The 8th Munshi Premchand Memorial Lecture on “The Reception and Relevance of Munshi Premchand: An End-Century Perspective”, delivered by Professor M. Asaduddin.

Professor M. Asaduddin gave The 8^th Munshi Premchand Memorial Lecture on “The Reception and Relevance of Munshi Premchand: An End-Century Perspective”. Here are some of the points highlighted by him:

• Prof. initiated his talk quoting Harish Trivedi's remarks marked in earlier Munshi Premchand Memorial Lecture that “Premchand’s writings not only tell us about Indian society but also about ourselves and the same persuade us to look at ourselves more deeply.”

• If we see carefully, we find that novels and short stories written in the late 19^th and 20^th century had Indian and western elements in them.

• Premchand used fiction writing in order to assert moral edification, social awakening and ethical reform. He would emphasize upon this message and we find such elements rare in the writings of others who were contemporaneous to him.

• There was hardly any contemporary issue of Indian life untouched by him. All modern narratives can be found in his writings including Feminism, Dalit consciousness, Environmentalism, Animalism etc. He wrote almost about all the contemporary issues, passed away but the values in his writings have not been lost yet.

• He was a concurrent writer who wrote in both Urdu & Hindi language and Godan is one of the greatest Hindi-Urdu novels of the 20^th century.

• Like Gandhi, he also demanded Hindustani.

• He kept his sanity and was never involved in any kind of communalism.

• Scholars working on Premchand have to tackle this question- Are Hindi and Urdu writings of Premchand replica of each other? Prof. gave two examples of Premchand’s writings including ‘Bazar-e-Husn’ and ‘Poos Ki Raat’; one can easily find the changes (especially in chapter 15 of ‘Sevasadan’ in which first few paragraphs are similar but there are some following paragraphs in Hindi version only which are absent in ‘Bazar-e-Husn’. Also, the Urdu version story ends differently than that of Hindi one.) which are apparent in both the versions (Hindi & Urdu). When a writer chooses a title for his literary piece, it has some implications as the writer tries to reflect the central idea of the whole piece of his art through that particular title and when he changes the title of the same literary piece during translation, its implications also change which we need to look at. What scholars do is to use one version and get a different picture from those who use another version. Therefore, combined and comparative study is necessary.

• Premchand was a follower of Gandhi but was not an uncritical one towards him. And because of the non-cooperation movement led by the latter, he left his government teaching job. Also, one can find the Gandhian principles in his writings as well. For example, the character of Surdas in Rangbhoomi was modelled on Gandhi himself.

• Ideas of nationalism, patriotism can be understood through his novels including Rangbhoomi, Karmabhoomi.

• He drew the ideas reflected in his writings from history & mythology of South Asia, cultures of Hindus and Muslims, literature from all over the world especially from English, Russian, French literature. He was influenced by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 & several Russian writers including Maxim Gorky and Tolstoy and translated the latter’s many writings. His writings including many novels and stories have been translated into Russian language for Russian readers; a very large number of copies have been published and sold, even outnumbered some of those which are in Hindi.

• Contemporary issues of the times was the subject matter of his stories. Social justice was the dominant subject and common man was the dominant character in his writings one can find. Premchand would understand that oppressors and oppression come in different ways.

• He highlighted the subject of caste injustice by picking up the characters who belonged to the economically and socially lowest sections of society (whom we understand as ‘untouchables’ as per contemporary social orders). In this regard, ‘Sadgati’ and ‘Thakur ka Kua’ describing the realities of Dalits are more impactful than a large corpus of writings. We should remember that the current political consciousness of Dalits was not historically available to that much extent in those times when Premchand was writing. He also talked about issues related to women including widow remarriage. Nirmala can be taken as a good example of his understanding and consciousness towards women. Premchand took them as an ‘independent agency’ and readers will find his understanding by reading the stories of women characters who are more resilient and take initiatives by themselves; they are more memorable characters than men. One can also find the portrayal of old women in his stories including Panchayat and Boodhi Kaki.

• Rabindranath Tagore succumbed to societal pressures and the same can be observed during his daughter’s wedding & this is the difference between him and Premchand.

• How do we get to know that the writer is impactful? We get to know about the same when his/her writings become part of the academic discourse and the other writers respond, discussing his/her work. And Premchand is one of those writers who is still part of literary consciousness and literary discourse. Writers of other languages cannot ignore his writings; they have to engage with them.

• In most of the cases, writers write as an insider and outsider. Like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Sharat Chandra- they wrote about Muslim communities as outsiders. I find Premchand as the only writer who could write about both the communities (Hindus & Muslims) as an insider.    

This lecture was organized by Premchand Archives And Literary Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi on 07-03-2024.

Professor M. Asaduddin is an author, academic, critic and translator in several languages. He is a Professor of English at the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, and a Charles Wallace Trust Fellow at the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. His translations have been recognized with the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Katha and A. K. Ramanujan awards for translation, as well as the Crossword Book Award.