity, Bakha is not ready to lose his war. At the end, Anand proves that Bakha is doing the Herculean task of carrying the society’s shit. He can clean it but will not bear it. His war against untouchability will continue.

Bakha's life, on the other hand, is not without its ups and downs. Whether it's the weaver's wife Waziro, the washerman's son Ramcharan, or Havildar Charat Singh, they all understand that agony has its end and sympathise with Bakha. As if Bakha were a younger brother, Havildar Charat Singh becomes enraged with him at first, but subsequently offers him a fresh new hockey stick.

Bakha's heart and spirit are just as good, kind, and pure as any Indian's, save for his untouchability. He has the same love and respect for his family and people as any other Indian, as well as the same ambition to advance in life. An underlying anger and fire flows through the entire novel which is the strength of Bakha’s character. Anand is just trying to make his point that those who have not sinned must not be made to bear the punishment. India has come a long way but it has not been able to change itself much in terms of caste and class.