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Premchand and Indian Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sudhir Chandra
Sudhir Chandra
Affiliation:
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi
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Extract

Writing for Premchand (1880–1936) was a mission. In the course of a literary career that spanned over three decades he passionately clung to the belief that no writer in a subject country could afford the luxury of writing without a social purpose. India, so long as it was ‘under the yoke of alien subjection’, could not ‘scale the highest peaks of art’. Her writers were obliged by their political and social conditions to educate the people wherever it was possible for them to do so. The more intensely they felt, the more effectively educative became their work. Aware of the inevitable price, in terms of literary quality, that the colonial writer had willy-nilly to pay, Premchand had the insight to see the identity between the demands of society and the demands of literature. And precisely because he could perceive this identity, he succeeded increasingly in creating works that combined social purpose and artistic excellence.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1982 , pp. 601 - 621
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Premchand to Keshoram Sabberwal, 3 September 1929, in Rai, Amrit and Gopal, Madan (eds), Chitthi Patri (Ilahabad, 1978), vol. II, p. 207.Google Scholar

2 Presidential address at the first convention of the Progressive Writers' Association, in Premchand, , Kuchh Vichar (Ilahabad, 1973), p. 10.Google Scholar

3 Premchand, , ‘Purana Zamana: Naya Zamana’ (February 1919), Vividh Prasang (Ilahabad, 1978), vol. I, p. 267Google Scholar. This and the other passages have been translated from Hindi by the author.

4 PWA presidential address, quoted above, p. 2, pp. 5–25.Google Scholar

5 Vardan (1921)Google Scholar could seem an exception. But this Hindi version of an earlier Urdu novel, Jalwa-e-Isar (1912)Google Scholar, belongs to Premchand's revivalistic-patriotic phase.

6 It was after the forcible forfeiture of Soze Watan that the nom de plume, Premchand, came into being. Dhanpat Rai, who was till then writing as Nawab Rai, had to adopt this new name to circumvent the instructions of the district magistrate to submit his scripts for prior official clearance.

7 A possible exception could be ‘Yehi Mera Watan Hai’. See Premchand, , Soze Watan (Ilahabad, 1973), pp. 43–51.Google Scholar

8 See Premchand, , Mansarovar (Ilahabad, 1970), vol. VI, pp. 12–26, 45–62Google Scholar; Rai, Amrit (ed.), Gupta Dhan (Ilahabad, 1962), vol. I, pp. 45–65, 72–83.Google Scholar

9 As late as 1914, when he was 34, Premchand was giving vent to his frustration at the fact that he was, in the absence of a style of his own, imitating whoever he happened to be under the influence of, be it Bankim or Tolstoy. See Premchand to Dayanarain Nigam, 4 March 1914, Chitthi Patri, vol. I, pp. 28–9.Google Scholar

10 ‘Purana Zamana: Naya Zamana’, Vividh Prasang, vol. I, pp. 258–69Google Scholar; ‘Pashu se Manushya’, Mansarovar (Ilahabad, 1980), vol. VIII, pp. 102–13.Google Scholar

11 Premchand, , Prem Chaturthi (Nai Dilli, 1980), pp. 52–76Google Scholar; Mansarovar (Ilahabad, 1978), vol. III, pp. 234–40; vol. VI, pp. 202–8, 270–4; vol. VII (1976), pp. 271–80; vol. VIII, pp. 224–33.Google Scholar

12 See Mansarovar (Ilahabad, 1971), vol. I, pp. 50–67; vol. III, pp. 291–306; vol. VI, pp. 220–6; vol.VIII, pp.184–90; vol. V (1980), pp. 323–304.Google Scholar

13 See ibid., vol. III, pp. 202–10, 241–52; vol. V, pp. 44–60; vol. VIII, pp. 208–15; Gupta Dhan, vol. II, pp. 80, 148–69.Google Scholar

14 Mansarovar, vol. VII, pp. 17–79Google Scholar; Premchand, , Kafan (Ilahabad, 1973), pp. 96–106.Google Scholar

15 Mansarovar, vol. VII, p. 78Google Scholar. This and the other passages have been translated from Hindi by me.

16 Mansarovar vol. I, p. 303Google Scholar. See Swan, Robert O., Munshi Premchand of Lamhi Village (Durham, 1969), pp. 85–8Google Scholar, for a very sympathetic and perceptive discussion of Premchand's nationalist short stories in which Mansarovar, vol. I, pp. 296–97Google Scholar (‘Tavan’) has been mentioned as an exception to Premchand's otherwise wholehearted commitment to the nationalist movement.

17 Kafan, pp. 104–5.Google Scholar

18 Mansarovar (Ilahabad, 1973), vol. II, p. 241.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., vol. VI, pp. 220–6.

20 Ibid., vol. II, pp. 148–52, 289–300; Gupta Dhan, vol. II, p. 80.Google Scholar

21 Premchand, , Rangbhumi (Ilahabad, 1980), p. 558.Google Scholar

22 Premchand, , Ghaban (Ilahabad, 1980), p. 152.Google Scholar

23 Ibid.

24 Premchand, , Karmabhumi (Ilahabad, 1973), pp. 27–8, 34.Google Scholar

25 Sampurnananda, , Memories and Reflections (Bombay, 1962), p. 70.Google Scholar

26 Premchand, , Godan (Ilahabad, 1961), p. 175.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., pp. 283–6.

28 Ibid., p. 203.

29 Chitthi Patri, vol. I, p. 93.Google Scholar

30 Premchand to Dayanarain Nigam, 17 February 1923, ibid., pp. 129–30.

31 Same to same, 23 April 1930, ibid., 178–9.

32 Ibid., p. 184.

33 Ibid., p. 186.

34 Gopal, Sarvepalli (ed.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (New Delhi, 1972), vol. V, p. 3.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., p. 5.

36 Ibid., vol. III (1972), p. 37.

37 Premchand to Banarasi Das Chaturvedi, 3 June 1932, Chitthi Patri, vol. II, p. 77.Google Scholar

38 See Kuchh Vichar, pp. 5–25, 79–84.Google Scholar

39 See Vividh Prasang, vol. II, pp. 41–5.Google Scholar

40 Cf. Vividh Prasang, vol. I, pp. 17–22 and vol. III, pp. 165, 167, 173Google Scholar for shifts in Premchand's position with regard to swadeshi; and ibid., vol. I, pp. 259ff. and vol. II, pp. 333–6 for similar shifts with regard to nationalism.

41 See his regular commentaries on the contemporary nationalist politics, ibid., vol. II, pp. 17–283; Chitthi Patri, vol. II, p. 208, Appendix, p. 2.Google Scholar

42 I have discussed this aspect at some length in ‘Premchand: A Historiographic View’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XVI, no. 15 (11 04 1981), pp. 669–75.Google Scholar