The Earthy Characters of MUNSHI PREMCHAND: The unmatched LEGEND of Indian Literature

If I could, I would paint all of Premchand’s work in a sepia tint. In my mind Premchand’s novels just go on & on in a sepia tone, because that is what his stories are…Earthy, Real & Timeless.

In my opinion, if somebody could depict the era between pre & post-Independence India realistically, it had to be Premchand. His works were very varied (though the general & naïve perception is that he just wrote about cruel moneylenders & exploited poor villagers), although his favourite theme in each of his work were – his characters!!

So this post is not about Premchand’s books, it is actually about the protagonists in his works. Real, earthy, flawed, grey & yet evoking a compassion from the readers, that is what the legend endeavoured to create through his characters day in & day out.

In his literary career spanning from 1903 – 1937 (he died in 1936, but some of his works also released posthumously), Premchand created iconic characters, where the main focus was exploring the real life characters & their situational reactions bound in a very shackled society of India pre Independence era.

Before taking a look at his characters, let us understand a little bit about India in pre Independence era. India at that time was ravaged mercilessly by invaders and many evils of society itself, and the early 20^th century was probably the last straw, where people wanted freedom & desired to start life afresh. Yet, many evils were still rampant.

·        Socio Economic Deprivation – Lack of Education & rampant poverty especially in rural areas made farmers & labourers prone to rampant exploitation, especially at the hand of zamindars (land owners) & money lenders; the moneylenders would make a fool out of poor farmers & charge an unthinkable amount of interest on loan, that they knew the farmers would never be able to pay. The uneducated farmers generally did not know what they were signing up (or thumbing up – since most were uneducated) for. Ultimately the interest on loan would end up becoming so huge, that the farmers had to sublet their small patch of ancestral land and yet become bonded labours for life. In many cases when the head of a family who had taken the loan died, and yet the loan amount remained (which was mostly the case), his sons would be destined to a life of bonded slavery to finish off the loan & this could continue for generations.

·        Caste System: India caste system was horrifically rigid. In fact even today, apart from the urbanised homes, caste system by a large still remains an issue in India; however the severity of it is mostly reduced. But at that time caste system was excessively rigid with the “lower varnas” or castes normally mistreated & exploited to no end.

·        Exploitation & lack of freedom for Women: The women, by & large, had to follow a very tightly bound code of conduct that was unwavering & unrelenting by even the smallest margin. They had to be morally upright, demure, having almost no voice of their own,and were destined to household chores by & large. In a nutshell all that was expected from them was to be born, then get married, then pop babies meanwhile sacrificing their own desires at every step & find happiness doing so. The middle class & lower section of society suffered most from it. A generous streak of sacrifice was always expected of them; and women not subscribing to these hypocrite & oppressive notions were looked down as morally errant characters.

·        Dowry System: Probably the worst evil, from which Indian society is quite purged now, at least in the more urbanised sectors. Girls were married off with good matches only if their parents could provide sufficient dowry. If not, since it was required for women to get married, they would be married off to aged widowers or disabled men without taking cognisance of their opinions.

·        Sex & Promiscuity:  UNFORGIVABLE & UNSPEAKABLE SIN, where again the maximum brunt was borne by women.

The reason I am giving this societal outlook before getting into the character study of Premchand’s protagonists is due to the reason that most of his characters were victims of fate entangled in the web of the above mentioned vices of society. Thus their actions & reactions were based on how they were cornered by their situations.

Heroes & Heroines of Premchand:

I will be doing three major character studies in this post, that are icons in Indian Literature: Hori, Nirmala & Ramanath. The study will also involve other characters around these 3 main characters.

CHARACTER STUDY 1

HORI: central character in the novel GODAAN (literally translated The Gift of a Cow).

Hori is a villager & a poor farmer. He is painted as man who is too bound by the shackles of moral up righteousness. He is carrying a severe baggage of strict code of conduct of a chaste & upright Hindu living, which was even more difficult to follow in times of rampant poverty. Hori’s only wish is to finally Gift a cow to a Brahmin, which was considered the biggest sacrifice for a Hindu in his life to attain salvation in the afterlife (It was obviously a mumbo jumbo cooked up & distorted beyond reason by priests for their own benefit. Initially this rule was conformed to kings & wealthy businessmen who owned many cows, a mark of prosperity amongst Hindus. Gifting a cow to a priest, who would use it for the local temple’s upkeep, was the general & noble idea that got distorted ugly by the very priests in their greed). Hori had a wife, Dhaniya, two daughters & a son in his family. He also had two younger brothers. Being the eldest in the family, & again bound by an unwavering sense of duty, Hori took it upon him to incessantly put himself up to sacrifice and safeguard the interests of his family. His irrational & unrealistic conformity to moral code of conduct irritates his wife Dhaniya, who is a more practical thinker. She loves Hori and knows that he is a generous & pure soul, but she is a rational & fiery woman, who sees right from wrong & does not hesitate in raising her voice. This leads to many problems in her marital life, that includes domestic violence too, but the couple overcome it always as they knew they were each other’s strength. Hori, though, painted as a stickler to moral code of conducts, breaks these shackles when he does see right from wrong. When his own son impregnates a low caste girl, Jhunia, before marriage & then runs away, leaving the poor girl to her fate, Hori & his wife accept her as their daughter in law, no questions asked. Hori faces immense opposition from his society for first accepting a low caste as his daughter in law, and one who was pregnant before marriage. He takes it all in his stride & suffers every minute but does not waver from his decision. So, much so, that Jhunia’s own father disgraced by his daughter’s act, threatens to impoverish Hori to no end until he turns out Jhunia and leaves her to die as a destitute. Hori suffers impoverishment but refuses to abandon the girl to her fate. When Hori’s son, who had run away to the city for greener pastures, comes back all suited booted & successful in life, Hori though happy for him seems unimpressed with his flashy life. Hori’s son tries to open his eyes to the age old bindings that his father seems to carry like a cross on his arm, but realises his attempts futile as Hori is too simple a man & afraid to go against his “dharma” (moral code of conduct).

When you read Godaan you at times feel angry at Hori & at times sympathise with him. You want to shake the man at many points & tell him to stop thinking so much & living his life as an altar of sacrifice, but you also understand his social fabric & how difficult it was to break them in that society. He is a generous, simple, god-fearing man who does break his moralistic shackle for humanity by giving Jhunia a rightful home & not letting her die on streets, despite all odds he faced. Before judging him, it is important to understand that it was almost futile to fight with these moralistic notions as they were embedded too deep in the fabric of Indian society. Hori’s simplicity irritates & endears all at the same time. Look hard around you, the world is losing people like Hori by the nanosecond, and thus is just turning uglier.

CHARACTER STUDY 2:

NIRMALA: main protagonist in the novel NIRMALA (Nirmala is a Hindi name of a woman; it was translated in English as THE SECOND WIFE).

Nirmala is a Hindu girl from a regular Indian middle class joint family. She is bright, lovely, and dutiful; in short everything that can make any parent proud and she was the apple of her everyone’s eyes in her family. She is but sadly a woman in a strictly patriarchal society. So, despite her many qualities, Nirmala’s fate is sealed to her marriage. Like any woman at that age, her life’s purpose was to get married. Nirmala’s match is fixed with a very eligible bachelor because her father could pay a good dowry. But as ill luck & circumstances would have it, her father dies just before her marriage. Suddenly Nirmala, her mother & siblings are left destitute. The greedy relatives leech all money possible from her father, & since women were not supposed to look into or know finances, they are left penniless. Nirmala’s fiancée breaks the engagement, as he is unsure of what dowry Nirmala can get now. In order to salvage the situation, and because she had to hurriedly dispose off a daughter, and especially one whose marriage had just been called off, Nirmala is married off to a man 20 years her senior and a widower, who already has 3 grown up sons from his previous marriage. The eldest son is Nirmala’s age. Her opinion is of course not asked. Nirmala, like any Indian girl, accepts this as her fate & starts building life from there. She is respectful towards her husband, but the generation gap between them makes her awkward & uncomfortable to share her thoughts with him. She quickly befriends her 3 step sons who are almost her age, especially the eldest son. The relationship between her eldest stepson & Nirmala is purely that of mother & son, but more friendly since they are of same age, and because Nirmala is a fun loving & a lively character. Her conduct is therefore looked down upon by society, and causes great deal of stress & feeling of distrust in her aged husband, who thinks that Nirmala & his eldest son are in a promiscuous relationship. This boils into a massive meltdown that ultimately ruins the whole family, with Nirmala being the biggest victim of her circumstances, just because she is a woman.

Do not expect her to raise voice, to assert, to break away these shackles, as Premchand’s world was full of real characters in every day real world, and truth was that a woman who is impoverished & yet has an old family name to live up to in a highly patriarchal set-up could do nothing much about it, but be resigned to her fate. Especially when sacrifice was expected out of her as she was a woman, and she was judged & ridiculed endlessly by her own sex at every step of life, apart from what was faced at the hands of opposite sex. Yes Nirmala’s silence & sacrifice kills you, you want to do something for her or make her more empowered, but this was the story of practically every household in the society.

CHARACTER STUDY 3:

RAMANATH: central character in the novel GABAN (literally translated as LARCENY or THEFT).

Ramanath was possibly one of the most grey central character of Premchand. He is a flawed & weak character, but one who is also a victim of circumstances, that either are created by him, or in which he falls himself.

Gaban, was Premchand’s effort to shift focus to the growth/germination of aspiration in Indian Middle class, that today has reached to gargantuan proportions. Aspiration to be more, earn more, attain more materialistic comforts. It is the story of younger generation & not so much of the parents, who were brought up with notions of a sacrificial & simple life. This time the story shifts focus to the children’s view of life and how it should be.

So Ramanath, a young lad, married fresh, is in love with his young wife, Jalpa. He wishes to do everything to impress her & give her all happiness in the world; after all they are two teenagers in love. I am assuming that sick of their older generation’s idea of living a simple life, Ramanath & Jalpa want more in life. Jalpa’s only fetish is jewellery, a love that she gradually passes on to her mother-in-law as well. Ramanath initially buys some jewellery for them on loan. He had just landed a job & could afford it. However, Jalpa’s cravings for jewels increase. She understands that her husband cannot afford such expenses & is little disappointed. Her disappointment & lust for jewels makes Rama feel inadequate at not being able to fulfil her desires. Thus he incurs loan after loan till it reaches a level where it becomes imperative for him to pay it off. Ultimately Rama commits “Gaban” or Theft in his own office by fudging accounts & taking some money from there (the start of a corrupt government system beautifully reflected in a situational manner). Scared at being caught & distraught at his act, Rama escapes from the situation & leaves his home, wife everything behind. From there he is constantly sucked in an evil vortex of circumstances. Jalpa goes through her own feelings of remorse & repentance at discovering what her fetish led the family into.

Deft at handling characters, Premchand beautifully narrates so many varied characters with such precise accuracy that it baffles the readers. While above you saw Hori, a give it all, simple man whose only wish is to gift a sacred cow and who sacrifices all to keep his honour intact, you also see Ramanath, who is a man from a generation later. Possibly sick at the older generations’ over simplicity, he is of a generation who had some material aspirations in life. Probably this is where the Indian Middle Class started dreaming of material comforts & started losing the moral codes that were carried heavily by their parents. Both characters rise from the same soil but represent two opposite realms of society. One is moralistic to the extent of causing himself and his family grievous harm, while other is a morally weak & flawed man who in quest for material gains and selfish pursuits does exactly the same. In between them is the second character Nirmala. Probably of a generation caught in between, she too is a victim of her situation, where she is supposed to bear the cross of moral righteousness, sense of honour & duty, while being younger she also wishes to lead a happy and vibrant life.

This was why Premchand was a legend beyond comparison. His characters seemed like they were born from the soil and were victimised by their circumstances. Whether morally upright or essentially flawed with feelings of sexual (central protagonist in the novel Vardaan) and material gains, his characters were a true reflection of Indian society at that time.

Premchand could never make a mark in Western world sooner, like Rabindra Nath Tagore and some others, because he too was a simple man, who concentrated more on his writing & did not get opportunities to travel abroad & hobnob with British elite to further his works. In fact, some of his work was banned by British government, as it was outspoken in nature against their regime. Another possible reason is that he could never get better translators, as you need to understand Indian Society’s innate fabric of the time to do justice to his work.

In today’s age & day you might not relate with most of his characters, but if you need to understand the fabric of Indian society & study characters from everyday life in that era, reading this Legend’s work is a must. His works are mostly concentrated in North Indian set-up, as that is where he was born & brought up & knew about. But unlike most Hindi films of that era, that painted characters essentially in black & white (read moral & immoral), Premchand was unapologetic in showing the flaws of his characters and he had situations & circumstances to support it. This is the reason why his characters are & will always remain true to the soil.

P.S: Please try to read his two iconic short stories, Idgah (heart tugging – it will make you cry & smile at the same time at the magnanimity of the thought of a little child) & Shatranj ke Khiladi – The Chess Players (on which Satyajit Ray made his Academy Award nominated film of the same name).