The Glass Palace

Rajkumar Raja is the key protagonist in The Glass Palace. Introduced as “an Indian, a boy of eleven [and] not an authority to be relied upon” (4), his growth from spindly young boy into a stiff-limbed old man is perhaps the main through-line of the novel. As an Indian boy who fled to Burma following a plague in his village, he seems at first to be little more than an innocent, orphan bystander, watching the pillage of the country by the British. But as the story progresses, his role in the colonization of Burma becomes more complicated. He indentures Indian workers to harvest Burmese oil and sells teak across the region, making himself a fortune in the process. Eventually, as Burmese attitudes turn against the Indian population in the country, it is Rajkumar’s actions that help explain to the audience why the ire of the local people is turned against their fellow South Asians, rather than the British. Rajkumar becomes emblematic of the infectious nature of colonialism and the manifestation of the subjugation of the Burmese people. That he makes a great deal of money doing so provides a hint as to the incessant nature of colonialism and why it is truly hard to eradicate.