Munshi Prem Chand’s role in the struggle
for progressive literature
by Shivdan Singh Chauhan
It is a matter of
gratification and pride to see such eminent Soviet writers and scholars
assembled here in this beautiful Hall to celebrate the 80th birth
anniversary of our beloved Indian writer – Prem Chand. I must congratulate the
Society for Indo-Soviet Cultural Relations for organising this great function.
Let me assure you that the Indian people are genuinely happy about the fact
that the Soviet people have always showed such warm affection and appreciation
for our eminent writers and artists. We too have always held in great esteem
your foremost writers. In fact, the giants of the Russian literature – Pushkin,
Gogal, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov and Gorky have been the teachers
and inspirers of almost all the Indian writers, including Prem Chand. The great
October Revolution and the young Soviet literature had also been a constant
source of inspiration to all the progressive minded Indian writers and readers.
The
great Tolstoy insisted that literature must unify the people. Our Bankim, Tagore,
Sharat, Iqbal, Bharati, Vallathol and Prem Chand – these great writers of the
period of our national resurgence believed in this and the literature they
created has helped to unify not only the
various sections of the Indian people but has also gained us the affection and
appreciation of other people of the world – particularly of the Soviet Union.
You have translated many works of Prem Chand, so he is no longer a stranger to
you. You hold him in high esteem is evident from the fact that you are celebrating
his 80th birth-anniversary with such enthusiasm.
But
the real reason why Prem Chand has endeared himself to you, as indeed he has
done to our Indian people, is that he was a great and tireless fighter for
progressive ideals and aspirations of our people. Like all those great Indian
writers, whose names I have mentioned before, Prem Chand, too, had dedicated
his life and his mighty pen in the service of our people, for raising their
cultural standard, for fighting against moribund traditions and age-old
backwardness, for fighting against political and economic tutelage of the
British colonialists and for ushering in a new era of freedom and progress. It
is because his literary works artistically reflect these progressive urges of
the Indian people that Prem Chand has taken his place among the immortals, his
memory has become hallowed, and his works are loved and widely read and
discussed.
Prem
Chand is one of the maker of modern Hindi literature, particularly of our
prose. Perhaps you are aware that prose literature in Hindi is a recent
development. About a century ago there was no pros writing worth the name, and
therefore there could not be any fiction either. Before Prem Chand a few novels
had been written and translated, but the language of the prose was poor, shabby
and even vulgar. It had not developed into a handy instrument for the
communication of great and powerful ideas or subtle and deep emotions.
Therefore Prem Chand and other prose writers of his generation had this
formidable handicap to overcome. They had to forge a popular language capable
of literary and artistic communication. Under the circumstances, it could
inevitably be a long process as can be seen from Prem Chand’s own writings.
Prem
Chand had the great advantage of being well-versed in Persian and Urdu
languages, a fact which helped him in giving Hindi prose a modern and popular
character. Yet the language of his earlier novels like Vardan and Pratigya
is too elementary and over- simplified when compared with his later works like Premashram
and Godan which are artistically
more mature and deal with more subtle and complex ideas and emotions. This
proves that Prem Chand was a conscious artist.
His life-long struggle for creating
a suitable language of literature forms an integral part of his general
struggle for the creation of a powerful progressive literature in Hindi.
The so-called ‘purists’ and communal
die-hards vehemently attacked him for making popular speech as the basis of his
literary language as it contained many Urdu or Persian words and phrases, which
had become current as a result of the
century- old impact of Islamic culture and great Urdu poets and writers. They
wanted him to discard the popular speech and resort to an esoteric and
artificial language forged purely out of uncommon Sanskrit words. Prem Chand
did not bow down before this onslaught of the reactionaries and his ultimate
triumph in the matter of literary language represents the triumph of
progressive forces over reaction.
Today Prem Chand’s language is
considered to be an ideal, and although communal reaction is trying to impose
an artificial and abstract language on our people, every conscious writer who
inspires to reflect life truthfully and realistically and wants to be read and
understood by the common people, tries to emulate the language used by Prem
Chand with such artistic power and clarity.
Prem Chand started writing in 1905 but
did not gain maturity and a broader world-view till 1921 when he came out with
his first great novel Premashram.
During the interim sixteen years he had published three novels and several
volumes of short- stories, but though
they have the imprint of great talent and sincerity, yet his approach to
social problems is purely reformist, his solutions of social conflicts are
idealistic and his conception of human relations is governed by backward
traditions and customs. Even his famous novel Sewa-Sadan written in 1918, dealing with the problem of fallen women,
suffers from these draw backs. But, as I have said before, Prem Chand was a conscious artist, and he consciously
fought to overcome his ideological backwardness and to enlarge his world out
look. He was a born realist and the three great events, which had in close succession
shaken our people out of their narrow existence – the first imperialist World
War, the Great October Revolution and the Civil Disobedience Movement for
national freedom launched by Mahatma Gandhi in 1921, broadened Prem Chand’s mental
horizon, and he succeeded, to a large extent in shaking off the crippling
influences of moribund traditions. And although the solution of the peasant
problem that he offered in his great novel Premasharam
was purely idealistic, yet he gave us for the first time a true and powerful
portrayal of the class conflict raging in our country side between the poor,
landless peasantry and the feudal landlords.
Thus
Prem Chand turned his handicap into an advantage, for no one else had such intimate
knowledge of the suffering and longings of our peasantry as he had and he made
full use of his genius to portray this artistically and truthfully. In his
second great novel Rang-Bhumi he
depicted in great detail the rapacious advance of capitalism in India,
encroaching mercilessly into the villages and uprooting peasant and petty
landlords alike, as well as the grim and heroic struggle of the peasantry
against this encroachment. Later in his last great novel Godan Prem Chand again took
up the peasant problem just before his untimely death in 1936. By this time he
had shed off his idealistic illusions and was earnestly searching for more
revolutionary solutions.
To
fight reactionary tendencies in Indian literature and to accelerate the process
of national unity among different nationalities of India, Prem Chand founded a
liteary magazine Hans, which I had also the previlege of editing for a
few years after his death. Prem Chand made Hans a great public organ of
unity and progressive thought. He hated Fascism and Nazism which had by then
plunged the world into fear of the Second World War. He wrote against war and
for world peace.
Thus
Prem Chand’s great liteary works and his passionate fight for progressive
ideals began to cast its influence on the modern Indian literatures even during
his life time. This influence has been growing ever since his death.
Particularly in Hindi, no young writer dare go back on his ideology. He is
today at the head of a powerful and progressive literary tradition – its maker
and its inspirer.
