For Premchand, Good Literature Was About Truth and Humanity

The great Hindi writer remains as relevant today as he was more than a century ago.

For Premchand, Good Literature Was About Truth and Humanity

Premchand. Photo: Unknown author, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Rakhshanda Jalil

Born 137 years ago on July 31 in Lamhi, a village near Varanasi, Premchand (1880-1936) wrote about things that have always existed but had hitherto been considered beyond the pale of literature – exploitation and submission, greed and corruption, the straightjacket of poverty and an unyielding caste system. Son of a post office clerk, he was named Dhanpat Rai (literally meaning the ‘master of wealth’), yet he waged a lifelong battle against unremitting genteel poverty. Reading and writing, always the stock in trade of a good kayastha boy, coupled with acute social consciousness and an unerring eye for detail turned him – with a literary career spanning three decades which included 14 novels, 300 short stories, several translations from English classics, innumerable essays and editorial pieces – into a qalam ka sipahi , a ‘soldier with the pen’.

Mirroring the world

Premchand’s first story, Duniya ka Sabse Anmol Ratan ( The Most Precious Jewel in the World ) was published in 1907 in Zamana ; somewhat melodramatically it announced that the last drop of blood that would bring the country its freedom would be the most precious ‘jewel’.

His first collection of short stories,  Soz-e Watan ( The Dirge of the Nation ), that followed a year later in 1908 was found to be so incendiary and seditious that not only was it banned by the imperial government, but all copies of the book were burnt. Undaunted, Premchand kept writing stories that expressed the pain and suffering of the toiling masses that had been suppressed for centuries, using stereotypes where necessary to make general observations, painting on a large canvas with broad, sweeping brushstrokes, writing stories that occasionally seem preachy or moralistic when not outright sentimental to modern readers.

Yet, for all their moralistic overtones, they appeal to all that is good and decent in us, all that is moved by exploitation, injustice and intolerance. It is this quality that has single-handedly made Premchand relevant to modern readers, even young urban readers, explaining why great stories like Do Bailon ki Katha or Idgah continue to be prescribed reading in school textbooks.

In Premchand’s world, the bad are needed to offset the good. Self-seeking,  bhang -drinking pandits, effete landlords, college-going newly-westernised sahibs and memsahibs, and corrupt petty officials are set against another set of characters. There is, for instance, the orphan Hamid who buys a pair of iron tongs for his grandmother instead of sweets and toys for himself, little Ladli who sets aside her share of puris for old Kaki, the corrupt Pandit Alopideen who shows immense generosity for a fallen but upright opponent, Jhuri who loved his oxen like his own children – all these help restore our faith that human beings can occasionally be good and kind too. Stock characters like Dukhi the tanner, Halku the peasant, Gangi the untouchable woman, Buddhu the shepherd, Bhajan Singh the hot-headed thakur  and countless others served a useful purpose to someone of Premchand’s literary disposition: he exploited the intrinsic worth of stock characters and stock situations to portray a very real world. Like the Russian masters whom he admired so much, realism for Premchand was a mise en scene against which he built up the props of character and plot. “I write for only one sake: To present a human truth, or to show a new angle of looking at common things,” he wrote.

Some of his finest writings, written in the last 20 years of his life, show the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and the Russian Revolution in his choice of subjects: the need for widow remarriage, the rampant systems of dowry and untouchability, the problems of landless labourers, the urgent need for land reform, the lot of underpaid and over-worked salaried people who resort to bribery and corruption, and social and class inequalities that cause good people to do bad things. His support for the Sarda Bill , which aimed to raise the age of marriage for girls and advocated the right to give widows a share of their late husband’s property, finds reflection in stories such as Nirmala and Narak ka Marg .

Interestingly enough, unlike the women writers of this period, such as Mahadevi Varma and Suhadra Kumari Chauhan, Premchand made no attempt to portray the woman as a silently suffering victim; if anything, his women voice the strongest arguments, complaints and feelings. His Gangi is willing to face the wraths of the thakurs while trying to fetch clean drinking water for her ailing husband. That she doesn’t succeed is another matter; in showing a woman who is, at the very least, trying to go where she is forbidden, he was showing the way – a way that would be seized by the progressive writers who came immediately after him, a group of writers who would turn the brave but ineffectual Gangi into the torch bearer of lasting social change.

A changing literature for a changing time

Premchand’s affinity towards socially-engaged, purposive literature is evident from his espousal of a new kind of writing that was beginning to take shape in the 1930s. When a group of Young Turks in London drew up a Manifesto of what would soon become the Progressive Writers’ Movement, he published it (albeit in a slightly watered-down version) in his influential Hindi journal Hans in October 1935. And when the progressives decided to hold an ambitious first-of-its-kind meeting of the All-India Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA) on April 9, 1936 at the Rifah-e Aam Hall in Lucknow, Premchand rose to the occasion with everything at his command as a writer. Not only did he give his whole-hearted support to this fledgling association, but his presidential address would, in later years, become a manifesto of sorts for a literary movement unlike any other in the history of this country, a movement that would shape the responses of a whole generation of Indian intelligentsia.

Premchand. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Premchand. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Unanimously elected the first president of this all-India writers’ body, Premchand – by now a lion in winter, for he would die a bare five months later – wrote one of his finest pieces of non-fiction for this occasion. His speech, called Sahitya ka Uddeshya ( The Aim of Literature ), was heard by a rapt audience comprising both young and established writers from across the country. In simple but powerful words, the greatest storyteller of his time told his audience how good literature can only be founded on truth, beauty, freedom and humanity, and that his definition of literature was simply ‘the criticism of life’. And since literature is nothing but a mirror of its age, its definition, scope and contents just as much as its aims and objectives must change with time. Given the turmoil and change in the world, his reader – and theirs – could no longer be content with the wondrous tales of love and escape that had been the staple fare of the fasana and dastan of yore.

“Currently, good literature,” he maintained, “is judged by the sharpness of its perception, which stirs our feelings and thoughts into motion.” The main aim of literature, then, was to ‘refine’ the mind of the readers. And while undoubtedly the aim of art was to strengthen one’s sense of beauty, art too must be weighed on the same scale of usefulness as everything else in life. The time had come, he declared with the quiet assurance of a messiah, to redefine the parameters of beauty: “ Hamein khubsoorti ka mayaar badalna hoga .”

Calling language a means and not an end, and while conceding that a writer is born, not made, Premchand stressed that a writer’s natural gifts could be enhanced with education and curiosity about the world around him. “Literature,” he said, “is no longer limited to individualism or egotism, but tends to turn more and more towards the psychological and social. Now literature does not view the individual as separate from society; on the contrary it sees the individual as an indissoluble part of society!” Deeming “a quick mind and a fast pen” not enough, a writer must also be abreast of the latest scientific, social, historical or psychological questions – as was the case in international literary conferences. In India, Premchand maintained, we conversely shy away from such matters and thus the need for far more socially-engaged literature had become more urgent than ever:

“We will have to raise the standard of our literature, so that it can serve the society more usefully… our literature will discuss and assess every aspect of life and we will no longer be satisfied with eating the leftovers of other languages and literatures. We will ourselves increase the capital of our literature.”

Speaking not merely as president of the inaugural session, but identifying himself completely with the aims and objectives of the PWA (the address is replete with references to ‘our association’, ‘our ideal’, ‘our aim’), Premchand spoke about opening centres in ‘each province and in each language’: “To water them and to strengthen their aim is our goal.” The 14-page text is not merely an eloquent plea on behalf of the PWA; it is significant for other reasons as well. Here is the doyen of Hindi literature, rising above the thorny issue of language (Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani) and talking about what concerns, or should concern, all writers irrespective of language. He urged writers to discard individual and personal concerns and, instead, speak in a collective voice taking upon themselves public and political roles. Literature, which had hitherto been content to entertain or at best educate, must now, given the exigencies of the times, advance human knowledge and freedom.

Given the exigencies of our times, there can be no better way to celebrate Premchand’s legacy on his 137th birth anniversary than to remember his words and to remind ourselves of the aim and purpose of literature.

Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, critic and literary historian who has published over 15 books and written over 50 academic papers and essays. Her recent works include Liking Progress, Loving Change: A Literary History of the Progressive Writers Movement in Urdu (OUP, 2014) and  The Sea Lies Ahead, a translation of Intizar Husain’s novel on Karachi (Harper Collins, 2015).

the purpose of literature by premchand

A Reflection of His Age: Munshi Premchand on the True Purpose of Literature

A new generation of hindustani writers emerged in the twentieth century, whose work is marked by its focus on a previously unexplored theme: the lived realities of common people. this speech by premchand, delivered at the first meeting of a fledgling all-india progressive writers’ association, offers a glimpse into the political and socially charged literary philosophy of these writers and their spirit of resistance., editor's note.

Munshi Premchand is perhaps the first person that comes to mind when one thinks of Indian literature. But, from a historical perspective, it must be noted that his work was in fact a radical departure from the kind of stories that made up the bulk of Indian literature before him.

Born to a post-office clerk on 31st July, 1880, he wrote about the lives of common people, about “real human beings of bones and flesh.” Shining a light on the murkier aspects of human life – corruption, exploitation and poverty – he introduced ‘realism’ into Hindustani literature, which was before him, for a great part, telling stories “only for entertainment, or to satisfy our sense of wonder.”

He began writing in the early 1900s, under the pen-name ‘Nawab Rai’ (a derivative of his real name, Dhanpat Rai which would literally mean ‘wielder of wealth’). He adopted ‘Premchand’ as a name in 1909, after his first collection of short stories, Soz-e-Watan had drawn the ire of the British government, who declared the work to be seditious and had all copies of it burnt.

Till his demise in 1936, Premchand wrote several novels and short stories that would become iconic texts of Hindi and Urdu literature, all the while himself keeping his ear to the ground and becoming the voice of the marginalised and the exploited. However, his stories were not merely tales of passive victims; he centred them around moments of hope, compassion and resistance: a lodestone of sorts for the subaltern.

In doing so, he also became the guiding light for a new generation of writers in Hindustani: a few decades after Premchand, a wave of ‘progressive’ writers would emerge in India, whose stories, novels or poems spoke of the oppressed and imagined a radical new society free from exploitation and injustice.

These writers came together to form the Progressive Writers’ Association in 1935. The first initiative was taken by a group of young writers in London (including the likes of Mulk Raj Anand and Sajjad Zaheer), who published an eponymous Manifesto outlining their revolutionary philosophy of literature. It was Premchand who provided them with their first platform, by publishing the document in his influential Hindi journal, Hans.

The first meeting of the fledgling Progressive Writers’ Association was held in April, 1936 at Lucknow and was attended by the likes of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Habib Jalib, Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto. These writers would eventually become the voice of a newly liberated subcontinent whose struggles against imperialism was followed by the shock of partition.

Premchand inaugurated this ambitious meeting as President, with the address we have reproduced for you below. A translation of this speech, originally in Hindi, was published in the Social Scientist in the November – December, 2011 issue (Vol. 39, No. 11/12).

Defining literature as a “criticism of life,” Premchand argues that literature in the present age has taken up the task of providing “spiritual and moral guidance.” Voicing what was then an unconventional outlook in Indian literature, he says that any work which does not have any “utility” must be rejected.

However, his definition of utility was not one tied to economic productivity or cold calculations. Rather, he spoke of a social utility: he wanted literature to rouse people, to instil in them the desire to challenge society and its oppressive system, and most of all, he wanted it to be free of “the apron strings of a particular class.”

Yet, he did not mean that literature must be judged only according to its social message. An artists’ tool would still be the “inherent sense of beauty” in all human beings, but our measure of beauty itself needed to be redefined. According to Premchand, beauty lay not in hiding the ugly aspects of human life. Truly beautiful literature made us “face the grim realities of life in a spirit of determination.”

Premchand’s address thus exemplified all that the PWA was to become: a radical redefinition of the nature and purpose of literature and its aesthetics.

(Quotes, where unattributed, are from Munshi Premchand’s speech ‘The Nature and Purpose of Literature.’)

The Nature and Purpose of Literature

Presidential Address of Munshi Premchand, delivered at the First All India Progressive Writers’ Conference, held at Lucknow on 10 April 1936. (Translated from Hindustani.) 

This conference is a memorable occasion in the history of our literature. Hitherto we had been content to discuss language and its problems; the existing critical literature of Urdu and Hindi has dealt with the construction and the structure of the language alone. This was doubtless an important and necessary work. And the pioneers of our literature have supplied this preliminary need and performed their task admirably. But language is a means, not an end; a stage, not the journey’s end. Its purpose is to mould our thoughts and emotions, and to give them the right direction. We have now to concern ourselves with the meaning of things, and to find the means of fulfilling the purpose for which language has been constructed. This is the main purpose of this conference.

Literature properly so-called is not only realistic, true to life, but is also an expression of our experiences and of the life that surrounds us. It employs easy and refined language which alike affects our intellect and our sentiments. Literature assumes these qualities only when it deals with the realities and experiences of life. Fairy tales and romantic stories of princely lovers may have impressed us in olden days, but they mean very little to us today. Unless literature deals with reality it has no appeal for us. Literature can best be defined as a criticism of life. The literature of our immediate past had nothing to do with actuality; our writers were living in a world of dreams and were writing things like Fasanai Ajaib or Chandra Kanta ;  tales told only for entertainment, or to satisfy our sense of wonder. Life and literature were considered to be two different things which bore no relation to each other. Literature reflects the age. In the past days of decadence the main function of literature was to entertain the parasitic class. In this literature the dominant notes were either sex or mysticism, pessimism or fatalism. It was devoid of vigour, originality, and even the power of observation. 

But our literary taste is undergoing a rapid transformation. It is coming more and more to grips with the realities of life; it interests itself with society or man as a social unit. It is not satisfied now with the singing of frustrated love; or with writing to satisfy only our sense of wonder; it concerns itself with the problems of our life; and such themes as have a social value. The  literature which does not arouse in us a critical spirit, or satisfy our spiritual and intellectual needs, which is not ‘force-giving’ and dynamic, which does not awaken our sense of beauty, which does not make us face the grim realities of life in a spirit of determination, has no use for us today. It cannot even be termed as literature.

The literature which does not arouse in us a critical spirit, or satisfy our spiritual and intellectual needs, which is not ‘force-giving’ and dynamic, which does not awaken our sense of beauty, which does not make us face the grim realities of life in a spirit of determination, has no use for us today. It cannot even be termed as literature.

In the past, religion had taken upon itself the task of striving after man’s spiritual and moral guidance; it used fear and cajolery, reward and retribution as its chief instruments in this work. Today, however, literature has undertaken a new task, and its instrument is our inherent sense of beauty; it tries to achieve its aim by arousing this sense of beauty in us. The more a  writer develops this sense through his observation of nature, the more effective will his writing become. All that is ugly or detestable, all that is inhuman, becomes intolerable to such a writer. He becomes the standard bearer of humanity, of moral uprightness, of nobility. It becomes his duty to help all those who are downtrodden, oppressed and exploited — individuals or groups  — and to advocate their cause. And his judge is society itself: it is before society that he brings his plaint. He knows that the more realistic his story is, the more full of expression and movement his picture, the more intimate his observation of human nature, human psychology, the greater the effect he will produce. It is not even enough that from a psychological point of view, his characters resemble human beings; we must further be satisfied that they are real human beings of bones and flesh. We do not believe in an imaginary man; his acts and his thoughts do not impress us.

A postage stamp released by the Government of India to commemorate Premchand

The question may be asked, but what is beauty? Why does a waterfall, the sunset, and other such natural scenes and phenomena affect us? Because, there is a certain harmony of colour or sound in them. We ourselves are created by a harmony of elements, and our spirit always seeks the same balance and harmony in everything else. It is the harmony which creates beauty. Nature demands that this harmony should exist everywhere, and, the more art keeps in touch with nature and with reality, the better it will be.

In this sense, the name ‘progressive writer’ is defective: an artist or a writer is by his very nature progressive. But perhaps it is necessary to use this qualifying word because progress has a different meaning for different people. For us ‘progressive’ is that which creates in us the power to act; which makes us examine those subjective and objective causes that have brought us to such a pass of sterility and degeneration; and finally which helps us to overcome and remove those causes, and become men once again. We have no use today for those poetical fancies which overwhelm us with their insistence on the ephemeral nature of this world and whose only effect is to fill our hearts with despondency and indifference. We must, resolutely, give up writing those love romances with which our periodicals are flooded. We have no time to waste over sentimental art. The only art which has value for us today is that which is dynamic and leads to action.

For us ‘progressive’ is that which creates in us the power to act; which makes us examine those subjective and objective causes that have brought us to such a pass of sterility and degeneration; and finally which helps us to overcome and remove those causes, and become men once again. We have no use today for those poetical fancies which overwhelm us with their insistence on the ephemeral nature of this world and whose only effect is to fill our hearts with despondency and indifference. We must, resolutely, give up writing those love romances with which our periodicals are flooded.

According to us, subjective art is that which drags us down to inaction and passivity; and such an art is good neither for the individual nor for the society. I have no hesitation in saying that I judge art from the point of view of its utility. Undoubtedly, the aim of art is to satisfy our sense of beauty; and it is the key to our spiritual happiness. But happiness itself is a thing of ‘utility’. The same object from this point of view, may stir in us feelings of joy or sorrow. 

But beauty like everything else is not absolute; it too has relative value. The same thing which gives happiness to one, causes pain to another. A rich man sitting in his beautiful garden and listening to the song of the birds thinks of paradise; to a poor but intelligent human being who regards this pomp of wealth as being tainted with the blood of workers, it is the most hateful thing. 

Progressive writers (left to right) Sibte Hasan, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Hameed Akhtar and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi.

Brotherhood and equality, from the dawn of human culture and civilisation have been the golden dream of idealists. Religious leaders have made repeated attempts to realise their dream by creating religious, moral and spiritual sanctions. But they have not succeeded. Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, all the prophets, tried without success to lay the foundation of their equality on moral precepts without any success. Today the distinction between high and low, rich and poor, is manifesting itself with a brutality which has never been surpassed before. There is a saying amongst us that to try that which has already been tried is a sign of stupidity— we shall fail again if we attempt to attain our goal with the help of religion or ethics. 

Are we then to give up our ideals? If that were so, the human race might as well perish. The ideal which we have cherished since the dawn of civilisation; for which man has made God knows how many sacrifices; which gave birth to religion — the history of human society is a history of the struggle for the fulfilment of this ideal — we too have to place that ideal before ourselves; we have to accept it as an unalterable reality and then see the vulgar pride, ostentation and lack of sensibility in the one, the strength of modesty, faith and endeavour in the other. And our art will notice those things only when our artistic vision takes the entire universe within its purview; when the entire humanity will form its subject matter, then it will no longer be tied to the apron strings of a particular class. Then we shall no longer tolerate a social system under which a single individual can tyrannise over thousands of human beings; then our self-respecting humanity will raise the standard of revolt against capitalism, militarism and imperialism; and we shall not sit quiet and inane after doing a little bit of creative work on pieces of paper, but we shall actively participate in building that new order which is not opposed to beauty, good taste and self-respect. The role of literature is not simply to provide us with amusement, or recreation; it does not follow, but is, on the contrary, a torch-bearer to all the progressive movements in society. 

Then we shall no longer tolerate a social system under which a single individual can tyrannise over thousands of human beings; then our self-respecting humanity will raise the standard of revolt against capitalism, militarism and imperialism; and we shall not sit quiet and inane after doing a little bit of creative work on pieces of paper, but we shall actively participate in building that new order which is not opposed to beauty, good taste and self-respect. The role of literature is not simply to provide us with amusement, or recreation; it does not follow, but is, on the contrary, a torch-bearer to all the progressive movements in society. 

We sometimes complain that literary men are not given an honourable place in society. That is to say, in Indian society. In other civilised countries, literary men are placed very high on the ladder of social esteem. The highest placed people in the land consider it an honour to meet and to know these men. But, then, India is still in many ways living under medieval conditions. If our writers have played the sycophant to the rich to earn their livelihood by flattery, if they are unaware of the dynamic forces working in modern society, if they choose to shut themselves up in ivory towers, completely oblivious of their surroundings, it is not surprising that they find themselves as a class more and more discarded by society. It is true that writers are born and not made, but we should not forget that rigorous intellectual, moral, spiritual and emotional discipline which Aristotle has prescribed for them. With us a simple inclination to write is considered sufficient reason for a man to take to the profession of writing. He need not equip himself for it, he need have no knowledge of politics, economics or psychology; and still he will be a writer. This should not be so, for it is a sign of stagnation. 

Progressive Writers Rashid Jahan (second from right) and Mahmood-uz-Zafar (extreme left), who contributed to the short story collection ‘Angarey,’ considered the genesis of the PWA

The ideal which we want to put before literature today is not that of subjectivism or individualism, for literature does not see the individual as something apart from society, but considers him as a social unit; because his existence is dependent on the society as a whole. Taken apart from society he is a mere cypher and non-entity. It follows, therefore, that those of us who have the good fortune to be educated and who have been endowed with a trained intellect, have certain obligations towards society. Just as we consider the capitalist to be an usurper and an oppressor, because he lives on the labour of others, in the same way we should strongly condemn the ‘intellectual capitalist’, who, after having received the best education uses it for his own private ends. It is the duty of our intellectuals to serve society in every possible way. They should acquire not only the art of writing well, but should also acquaint themselves with the general condition of society. If we read the reports of International Writers’ Conferences we find that there is hardly a subject concerning life, literature, economic problems, historical controversies, philosophy, which is not discussed there. When we compare ourselves with these people, we really feel ashamed of our ignorance. We must, therefore, raise the cultural level of our writers. I know it is difficult under the present economic system, but let us at least strive after this. Even if we do not reach the top of the mountain, we shall at least raise ourselves from the surface of the earth to a higher place. With love to guide our activities, and with the service of humanity as the outward manifestation of this love, there is no difficulty which we cannot overcome. For those who are after wealth and riches, there is no place in the temple of love. If we place our services at the disposal of the masses of this country, we shall have done our duty. The happiness which we get from serving humanity will be our reward. We stand or fall with society, and as true artists we should disdain self advancement and cheap exhibitionism. 

Just as we consider the capitalist to be an usurper and an oppressor, because he lives on the labour of others, in the same way we should strongly condemn the ‘intellectual capitalist’, who, after having received the best education uses it for his own private ends. It is the duty of our intellectuals to serve society in every possible way. They should acquire not only the art of writing well, but should also acquaint themselves with the general condition of society.

Such are the objects which have led to the formation of the Indian Progressive Writers’ Association. It wants literature to bear the message of efforts and action. It is not concerned with the problems of language as such. With a correct ideology, language will become simpler and better. So long as the content of our writing is on the right lines, we need not worry about the form. The literature which is patronised by the privileged classes will adopt their forms of expression; the literature which is of the masses will speak their language. Our object is to create such an atmosphere in this country as would help the growth of progressive literature. We want to establish branches of our Association in all the literary centres of India; we want to organise the creative literary life in those centres, by reading papers, by discussions and through criticism. It is in this way that our literary renaissance will take place. We want a branch of the Association in every province and in every linguistic zone, so that we can carry our message to all parts of the country. For some time past, Indian writers have been feeling the necessity for such an organisation. At various places some steps have already been taken in this direction. Our object is to help all such progressive tendencies in our literary world. We writers suffer from one great defect, and that is the absence of action in our lives. It is a bitter reality; we cannot shut our eyes to it. Indeed, this absence of an active life was considered to be a virtue by our writers, for it was agreed, an active life leads to intolerance and narrow-mindedness. A puritan, enforcing his doctrine on others, is certainly a greater nuisance than a libertine; the latter may save himself, whereas there is no hope for an arrogant puritan. So long as the object of literature was mere entertainment, so long as it was a means of escape from life, when it demanded a mere shedding of tears over life and its sorrows, an active participation in the social struggles was not required from a literary man. We, however, have a different conception of literature and the duties of a writer. We shall consider only that literature as progressive which is thoughtful, which awakens in us the spirit of freedom and of beauty; which is creative; which is luminous with the realities of life; which moves us; which leads us to action and which does not set on us as a narcotic; which does not produce in us a state of intellectual somnolence— for, if we continue to remain in that state it can only mean that we are no longer alive.

About the Author:

Premchand is one of the greatest Hindustani writers of the modern era. He wrote in both Hindi and Urdu. Credited with being the first writer to introduce realism in Hindi literature, he wrote several novels and short stories which portrayed the lives and struggles of the lower, middle and working classes. His works, which include canonical works of Indian literature like Idgah , Karmabhoomi and Godaan , have been adapted across several mediums. He was born on 31st July, 1880 and passed away on 8th October, 1936. Read more about his life and work here .

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The fifth in a series of essays by premchand to mark the 140th year of his birth, translated from the hindi by pavitra mohan..

Why Premchand said, ‘The ascent of literature is the ascent of a nation’

Life is the foundation on which literature stands. While the minarets, domes and halls of a building are visible, its foundation remains invisible. Life is god’s creation, hence it is limitless and inscrutable. Literature is a human creation, hence it is easier to understand and grasp. We cannot say with certainty whether life is accountable to god or not, but literature surely is answerable to humans. There are rules of literature that we cannot tweak.

A man meanders through life to find joy. Some people find joy in jewels, some in a happy family, some in big mansions and some in luxury. The joy of reading good literature is greater than these joys and purer than them, since its foundation lies in beauty and truth. In fact, true bliss lies in truth and beauty; to provide a glimpse of that bliss is the true goal of literature.

Guilt often underlies mindless consumption of material objects. One can start disliking them, feel guilty; but the bliss that is derived from beauty is indivisible and inexhaustible.

It is said that literature has nine rasas. If good literature leads to bliss, the question arises: is there beauty in the veebhatsa (macabre) rasa as well? If not, why is it counted among the rasas? In fact, beauty and truth doe exist in the veebhatsa rasa. The way Bhartendu portrays the shamshana or graveyard – how horrific it is. Demons and devils clawing at half-burnt flesh, chewing bones while they chat – this the height of hideousness! Yet this depiction leads to beauty, as it heightens the sense of bliss that unfolds later.

Literature finds beauty in every rasa and in every place: in the king’s palace, on the pauper’s hut, within filthy drains, in the crimson of the dawn, and on rainy nights. It is strange that beauty is glimpsed much more easily in a pauper’s hut than in the king’s palace. It is with great difficulty that you ever find it in palaces.

Wherever a person can be in their real and authentic form is where, and where alone, bliss lies. It runs away from artificiality and ostentatiousness. What relation can truth have with the inauthentic? Therefore, it is my belief that literature has only one rasa and that is shringaar or love. From a literary point of view, no rasa that is devoid of love and beauty is a true rasa. Any creation whose purpose is to incite baser instincts and desires, and relates only to the superficial world, is not a true creation.

Truth has three relationships with the soul. The first is of curiosity, the second, of purpose, and the third, of joy.

The relation of curiosity is the subject matter of philosophy and relation of purpose; of science. Only that of joy is the subject of literature. When truth becomes the source of joy, it becomes a piece of literature. Curiosity is enabled by thoughts, and purpose, by selfish intellect. Joy is related to emotions, and literature stems from emotions alone.

As illustration, we can react to the scenery of dawn breaking on snow clad mountains in three different ways. On seeing such a scenery, a philosopher might slip into profound thought, and a scientist, into deep enquiry. A litterateur would, however, be rapturous. Being rapturous is like self-surrender. Here one does not feel separation.

Here, the dichotomies between high and low, good and bad, disappear, the soul has the space to enfold the entire world. The more expansive a person’s soul, the grander he is. In fact, the greatest of humans make their souls mingle with the inanimate world as well.

Human life is surely not about living, eating, sleeping and then dying. Being one with nature and all life is its purpose. Some personality traits promote this union, while others restrict it. Arrogance, anger and hatred perpetuate separation. If we allowed them to persist unchecked, they would push us onto a path of destruction. That is why we need to rein them in. But how?

It is often wasteful to scold unruly children or to tell them that they are good for nothing. Such an action reinforces their behaviour. What is required is to stimulate their positive dispositions, so that the negative ones are subdued. We can influence children only by love and affection and not by scolding.

Similarly, for reining in negative traits, we need to stimulate instincts that promote the union of a man with nature and all life therein. Literature alone unlocks deeper human emotions, and unearths the uniting instincts.

Literature is not the stuff of the mind; it is the stuff of the heart. Where knowledge and sermons fail, literature succeeds.

We thus see the Upanishads and other religious scriptures take the assistance of literature. Our spiritual teachers saw that the description of human joy and misery has the greatest influence on human minds. Therefore they created stories about human lives which remain a source of joy for us. The tales from the Jataka, the Torah, the Quran, the Injeel are all merely collections of human stories.

These stories are the souls of our religions. Remove these stories, and the religions would stumble. The proponents of religion took refuge in these stories for a reason. They realised that messages can be delivered to human souls through the heart alone. They themselves were large-hearted humans, who had united their own souls with the common human life. They were in harmony with the entire human species. How could they then ignore the human character?

From ancient times, the closest being to one human has been another one. We can merge our souls only with those whose pleasure and pain, laughter and tears, we can feel. The affinity that a student has to student life, or a farmer to the farming life is not to be found in them for the lives of others. On entering the life of literature though, this separation disappears. It is as if our humanity, becoming vast and expansive, lays its claim on the entire human world. Not only the human world, but the entire world of animate and inanimate beings, comes into its fold, as if it has claimed sovereignty over the soul of the entire universe.

Literature is that magic wand which provides a glimpse of the universal soul – in animals, in trees, and even in stones and brooks. The world of the human heart is not the world that the senses perceive. Being humans, we often find ourselves in other humans, we are moved by their pain and pleasure and by their elation and depression. The feelings of a true writer are expansive. He has achieved such harmony with the universal soul that every being finds their emotions reflected in his expressions.

A creative writer is often affected by their times. When a wave sweeps through the country, they do not stay unmoved. Their expansive soul cries at the misery of their brethren. Their cries, however, are also expansive. Although they belong to their tribe or nation, they are also universal. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a story afflicted by the tradition of slavery. Although slavery is abolished, the story has such reach that even now we are moved.

True literature never goes stale. Philosophy and science change with time, but literature is the stuff of the heart, and the human heart does not change.

Joy and disenchantment, anger and hatred, hope and fear, continue to reign in our hearts as in ancient times, and will do so till eternity. The times of the Ramayana have passed, nor do the times of the Mahabharata exist anymore. Yet, these epics are new. Literature alone is true history.

The way literature captures time and place is not something that core history can do. History is not a collation of dates, nor battles between kings. History in its true sense is the progress of different elements of life. What can better illuminate the lives of common people than literature? Literature is a reflection of time and place.

The relevance of literature in life is sometimes questioned. It is said that those who are by nature virtuous will remain virtuous whatever they may read. And those who are full of vice will remain full of vice whatever they may study. This statement holds very little truth. A human being is naturally inclined towards beauty. However decrepit we may be, we are never attracted to evil. However cruel we may be, we are still moved by compassion, forgiveness, love and devotion.

Literature is the creator of social ideals. When the ideals are corrupted, decline follows fast. The new civilisation is only about 150 years old. Even in such a short time, the world is troubled with the new order. However, it does not have an alternative vision. Its state is like that of a human who knows they are on the wrong road but have no energy left to return. They will keep moving ahead, even if it leads them to the waves of an angry sea. They are entranced by the violent power of pessimism, not by the expansive courage of optimism.

The human being, by nature, is godlike. Influenced by the world’s hypocrisies and deceits, or affected by circumstances, they lose this goodness. Literature tries to re-establish it in its original place – the human heart. Not through sermons or teaching, but by evoking the emotions, by striking at the soft chords of the heart, and by establishing harmony with nature. Within the universal soul, every country or a nation has an individual soul. Literature is an echo of that soul.

With such a responsibility on their shoulders, then, the creators of literature have a huge obligation. The moment we pick up the pen, we assume this big responsibility.

Usually we focus our gaze on destruction in youth. Consumed by the desire to reform, we start shooting arrows blindly, we flow along the torrents of realism. We consider that the fulfilment of art lies in painting the naked picture of all that is evil. It is true that only by demolishing a building can we create a new one. There is a need to demolish old bondages and deceits, but this cannot be called literature. Literature follows its own discipline.

We often start writing without understanding the heart of literature. We think, perhaps, that powerful language and spicy plots are enough. Certainly literature involves skilful use of language, but there is much more to it. Steadfast literature does not destroy, it creates. It does not highlight the dark side of human character, it shows the effulgence. One who brings a building down is not an engineer, the engineer builds.

Young men and women who want to make literature the aim of their lives require much self-discipline. They are preparing themselves for a responsible position, which is higher than that shouldered by judges on a high pedestal. Degrees and high education are insufficient for such a pursuit. More than that, it requires the practice of the mind, a keen discipline, and a deep understanding of the essence of beauty. A writer has to be an idealist. Creators of immortal literature live a simple life and shun luxury.

If our literature does not progress, then the reason is that we have not prepared enough for its creation. Acquainted with a few drugs, we claim to have become a physician. The ascent of literature is the ascent of a nation, and we pray to the almighty that amongst us arise true ascetics, true self-knowers, and true creators of literature.

From the Village into the World: Premchand (Studies) in World Literature and Translation Studies Contexts

Nawab Rai, Munshi  Premchand or – simply – Premchand (1880-1936), the penname he chose after an early short story collection of his was proscribed by the colonial government, is considered to be one of the most prolific and canonic writers in modern Hindi and Urdu. Premchand was the son of a village postmaster. He lost his mother at the age of eight, was married at fifteen and lost his father soon after. He then carried the financial responsibility for the members of his family. Premchand was educated in Urdu and Persian and attended a Christian mission high school. He worked as a teacher, but quit his secure government job in 1921 in typical ‘Gandhian fashion’, as did many influential nationalists of that time who gave up lawyer’s practices, and masses of students who left government-run educational institutions in an act of civil disobedience against colonial rule.

There exist numerous monographs and scholarly essays on a diversity of themes covered in Premchand’s fiction as well as the impact he had on the development of Hindi and Urdu literature and the progressive writing literary movement ( pragativad ) in the early 20th century. Analyses of his depictions of peasants, Dalits, women (and their psychological states), and life in the village more broadly have occupied scholars in the disciplines of South Asian literature as well as (disputably) those of history, the social sciences, and postcolonial studies. There exist numerous translations of Premchand’s work in a diversity of languages and the reception and significance thereof forms the focus of the volume under review as it explores how Premchand’s fiction and essays – over the decades after his passing – paved their way into world languages. While Premchand’s role as a world  literary  figure is not necessarily the focus of the volume, the contributors nevertheless develop this claim. Premchand was himself a reader and translator of world literature and, after all, one of the many definitions of world literature is the circulation of literature in the world. This matter is complicated when dealing with the reception of a non-Western writer in the Western world (of academia). Even in Indian educational settings, however, the reception of Premchand is not as straightforward as one might expect.

First conceptualized as an international seminar at Jamia Millia Islamia in 2012, the papers are grouped into four parts:  seven essays surveying translation and reception of Premchand’s oeuvre in English, German, Russian, Spanish, and French; four essays on Premchand’s own translation practice including his self-translation projects; two essays on the rendering of Premchand’s works in Indian alternative cinema by the Bengali director Satyajit Ray; and two explorations of the urban and the rural in Premchand’s fiction, respectively. While situating Premchand as a vernacular  and  world writer, the contributions thankfully do not neglect his impact on (literary) nationalism and his specific brand of literary realism as it stretches from utopia to disillusionment. After all, his writing is taking place in a period of Indian history that marks heightened anti-colonial resistance and critical engagement with social flaws (such as the dowry system, caste discrimination, and property rights), especially in the village. The contributions go well beyond the discipline of literature even though the majority of contributors is housed in the departments of English and South Asian literary studies.

The contributors – many of them themselves translators of Premchand’s work and employed in Indian, European, and North American institutions – acknowledge the amount of translations that have led to the popularity and accessibility of Premchand’s oeuvre. They are, however, also critical about the methodologies and epistemologies that have led to these translations. As Harish Trivedi asks most poignantly, ‘What is one translating and just how much can one possibly translate?’ (p. 15). These are not new questions and challenges, but they encapsulate the beauties and frustrations translators and readers face when engaging with literature at the producing and receiving end. For Avadhesh Kumar Singh, ‘Un/translatability is a myth’ (p. 129) and this is of course not only the case for translations from non-Western languages into those that claim a global status.

Aside from theories of and several personal experience with translation shared by the contributors to the volume, contributions on Premchand’s politics of language, especially his switch from publishing in Urdu to Hindi and the resulting ‘revisions, transcreations, [and] reinterpretations’, as Snehal Shingavi writes (p. 147), provide nuanced explorations of Premchand’s own (linguistic and cultural) translation practice. Particularly relevant for the present day are the investigations of Premchand’s cultural nationalism and anti-communal sensitivity alongside his social critique of archaic village structures. His development of new aesthetics in Indian writing form the subject of the contributions in the different sections of the volume. Each essay is carefully argued, broad in scope and draws generously from primary source materials while also offering a bibliography of secondary sources.

Though the volume may not be useful for inclusion in the undergraduate classroom (for that purpose, readers can consult the  Oxford India Premchand Omnibus  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) that consists of a comprehensive introduction to the time and life of Premchand as well as English translations of his short stories, novels, and essays), its meticulously researched, carefully argued and dense contributions are indispensable for scholars of South Asian studies as much as – or even more – for those studying in translation studies and comparative literature departments. Overall, they make a convincing case for the installation of Premchand into world literature and languages. The relatively short section on cinematic representations of Premchand would have benefitted from a contribution discussing the songwriter Gulzar’s adaptation of Premchand’s short stories and novels, as screened in the highly ideological Doordarshan TV-series Tehreer (also available on YouTube). A contribution on Premchand’s role and reception in Pakistan, where he is also appropriated as national writer, would have broadened the South Asian scope. A compiled bibliography of primary and secondary sources at the end of the volume (and not following individual essays) would have also be welcomed. The reviewer understands that this may not have been the scope of the volume; for those interested in delving into text, context, and paratext, however, familiarizing oneself with Premchand’s own works (in translation) is indispensable and a much-recommended starting point. Needless to say, the volume is an invaluable contribution to Premchand studies and calls for more in the near future.

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For Premchand, good literature was about truth and humanity

the purpose of literature by premchand

Mirroring the world

A changing literature for a changing time.

Premchand | Photo courtesy: The Wire

Born 137 years ago on July 31 in Lamhi, a village near Varanasi, Premchand (1880-1936) wrote about things that have always existed but had hitherto been considered beyond the pale of literature — exploitation and submission, greed and corruption, the straightjacket of poverty and an unyielding caste system.

Son of a post office clerk, he was named Dhanpat Rai (literally meaning the ‘master of wealth’), yet he waged a lifelong battle against unremitting genteel poverty. Reading and writing, always the stock in trade of a good kayastha boy, coupled with acute social consciousness and an unerring eye for detail turned him – with a literary career spanning three decades which included 14 novels, 300 short stories, several translations from English classics, innumerable essays and editorial pieces —into a qalam ka sipahi , a ‘soldier with the pen’.

Premchand’s first story, Duniya ka Sabse Anmol Ratan (The Most Precious Jewel in the World) was published in 1907 in Zamana ; somewhat melodramatically it announced that the last drop of blood that would bring the country its freedom would be the most precious ‘jewel’.

His first collection of short stories, Soz-e Watan ( The Dirge of the Nation ), that followed a year later in 1908 was found to be so incendiary and seditious that not only was it banned by the imperial government, but all copies of the book were burnt.

Undaunted, Premchand kept writing stories that expressed the pain and suffering of the toiling masses that had been suppressed for centuries, using stereotypes where necessary to make general observations, painting on a large canvas with broad, sweeping brushstrokes, writing stories that occasionally seem preachy or moralistic when not outright sentimental to modern readers.

Yet, for all their moralistic overtones, they appeal to all that is good and decent in us, all that is moved by exploitation, injustice and intolerance. It is this quality that has single-handedly made Premchand relevant to modern readers, even young urban readers, explaining why great stories like Do Bailon ki Katha or Idgah continue to be prescribed reading in school textbooks.

In Premchand’s world, the bad are needed to offset the good. Self-seeking, bhang -drinking pandits, effete landlords, college-going newly-westernised sahibs and memsahibs , and corrupt petty officials are set against another set of characters.

There is, for instance, the orphan Hamid who buys a pair of iron tongs for his grandmother instead of sweets and toys for himself, little Ladli who sets aside her share of puris for old Kaki, the corrupt Pandit Alopideen who shows immense generosity for a fallen but upright opponent, Jhuri who loved his oxen like his own children – all these help restore our faith that human beings can occasionally be good and kind too.

Stock characters like Dukhi the tanner, Halku the peasant, Gangi the untouchable woman, Buddhu the shepherd, Bhajan Singh the hot-headed thakur and countless others served a useful purpose to someone of Premchand’s literary disposition: he exploited the intrinsic worth of stock characters and stock situations to portray a very real world. Like the Russian masters whom he admired so much, realism for Premchand was a mise en scene against which he built up the props of character and plot. “I write for only one sake: To present a human truth, or to show a new angle of looking at common things,” he wrote.

Some of his finest writings, written in the last 20 years of his life, show the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and the Russian Revolution in his choice of subjects: the need for widow remarriage, the rampant systems of dowry and untouchability, the problems of landless labourers, the urgent need for land reform, the lot of underpaid and over-worked salaried people who resort to bribery and corruption, and social and class inequalities that cause good people to do bad things. His support for the Sarda Bill, which aimed to raise the age of marriage for girls and advocated the right to give widows a share of their late husband’s property, finds reflection in stories such as Nirmala and Narak ka Marg .

Interestingly enough, unlike the women writers of this period, such as Mahadevi Varma and Suhadra Kumari Chauhan, Premchand made no attempt to portray the woman as a silently suffering victim; if anything, his women voice the strongest arguments, complaints and feelings.

His Gangi is willing to face the wraths of the thakurs while trying to fetch clean drinking water for her ailing husband. That she doesn’t succeed is another matter; in showing a woman who is, at the very least, trying to go where she is forbidden, he was showing the way — a way that would be seized by the progressive writers who came immediately after him, a group of writers who would turn the brave but ineffectual Gangi into the torch bearer of lasting social change.

Premchand’s affinity towards socially-engaged, purposive literature is evident from his espousal of a new kind of writing that was beginning to take shape in the 1930s. When a group of Young Turks in London drew up a Manifesto of what would soon become the Progressive Writers’ Movement, he published it (albeit in a slightly watered-down version) in his influential Hindi journal Hans in October 1935.

And when the progressives decided to hold an ambitious first-of-its-kind meeting of the All-India Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA) on April 9, 1936 at the Rifah-e Aam Hall in Lucknow, Premchand rose to the occasion with everything at his command as a writer. Not only did he give his whole-hearted support to this fledgling association, but his presidential address would, in later years, become a manifesto of sorts for a literary movement unlike any other in the history of this country, a movement that would shape the responses of a whole generation of Indian intelligentsia.

Unanimously elected the first president of this all-India writers’ body, Premchand – by now a lion in winter, for he would die a bare five months later — wrote one of his finest pieces of non-fiction for this occasion. His speech, called Sahitya ka Uddeshya ( The Aim of Literature ), was heard by a rapt audience comprising both young and established writers from across the country.

Photo courtesy: The Wire

In simple but powerful words, the greatest storyteller of his time told his audience how good literature can only be founded on truth, beauty, freedom and humanity, and that his definition of literature was simply ‘the criticism of life’. And since literature is nothing but a mirror of its age, its definition, scope and contents just as much as its aims and objectives must change with time. Given the turmoil and change in the world, his reader – and theirs – could no longer be content with the wondrous tales of love and escape that had been the staple fare of the fasana and dastan of yore.

“Currently, good literature,” he maintained, “is judged by the sharpness of its perception, which stirs our feelings and thoughts into motion.” The main aim of literature, then, was to ‘refine’ the mind of the readers. And while undoubtedly the aim of art was to strengthen one’s sense of beauty, art too must be weighed on the same scale of usefulness as everything else in life. The time had come, he declared with the quiet assurance of a messiah, to redefine the parameters of beauty: “Hamein khubsoorti ka mayaar badalna hoga.”

Calling language a means and not an end, and while conceding that a writer is born, not made, Premchand stressed that a writer’s natural gifts could be enhanced with education and curiosity about the world around him.

“Literature,” he said, “is no longer limited to individualism or egotism, but tends to turn more and more towards the psychological and social. Now literature does not view the individual as separate from society; on the contrary it sees the individual as an indissoluble part of society!”

Deeming “a quick mind and a fast pen” not enough, a writer must also be abreast of the latest scientific, social, historical or psychological questions — as was the case in international literary conferences. In India, Premchand maintained, we conversely shy away from such matters and thus the need for far more socially-engaged literature had become more urgent than ever:

“We will have to raise the standard of our literature, so that it can serve the society more usefully… our literature will discuss and assess every aspect of life and we will no longer be satisfied with eating the leftovers of other languages and literatures. We will ourselves increase the capital of our literature.”

Speaking not merely as president of the inaugural session, but identifying himself completely with the aims and objectives of the PWA (the address is replete with references to ‘our association’, ‘our ideal’, ‘our aim’), Premchand spoke about opening centres in ‘each province and in each language’: “To water them and to strengthen their aim is our goal.”

The 14-page text is not merely an eloquent plea on behalf of the PWA; it is significant for other reasons as well. Here is the doyen of Hindi literature, rising above the thorny issue of language (Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani) and talking about what concerns, or should concern, all writers irrespective of language.

He urged writers to discard individual and personal concerns and, instead, speak in a collective voice taking upon themselves public and political roles. Literature, which had hitherto been content to entertain or at best educate, must now, given the exigencies of the times, advance human knowledge and freedom.

Given the exigencies of our times, there can be no better way to celebrate Premchand’s legacy on his 137th birth anniversary than to remember his words and to remind ourselves of the aim and purpose of literature.

This article was originally published in The Wire, India

The writer is a critic and literary historian who has published over 15 books and written over 50 academic papers and essays.

the purpose of literature by premchand

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the purpose of literature by premchand

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Style, Influences and Great Works of Munshi Premchand

The Biography of Famous Personalities of India will tell you about the controversies, the dark sides of a person that you may have never heard of.

Style and Influences

As long as the shackles of wealth and property bind us, we will remain accursed forever and newer attain the altar of humanity, which is life’s ultimate goal.

Apart from being a Novelist and Author, Premchand was also a social reformer and a thinker. The remarkable characteristic of his writing was the reality with which Premchand depicted his characters in the novels. Unlike other contemporary writers, Premchand did not write fantasy fictions, or stories based upon a hero. His novels mainly consisted messages on social evils like, dowry, poverty, communalism, colonialism and corruption and zamindari. Premchand was the first writer of the twentieth century to bring reality in the literature.

Munshi Premchand is considered the first Hindi author whose writings prominently featured realism. His novels describe the problems of the poor and the urban middle-class people. His works depict a rationalistic outlook, which views religious values as something that allows the powerful hypocrites to exploit the weak. He used literature for the purpose of arousing public awareness about national and social issues and often wrote about topics related to poverty, corruption, child widowhood, prostitution, feudal system, colonialism and on the India’s freedom movement.

Munshi Premchand started taking an interest in political affairs while at Kanpur during the late 1900s, and this is reflected in his early works, which have patriotic overtones. His political thoughts were initially influenced by the moderate Indian National Congress leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale, but later, he moved towards the more revolutionary Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He considered the Minto-Morley Reforms and the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms as inadequate, and supported greater political freedom.

Several of his early works, such as A Little Trick and A Moral Victory, satirised the Indians who cooperated with the British Government. He did not specifically mention the British in some of his stories, because of strong government censorship, but disguised his opposition in settings from the medieval era and the foreign history. He was also greatly influenced by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda.

In the 1920s, Premchand was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s non-co-operation movement and the accompanying struggle for social reform. During this period, his works dealt with the social issues such as poverty, zamindari exploitation (Premashram, 1922), dowry system (Nirmala, 1925), educational reform and political oppression (Karmabhumi, 1931). He was focused on the economic liberalisation of the peasantry and the working class, and was opposed to the rapid industrialisation, which he felt would hurt the interests of the peasants and lead to oppression of the workers. This can be seen in his works like Rangabhumi (1924).

Munshi Premchand’s influence on Indian literature cannot be understated. As the late scholar David Rubin wrote in The World of Premchand (Oxford, 2001), “To Premchand belongs the distinction of creating the genre of the serious short story—and the serious novel as well—in both Hindi and Urdu. Virtually single-handed he lifted fiction in these languages from a quagmire of aimless romantic chronicles to a high level of realistic narrative comparable to European fiction of the time; and in both languages, he has, in addition, remained an unsurpassed master.”

In his last days, Premchand focused on village life as a stage for complex drama, as seen in the novel Godcn (193G) and the short-story collection Kafan (1936). He believed that social realism was the way for Hindi literature, as opposed to the “feminine quality”, tenderness and emotion of the contemporary Bengali literature.

Great Works

Wealth and compassion are opposites.

Munshi Premchand wrote over three hundred short stories and fourteen novels, many essays and letters, plays and translations. Many of his works were translated into English and Russian after his death.

Hindi Title – Urdu Title Devasthan Rahasys – Asrar-e-Ma’abid Prema – Hamkhurma-o-Ham Sawab Kishna Roothi Rani – Soz-e-Watan Vardaan – Jalwa-e-lsar Seva Sadan – Bazaar-e-Husn Premashram – Gosho-e-Afiyat Rangbhoomi – Chaugan-e-Hasti Nirmala (novel) – Nirmala Kaayakalp – Parda-i-Majaz Pratigya – Bewa Gabon – Ghaban Karmabhoomi – Maidan-e-Amal Godaan Mangalsootra (incomplete)

Short Stories

Several of Munshi Premchand’s stories have been published in a number of collections, including the 8-volume Mansarovar (1900-1936). Some of his stories include :

  • Adeeb Kl Izat
  • Duniya ka Sbse Anmol R atan
  • Bade Bhai Sahab
  • Beti ka Dhan
  • Sajjanata ka Dand
  • Panch Parameshvar
  • Ishwariya Nyaya
  • Beton Wall Vidhwa
  • Durga ka Mandir
  • Dil ki Rani
  • Gulli Danda
  • Namak Ka Daroga
  • Men Pahil Rachna
  • Boodhi Kaki
  • Shatranj ke Khlladi (Hindi)
  • Shatranj ki Bazi (Urdu)
  • Hinsa Parmo Dharma
  • Poos ki raat
  • Cricket Match

Premchand’s other stories include:

  • Agni Samadhi
  • Bade Ghar Kl Beti
  • DarogaSahab
  • Dhaai Ser Gehun
  • Dikri Ke Rupaye
  • Do Bahanein
  • Do Ballon ki Katha
  • Doodh ka Damm
  • Manushya Ka Param Dharma
  • Maryada ki Vedi
  • Nimant ra n
  • Pashu se Manushyc
  • Prem Purnima
  • Samar Yatra
  • Sawa Ser Gehun
  • Suhag ki Sari
  • Sujan Bha gut
  • Swatva Raksha
  • Thakur ka Kuaan
  • Thriya Chanta
  • Udhar Kl Ghadi
  • Hajje Akbar
  • Sauteli Maa
  • Bhadde ka Tattu

Translations

Munshi Premchand translated several non-Hindi works into Hindi. These included the writings of Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens (The Story of Richard Doubledick), Oscar Wilde (Canterville), John Galsworthy (Strife), Sadi, Guy de Maupassant, Maurice Maeterlinck (Sightless), Hendrik van Loon (The Story of Mankind) and Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar.

Style, Influences and Great Works of Munshi Premchand 1

Other Works Film Script :

  • Mazdoor (Also did a small role in the film)
  • Prem Ki Vedi
  • Roohani Shadi
  • Kuchh Vichar (two parts)
  • Qalam Tyag aur Talwar

Biographies :

  • Mahatma Sheikhsadi (biography of Saadi)

Children’s Books :

  • Jangal ki Kahaniyan
  • Kutte ki Kahani

TeachersCollegesj

Knowledge repository and useful advices

What according to Munshi Premchand is the nature and purpose of literature?

the purpose of literature by premchand

Table of Contents

  • 1 What according to Munshi Premchand is the nature and purpose of literature?
  • 2 Who gave the name of Premchand?
  • 3 Why we should read Premchand?
  • 4 What was Munshi Premchand profession before he took writing full time?
  • 5 Who won the lottery in the story lottery?
  • 6 What language is Premchand written in?
  • 7 Which is the most beautiful feeling in the book Vardan?

Premchand believed that “Currently, good literature is judged by the sharpness of its perception, which stirs our feelings and thoughts into motion.” The main aim of literature, then, was to ‘refine’ the mind of the readers.

Who gave the name of Premchand?

Premchand was the pen name adopted by the Hindi writer Dhanpatrai who was born on 31 July 1880 at Lamati near Varanasi. His early education was in a madarasa under a Maulavi, where he learnt Urdu. When he was studying in the ninth class he was married, much against his wishes. He was then fifteen.

Why we should read Premchand?

Premchand’s stories help fill the ideological hole in our minds without the propaganda and the fanfare. Reading his stories at a very early age also helps build empathy. ‘Idgah’ has always been the introduction to Munshi Premchand’s world for every schoolgoing child.

What did little ladli do with her share of puris?

Ladli decided to give her share of the meal to kaki at night when everyone would be asleep. ladli gave her meal to kaki, kaki ate the meal but it did not suppress her hunger, kaki decided to go to the guest area and started eating from leftovers.

Which is the last essay of Premchand?

On 8th of October 1936, Munshi Premchand,the Upanyas Samrat left the world. His last story writing is Cricket Match which was published after his death in Zamana in the year 1937.

What was Munshi Premchand profession before he took writing full time?

His first job was of selling books, a job he took so that he could read more books. His second job was to teach an advocate’s son in Benares at a monthly salary of five rupees. In 1900, Premchand secured a job as an assistant teacher at the Government District School, Bahraich, on a monthly salary of 20 rupees.

Who won the lottery in the story lottery?

Tess Hutchinson wins the lottery.

What language is Premchand written in?

Premchand, also spelled Prem Chand, pseudonym of Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, (born July 31, 1880, Lamati, near Varanasi, India—died October 8, 1936, Varanasi), Indian author of novels and short stories in Hindi and Urdu who pioneered in adapting Indian themes to Western literary styles.

What is the story of Vardan by Munshi Premchand?

Why is Munshi Premchand important in Hindi literature?

Which is the most beautiful feeling in the book Vardan?

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Dalit in Premchand's Select Short Stories

Profile image of Dipak Giri

2020, Booksclinic Publishing, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

Though the Dalit Literature emerged as a distinctive literary form in the 1960s, the theme and approach was not new as it somehow existed in the writings of Munshi Premchand in pre-independence India. Prior to Premchand there was hardly any writer who could reach to Dalit’s sensitivity as successfully as Premchand. For his valuable contributions towards the theme and portrayal of Dalit in literature Premchand is universally acknowledged as a pioneering figure in this field. He paved the path for Dalit awakening in 1960s. He was a great artist for his realistic character-portrayal. This paper tries to explores the theme and area of Dalit issue in Premchand’s stories along with those working factors which acclaim him as a great story-teller of Dalit.

Related Papers

VEDA'S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE [JOELL]

The aim of the paper is to explore the question of caste subjugation in the stories Kafan and Sadgati. The Indian society has been ridden with the menace of caste oppression since centuries. Premchand has been one of the foremost writers to undertake social issues in his writings. The purpose of writing this paper is to explore how caste hierarchy and oppression has been depicted in the works of Premchand and to critically analyse whether his two stories Kafan and Sadgati fall within the genre of ‘Dalit literature’. The paper deals extensively with the Dalit psyche and also the politics revolving around the concepts of purity and untouchability through the Dalit body. The significance of the paper lies in the fact that it enables one to analyse the representation of Dalits in literature by including the criticism of various writers against Premchand and decide for oneself how appropriate and extensive that representation has been.

the purpose of literature by premchand

Laura Brueck

Dr Joshua Gnana Raj P

This paper includes research, and focus on the themes touched by Munshi Premchand on his path, and career of writing. The methods that, employed are extensive searches, and by going through the variety of works that have been produced by Premchand in the field of literature. Finally, to find what were all Premchand's views on the various topics that he had by spreading his wings upon to. Hindi novel were always under the state of evolution. The themes were revolving around the subject of fantasy, until the nineteenth century. It was in a sense entertaining, and religious. But these failed to touch one's soul. Munshi Premchand, an Urdu writer, later turned to Hindi, was one responsible for the total changeover of the Hindi novels. He shifted themes of fantasy, and gave it touch of realism. Furthermore, he added essential ingredients of introducing Indian based themes for his novels. The style of writing employed by Premchand is simple, and direct, which hits the hearts of plenty. The protagonists in his works are the ones whom we meet up every day. Premchand truly observed the psyche of the characters through his in depth analysis of the people around him, thus is where his greatness lies. Tracing the Rights of the Minorities: A reading of select works of Munshi Premchand In the beginning, Hindi literature also never had an open mind over the issues concerning caste, gender, or the contemporary issues. Most, of the writers who wrote came from the upper caste, and rarely did they mention such issues. Premchand thought different on this aspect, and was not on par with the other writers of his generation this made him a popular writer then, but that still didn't make him a revolutionary writer yet. There are lot of significant contributions Premchand had given to world of literature through his plots and protagonists this proves how his works are also so relevant to times of the present era too. Premchand with the power of words

AMRJ PUBLICATION

Amar Gejage

The concept of caste Dalit ,as well as the literature created by Dalits in India, has been thoroughly examined in this paper. Dalits have written a diverse range of literary works based on their own personal experiences. The experiences of being a Dalit has inspired them to represent their inhuman situation ,which is exacerbated by India's infamous caste system, which has existed for centuries. The beginning of the caste system with beginning of Hindu religious theology, where in India are there stratification/Savarnas among Hindu communities. The Dalits are on the fourth rung of the social ladder. as a Dalit , they are treated even worse ,as if they were an animal. they have been denied their basic human rights and the dignity to live as human beings for many years, they have been subjected to various forms of humiliation, torture, and slavery, and they have been denied the right to live. This long standing denial has caused India's Dalit community to vent their anguish and sense powerlessness via various forms of writing. They have spoken out against the harsh Hindu caste system that continues to oppress them in all aspects of life through their micronarratives.

Booksclinic Publishing, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

The book “Perspectives on Indian Dalit Literature: Critical Responses” is a volume of twenty six scholarly articles focusing on the theme of Dalit’s freedom and emancipation from traditional caste-stigmatised society which sacrifices the interest of Dalits on the altar of tradition. The book endeavours to articulate voices among this marginalized class of people to come in action from their passivity and stillness. The book also tries to cover almost all eminent Dalit writers of past and present century like Omprakash Valmiki, Baby Kamble, Bama Faustina Soosairaj, Meena Kandasamy, Namdeo Dhasal, Sharankumar Limbale, Bhimrao Shirwale, Hira Bansode etc. along with some non-Dalit wrters like Munshi Premchand, Mulk Raj Anand, Arvind Adiga etc. who have sought plea for this marginalized class of people with same ardour and passion as other Dalit writers through their write ups. Hopefully this anthology would serve for better humanity.

Artha - Journal of Social Sciences

Literature about Dalits and by Dalits is a huge body of writing today. Autobiographical accounts as well as testimonies by Dalit writers from all over India have already been looked at as genres that locate personal as well as the suffering of a mass of people within the larger discourse of human rights. The present paper attempts to examine literary narratives by Dalits and place them as evidence of atrocities committed against them. The paper will also look closely at Dalit stories as typifying the Dalit lived experience. The stories also throw light on the rich and varied culture of these subaltern castes. It is worth noting that there seems to be a hierarchy even among the various kinds of Dalits. The literature analysed will cover stories that show the range of experiences and the cultural identity of the Dalits. The Dalit literary narrative will be looked at as a document that records the suffering of the marginalised and, therefore, as something that is different from a socio...

Maadhava Anusuyaa C

Over the decades, portrayal of Dalits and their experience by Indian writers have been strongly criticised for various reasons. The 1990s saw a surge in the translation of narratives by Dalit writers, thereby, receiving higher visibility. In order to study the change in the nature of portrayal of Dalits effected after this, an analytical study of Dalit experience as portrayed in the narratives of contemporary novels (early twenty-first century) is being done. The purview of this study is restricted to the study of two novels- Serious Men by Manu Joseph, a non- Dalit novelist and Gowri’s Notes by Sivakami, a Dalit novelist. The narratives used in these novels clearly indicate a shift from the earlier narratives about Dalit experience. But, a study of these novels alone cannot be reflective of the narrative patterns in the other novels of the contemporary time. Therefore, further studies of narrative patterns of the other novels could be done to assess if there is a variation in the pattern with particular reference to the study of Dalit experience.

Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal

Dr. Anju Bala

The term ‘Dalit’ is synonymous with poor, exploited, oppressed and needy people. There is no universally acclaimed concept about the origin of Indian caste system. In every civilized society, there are some types of inequalities that lead to social discrimination. And in India, it comes in the garb of ‘Casteism’. The discourses catering to the gentry tastes did not include the subaltern literary voices of the tribals, Dalits and other minority people. The dalits are deprived of their fundamental rights of education, possession of assets and right to equality. Thus Dalit Literature emerges to voice for all those oppressed, exploited and marginalized communities who endured this social inequality and exploitation for so long. The major concern of Dalit Literature is the emancipation of Dalits from this ageless bondage of slavery. Dalits use their writings as a weapon to vent out their anger against the social hierarchy which is responsible for their degradation. After a so long slumber now, they have become conscious about their identity as a human being. This Dalit consciousness and self-realization about their identity has been centrally focused in various vibrant and multifarious creative writings and is also widely applauded in the works of Mahasweta Devi, Bama, Arjun Dangle, D. Gopi and in many more. The anguish represented by the Dalit writers is not that of an individual but of the whole outcast society. The primary concern of present paper is to show how Dalit writers shatter the silence surrounding the unheard exploitation of Dalits in our country in their writings? And how Dalit Literature has become a vehicle of explosion of these muffled voices. The paper makes an attempt to comprehend the vision and voice of the Dalits and their journey from voiceless and passive objects of history to self-conscious subject. The paper will also make a study of the reasons behind the development of Dalit Literature with its consequences on our society, social condition of Dalit in India and how they write their own history. Keywords: Self-realization, Identity, Exploitation, Caste, Subaltern

Toral Gajarawala

Darsha Jani

Munshi Premchand (1880-1936) was the most celebrated and progressive writer of modern Hindi and Urdu literature who wrote nearly 300 short stories, more than dozen novels, several essays, plays and translations of a number of foreign literary works into Hindi. Even before the term ‗Dalit Literature' came in vogue in 1958, Premchand poignantly presented the agony of exclusion, discrimination and exploitation faced by Dalits in his works. His last novel ‗Godan'(1936) meaning-The Gift of a Cow‖ is a novel of peasant India that depicts the trials and travails of farmers during the British rule. The women characters of the novel-Dhania, Jhunia and Selia are the victims of the patriarchal and brahminical values prevalent in the Indian society during this period. The present paper centres on highlighting the appalling condition of Dalit women of rural India as described in the novel ‗Godan'. The women are forced to bear the sexual and domestic Lapis Lazuli An International Lite...

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COMMENTS

  1. The Nature and Purpose of Literature

    Premchand affects our intellect and our sentiments alike. Literature assu mes these qualities only when it deals with the realities and ex periences of life. Fairy tales and romantic stories of princes and princesses might have impressed us in olden days, but they mean very little to us today.

  2. The Nature and Purpose of Literature

    The Nature and Purpose of Literature Munshi Premchand Presidential Address of Munshi Premchand, delivered at the First All India Progressive Writers' Conference, held at Lucknow on 10 April 1936. (Translated from Hindustani.) This conference is a memorable occasion in the history of our literature.

  3. For Premchand, Good Literature Was About Truth and Humanity

    Culture Society 31/Jul/2017 Born 137 years ago on July 31 in Lamhi, a village near Varanasi, Premchand (1880-1936) wrote about things that have always existed but had hitherto been considered...

  4. Indian History Collective

    A Reflection of His Age: Munshi Premchand on the True Purpose of Literature A new generation of Hindustani writers emerged in the twentieth century, whose work is marked by its focus on a previously unexplored theme: the lived realities of common people.

  5. The Nature and Purpose of Literature

    Its purpose is to mould our thoughts and emotions, and to give them the right direction. We have now to concern ourselves with the meaning of things, and to find the means of fulfilling the purpose for which language has been constructed. This is the main purpose of this conference.

  6. Premchand

    Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 - 8 October 1936), better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand (pronounced [preːm t͡ʃənd̪] ⓘ), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. He was one of the first authors to write about caste hierarchies and the plights of women and laborers ...

  7. Premchand

    Premchand (born July 31, 1880, Lamati, near Varanasi, India—died October 8, 1936, Varanasi) Indian author of novels and short stories in Hindi and Urdu who pioneered in adapting Indian themes to Western literary styles. Premchand worked as a teacher until 1921, when he joined Mohandas K. Gandhi's Noncooperation Movement.

  8. 'Rasa', Idealism, and Realism: Premchand'S Literary Essays

    Premchand's essays are a self-conscious effort to clarify his own position within the Indian literary tradition: to establish its boundries and constraints, and to determine what part of it was still valid and admissible. They also acted as a practical spur for other Hindi writers whom Premchand often personally en- couraged to write and publish.

  9. Why Premchand said, 'The ascent of literature is the ascent of a nation'

    great writers Why Premchand said, 'The ascent of literature is the ascent of a nation' The fifth in a series of essays by Premchand to mark the 140th year of his birth, translated from the...

  10. From the Village into the World: Premchand (Studies) in World

    There exist numerous monographs and scholarly essays on a diversity of themes covered in Premchand's fiction as well as the impact he had on the development of Hindi and Urdu literature and the progressive writing literary movement (pragativad) in the early 20th century.Analyses of his depictions of peasants, Dalits, women (and their psychological states), and life in the village more ...

  11. Premchand

    The Nature and Purpose of Literature Munshi Premchand 82 Presidential Address of Munshi Premchand, delivered at the First All India Progressive Writers' Conference, held at Lucknow on 10 April 1936. (Translated from Hindustani.) This conference is a memorable occasion in the history of our literature.

  12. Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel

    About Cambridge Core Browse subjects About Cambridge Core Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel Brandeis University, Massachusetts https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139226554 Early twentieth-century Indian novels often depict the harsh material conditions of life under British colonial rule.

  13. PDF Short Stories of Premchand: A Reflection of his Nationalist Fervor

    1936. Premchand became the president of the first session and in his Presidential address he expressed his views on the purpose of literature. He believed that language is merely a means and not an end in itself and that the initial literature in Hindi and Urdu emphasized more on the formation of

  14. For Premchand, good literature was about truth and humanity

    Undaunted, Premchand kept writing stories that expressed the pain and suffering of the toiling masses that had been suppressed for centuries, using stereotypes where necessary to make general...

  15. Awakening the aesthete within the reader

    Orwell had listed aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose as the motives of his writing. Premchand felt that the prime difference between literature and propaganda was that ...

  16. Premchand and Indian Nationalism

    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. But the demands of society, as also those of literature, could be ...

  17. Munshi Premchand's Literature, Religion and Adaptations of Works

    Premchand believed that literature is a powerful medium to educate people and it showed in his writings. In his later life, he continued to write fictions with social purpose and social criticism. Now a revered author and thinker, Munshi Premchand presided over conferences, literature seminars and received huge applause.

  18. Style, Influences and Great Works of Munshi Premchand

    He used literature for the purpose of arousing public awareness about national and social issues and often wrote about topics related to poverty, corruption, child widowhood, prostitution, feudal system, colonialism and on the India's freedom movement. ... Munshi Premchand's influence on Indian literature cannot be understated. As the late ...

  19. Premchand and Indian Nationalism

    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 ...

  20. What according to Munshi Premchand is the nature and purpose of literature?

    Premchand believed that "Currently, good literature is judged by the sharpness of its perception, which stirs our feelings and thoughts into motion." The main aim of literature, then, was to 'refine' the mind of the readers. Who gave the name of Premchand?

  21. (PDF) Dalit in Premchand's Select Short Stories

    The purpose of writing this paper is to explore how caste hierarchy and oppression has been depicted in the works of Premchand and to critically analyse whether his two stories Kafan and Sadgati fall within the genre of 'Dalit literature'. ... The most obvious quality of Premchand's literature is his unbounded sympathy. The human aspect ...

  22. Emergence of Progressivism in Hindi Literature: Premchand'S ...

    1934 it was made clear that this literature had a purpose—one that would, while expressing the realities of life, touch the emotions of the common ... Premchand's forte, but earlier works still have a space for reconciliation and acceptance. Since 1930 however, this space gets dramatically reduced and

  23. Representation and Resolution of the Women's Question in Premchand's

    The question of Equality in Karambhumi. Premchand wrote Karambhumi during 1929-31, and it was published in 1932. By this time, India's struggle for independence witnessed the emergence of the non-cooperation movement (1920), and Gandhi's civil disobedience movement (1930) and Satyagraha, which saw an unprecedented participation of Indians of all classes, regions and religions, and ...