short note on contribution of munshi premchand to modern indian literature
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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.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.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.