Remembering Munshi Premchand on his 136th birth anniversary

Shriniwas Joshi

I give credit to Praveen Chandla and Taruna Mishra, the president and vice-president of Shimla Federation of Theatre, for taking the initiative to organise a seminar on the 136th birth anniversary of Munshi Premchand. The seminar was organised in collaboration with the Department of Language and Culture at The Gaiety Theatre.

When Shashi Thakur, appointed the Director of Department of Language and Culture recently, was coming to inaugurate the seminar, one of the famour writers of the state asked her, “Madam, whosoever sits on this chair, in which you are, brings out a book. When is your book coming?”

She gave an apt reply, “I just wish to run the department efficiently and see that all the writers, artistes and artisans are happy during my tenure.”

While inaugurating the seminar, she informed the gathering about the activities that the department had undertaken, including two workshops in Hindi and Sanskrit poetry for college students.

The seminar on Munshi Premchand’s works was unique in the sense that besides the writers who spoke on various aspects of his writings, theatre artistes were also present (see photo). They maintained it was easy to stage Premchand because of the dialogue-oriented style of his writing.

They named plays, such as ‘Kafan’, ‘Bade Bhai Sahib’, ‘Godaan’, ‘Sawa Ser Gehun’ etc, staged in Shimla in the past.

Sushil Kumar Phull, a known writer who presided over the seminar, also appreciated the mixed participation and congratulated the speakers for the good work.

There were about 30 participants and three papers were read in the seminar. Arun Bharati’s paper was on ‘Vartmaan kahaani aur Premchand’ (Modern story and Premchand); Sudarshan Vashishth spoke on ‘Premchand ki kahaanion mein Samajik Vyavasthaa’ (Social order in the stories of Premchand) and I spoke on ‘Vaishvikaran ke yug mein Premchand ki Kahaanion ko jeevant rakhne ki Chunotiaan’ (The challenges of keeping alive Premchand’s stories in the era of globalisation).

Premchand (see photo) was the fourth child of parents Ajaib Rai and Anandi. His parents named him Dhanpat Rai and his uncle used to call him Nawab, so he chose Nawab Rai as his first penname. He wrote in Urdu in the beginning and his second novel ‘Humkhurma-o-Humsaveb’ was penned under the name of Babu Nawab Rai Banarasi.

His mother died when he was only eight years old. His father remarried but the child Dhanpat received almost no affection from his stepmother and this became a recurring theme in his later writings.

In 1909, the British Government banned his book ‘Soz-e-Watan’ and burnt about 500 copies of the same, calling it a seditious work.

Dhanpat then changed his penname to Premchand. He started writing in Hindi in 1914. His first Hindi story ‘Saut’ was published in ‘Saraswati’ in 1915. He wrote 301 stories, of which three are not available, and 13 novels of which ‘Mangalsutra’, his last, is incomplete.

Dr Nagendra in ‘Hindi Sahitya ka Itihaas’ opines that the year 1930 was a watershed in the story-writing period of Premchand. He says that prior to 1930, the latter’s stories were less effective, despite sticking to the subject.

Rekha Vashishth had rightly commented in the seminar that his bald, simple and factual prose did not satisfy our hunger for ‘aesthetic pleasure’.

Sudarshan stuck to his topic of his paper and said: “Premchand understood and tested the shape and texture of Indian villages. The joys and sorrows, the best and the worst, the faiths and superstitions, the peace and the uproar, the kindness and brutality, the love and the hate are found in his stories as ingredients of a village society.”

I, in my paper, emphasised that globalisation is like ‘two-way traffic’ between two countries.

It allows going out and coming in of traditional and modern trends in literature.

It enriches the literature of both the countries. It has to be differentiated from the ‘one-way traffic’ of westernisation which is sure to kill our literature.

Bharti’s paper was read in his absence and he was missed by those present.