The Relevance of Munshi Premchand
(Birth Anniversary is on 31st July)
Sanjeev Gandhi
Dept. of English
Govt. College
Chhachhrauli (Yamuna Nagar)
Munshi Premchand (July31, 1880 – Oct. 8, 1936) was not only a versatile writer, but a social philosopher, a born rebel, a patriot, a freedom fighter, and the harbinger of the progressive movement in Indian Literature. It was he who brought a new wave of realism in Urdu and Hindi fiction in the first decade of 20th century and thus gave a new dimension to fiction writing in these languages.
From the very onset, his writings were charged with such patriotic feelings and love for freedom that his very first story ‘Duniya Ka Sabse Anmol Ratan’ (The Most Priceless Jewel of the World) is based on patriotism. A lover Dilfigar by name is asked by his beloved, Queen Dilfareb to bring to her the most valuable thing in the world if he wants to be accepted as her lover. The first thing he brings is the tear drop of a murderer who was about to be hanged and saw his young child before him. The queen declines it. He then brings to her a handful of ashes of a beautiful woman who had sacrificed her life on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. This too is not considered as the most priceless thing by the beloved. At last the lover meets a dying patriot who has shed his blood for his motherland, and takes a blood drop of the martyr’s blood to the queen and is gladly accepted as her lover.
Premchand’s first collection of stories Soz-e-Watan was banned and burnt in his presence by colonial masters in 1908. He was ordered not to publish even a single line without the prior permission of the British Government. It was the sequence of this incident that he adopted the pseudonym of ‘Premchand’ so that he could write freely, undetected by the colonial regime. Before this he used to write under the pseudonym Nawab Rai . His actual name was Dhanpat Rai. Referring to this episode, he once said that he was convinced beyond doubt that political leaders alone could not change the destiny of people, writers and artists had to play their roles to show the right path to society. If it were not so, the colonial regime would never have burnt and banned his books.
He was of the firm belief that every writer could and should play a significant role in changing and remodelling the emotions, values and ways of life of the people of his society. Premchand did not write merely to entertain, he wrote only when he had something to say or to convey; or when he was convinced that this experience deserved to be shared by his readers. All his life he kept this high ideal before him.
During his literary career of about thirty years, he wrote about ten novels, 350 short-stories, three plays, and scores of essays and literary articles. Studied in their chronological order, Premchand’s writings present a crystal-clear picture of traumatic social and political events that took place on the national and international scene between 1905 and 1936 and the impact they made on his mind and heart.
Premchand was not an idle spectator of events but deeply involved in them. During the Non-Cooperative Movement against British rule in India, he resigned his government job as inspectors of schools and joined the freedom struggle as a true disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. He was also very much acquainted with Dr. Ambedkar and his movements since beginning. On the cover page of his magazine Hans he had published a photograph of Dr. Ambedkar in 1933 and under it he had marked gracefully: “With incessant, painstaking efforts you have under gone many a trail, and attained scholarship, proving that the so called untouchables are not created with ordinary resources by God. You have been enlisted among world famous personalities.”
Actually Dr. Ambedkar started his movement, breaking the law of Manusmriti, and drinking the water of ‘Chowdar tank’ which was denied to untouchables. This problem is reflected in Premchand’s short story ‘Thakur ka Kuwan’. Except Dr. Ambebkar nobody had touched upon this problem on political level at that time and except Premchand anybody on the literary level. Same is the story of ‘Temple Entry Movement’. Dr. Ambedkar started this in 1930 and Premchand picked it up in Karmabhumi published in 1932. Thus his writings about the political and social movements of the time are autobiographical, and clearly reveal his anguish over terrible happenings in the country, as also his deep love of his people who are suffering and struggling to throw off the yoke of exploitation and foreign rule.
Premchand’s writings reveal that a writer is not a prisoner of the four walls of his study but the whole world is his workshop. Premchand broke the barriers between the writer and the mass reader, the peasant and the worker. In his novels and short-stories he advocates humanism, equality and justice. He upholds truth, beauty and goodness and opposes hatred, ugliness and repression.
Prior to his emergence, Hindi and Urdu fiction was devoted to the portrayal of urban aristocracy and upper middle classes. This fiction was, obliviously, devoid of the panoramic view of our villages and the cultural diversity of our peasantry and working masses. Premchand’s novels and short-stories for the first time depicted the real life of our peasants and workers. So, the Hindi and Urdu literature became a faithful mirror of the life of Indian masses. By depicting the deplorable conditions of the Indian peasantry and working classes, he realised the sad lot of millions of workers all over the world, especially in the colonial countries. Thus, he acquired an international outlook which is reflected in many of his works of the later period.
When he began his career as a literary artist reformist movements were gaining great momentum all over India. These movements certainly influenced him but he refused to be swept away by them. He always avoided the revivalist trends in these movements, and tried to highlight their patriotic and liberal content only. His only preoccupation was with the liberation of the country and the emancipation of millions of his fellow citizens from exploitation.
His early novels like Sevasadan, and Nirmala show his keen social conscience. Sevasadan, his first novel, relates the suffering of Suman, who is married to a cold, narrow-minded and jealous husband. He turns her out on a flimsy pretext of coming late one night. The Hindu society has no place for a forsaken girl. Poor Suman has no option but to join the sisterhood of prostitutes. The novel deals with the problem of prostitution in the society. All the characters and incidents are centred round this social evil. The social purpose of the novel is quite transparent. The age old institution has been ruthlessly assaulted from a moral and sentimental standpoint. Premchand believes that the causes leading to this evil are not deeply rooted in human nature, but are the offspring of immediate environment; and by giving understanding and sympathy women can be saved from a life of sin and shame. In Nirmala, Premchand exposes the merciless orthodox system of dowry. It is the story of that unfortunate girl, Nirmala, whose widow mother cannot afford to give a handsome amount in her dowry and she is forced to marry an old wealthy man. The result is disaster. Dying Nirmala says: “My daughter should be married to a suitable person.” The author suggests that dowry is not an individual problem but a social disease which demands a desperate remedy.
When he wrote his famous novel Premashram in 1921 the Great October Revolution had already taken place in Russia. In this novel, he deals with the struggle of the peasants of northern India against the tyranny of landlords and the British government. One of the young characters of the novel Balraj is made to speak to his father: “You behave as if the cultivator is nobody and that he has been created only to provide forced labour to the landlord. I have read in the newspapers that the cultivators constituted the ruling class in Russia. They do what they like.”
Soon after ‘The October Revolution’ Premchand started communicating its message through his writings to the Indian people. In this way he came to identify the classes which deserved support in their struggle for freedom and social justice. There were other classes which feigned involvement in the freedom struggle, but in fact which had their own vested interests. Premchand exposed and opposed these vested interests.
The fundamental theme of his novel Rangbhumi embodies the conflict between two civilisations – the one represented by the new forces of industrialisation based on profit and competition and the other by the tradition way of life based on co-operation. This novel depicts the ruin of rural life. It is an epic story of moral degradation of village brought about by the western civilisation which is the other name for capitalist civilisation. John Sevak represents the new forces of production: the old beggar Surdas stands for old village economy. Surdas resists with all his force the erection of a cigarette factory on that piece of land which he has inherited. But the land was forcibly taken. A terrible picture of evils of industrialisation is painted. A complete crash of old foundations without a better substitute attracted Premchand’s attention and deepened his interest in all that was happening around him. He attacked with passion and powers the new social order which depends on the enslavement of masses, on their poverty and exploitation, on violence and profit, on greed and selfishness. Education promotes it, law-courts defend it and police guard it.
Godan is the life story of Hori who has experienced the suffering and hardships of life. He faces crisis after crisis, till he dies in exhaustion. He represents the Indian peasant who has been robbed of his honour, his spirit, and his life. He has been plunder and profaned, disinherited and disposed by those who exploit him. The novel does not end in the triumph of the peasant but ends in an atmosphere of pessimism and despair. The heroic struggle against heavy odds is perhaps the only redeeming feature of Hori’s character. Premchand seems to have realised the futility of all those solutions which had been suggested for improving the lot of peasants. He believed that the extension of democracy would be proved a rule by the big bankers, traders and money-lenders and their hold on the peasants would be firmer and more ruthless.
Premchand throughout his life had fought on the side of the poor. In his final testament ‘Mahajani Sabhyata’ (The Capitalist Society) he writes: “In this capitalist society the one motivation for all the actions is money....From this point of view, it is the capitalists who rule the world today. Human society has been divided into two sections. The bigger section comprises the tiller and toiler, while far smaller section comprises those who through their might and influence hold the larger section and take no pity on it whatever. This section exists merely so that it may sweat for its masters and one day quietly departs the world.”
In the January issue of Hans in 1931, Premchand wrote on mental slavery: “While we want to be free of physical slavery we continue to embrace mental slavery of our own free will.... Culture is a comprehensive term. Our religious beliefs, our social customs, our political principles, our language and literature, our manners and our conduct, are all parts of our culture but today we are hitting ruthlessly at the roots of this very culture.” How true these words are in the second decade of 21th century.
Today, when the forces of reaction, exploitation, fascism and obscurantism are becoming dominant in our society, the relevance and importance of Premchand’s writings and of the ideas he expounded have increased many folds.
