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Premchand broke the barriers between the writer and the mass reader, the peasant and the worker, as his novels and short stories advocated humanism, equality and justice Munshi Premchand was not only a versatile writer, but also 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 the 20th century and thus gave a new dimension to fiction writing in these languages. From the very onset, his writings were charged with patriotism, as seen in his very first story ‘Duniya Ka Sabse Anmol Ratan’ (The Most Priceless Jewel of the World). 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. During his literary career of about thirty years, he wrote about 10 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 inspector of schools and joined the freedom struggle as a true disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. 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. 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. 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 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. In Nirmala, Premchand exposes the merciless orthodox system of dowry. 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. Soon after ‘The October Revolution’ Premchand started communicating its message through his writings to the Indian people. His novel Rangbhumi embodies the conflict between two civilisations – one represented by the new forces of industrialisation based on profit and competition and the other by the tradition way of life based on cooperation. 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. Throughout his life, Premchand had spoken for 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." 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 his ideas have increased manifold.
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