HYDERABAD: Ripe rice fields swaying with wet breeze, oxen with tinkling bells ready for ploughing the field, villagers smoking chillam under peepal tree; these snippets of rural India presented by Munshi Premchand, one of the greatest Hindi-Urdu writers of the country are there even today grappling with caste-system and land politics. As the world celebrated 136th birthday of the legendary author on July 31 who is known for his gripping novels and short stories, the country he was born in hasn’t been free from the problems the writer so poignantly depicted in his works.
The raconteur of Dalit and peasant classes that he was in the pre-independence era, his short-story ‘Kafan’ is a heart-rending story of two Dalits Ghisu and Madhav who end up spending the money on food given for the latter’s wife who dies in childbirth. The irony reaches its peak when an old and famished Ghisu says that living beings are more important than the dead ones. The gnawing hunger is a stark contrast in front of Death.
In another story ‘Mukti Marg’ the zamindari system and land politics is highlighted. We see the geo and class clashes between a shepherd and a peasant Buddhu and Jhingur respectively. The story finely depicts the labour of a farmer and his destruction. And then the ultimate happens – cow slaughter as revenge. As a repentance the character is forced to leave his village, living his life in penury and hatred by his fellow-villagers. Even now this story comes alive in different pockets of India resulting in murder, banishment and a lot more that is debatable.
Munshi Premchand, perhaps, saw that even in post-Independence era India will still be crippled with the issues of casteism and religious bigotry. What rules the story is dogma of religion that overpowers everything and is a threat to both the society and individuals.
In ‘Sadgati’, the writer shows how the dead-body of a Dalit isn’t touched by the upper-class but removed with the help of a rope. Unfortunately, instances of such stark class division is rampant in India that is living in Google age. Premchand was born in a village near Banaras on July 31, 1880 and hence, observed lives of peasants much like Guy De Maupassant and Anton Chekov. Born Dhanpat Rai, he came to Bombay and wrote the script for the movie Mazdoor, but he left the city within a year. Movies like Shatranj Ke Khiladi, Gaban, Godan, Oka Oori Katha, Bazaar-e-Husn, etc., that are based on his works depict casteism, class difference and extremes of poverty juxtaposed to the luxuries the upper class enjoys. The stories whether on silver screen or in paper-back identify the same problems largely to which many choose to turn a blind eye to.