JAIPUR : “I wish that Premchand wasn’t so relevant today and I wish that the lives of farmers and the masses had changed by now,” said Sara Rai, the granddaughter of the renowned writer, during a session titled Premchand Ke Phate Jutey: The Torn Shoes of the Writer Premchand, at the Jaipur Literature
Festival on Saturday.
Pointing towards the ongoing protests in the country, Rai said that another aspect of Munshi Premchand’s writing was Satyagraha. “People coming out onto the streets to protest and to put their voices forward are a form of Satyagraha. So, these aspects are as relevant today as was in the times of Premchand,” she added.
While Premchand is often seen as a Hindi writer, many don’t remember that he wrote in Urdu for 10 years.
“Premchand considered Hindi and Urdu as his indigenous language and famously said, ‘Hindi subha, Urdu dopahar’. He has also written in Farsi. It is interesting to note that he received his early education in Urdu and Farsi and later attended a mission school and studied in English. Though he wrote mainly in Urdu and Hindi, his notes would be often in English,” shared Rai.
Writer Anisur Rahman highlighted that another common misconception is to consider Premchand as a fiction writer. “People have a partial understanding of Premchand’s work. He was not just a fiction writer but a political and social critic. He wrote on untouchability and zamindari system... He was the torchbearer of modernity and we haven’t given him his due,” said Rahman. Premchand posed for a photograph with his wife, wearing a shoe with a gaping hole in it. This became the reason for Harishankar Prasai’s essay Premchand Ke Phate Jutey, that immortalised the writer.The session was sponsored by the TNIE Group.