Premchand–A
Study
(With special reference to his last novel “GODAN”)
Premchand, the veteran Hindustani writer, raised his voice and cautioned us, as early as 1904 against the tide of Western civilisation which, foolishly imitated by the intelligentsia of the land, was tending the deterioration of moral standards in Indian social life, and leading to a lamentable hybridisation of culture. The position of woman in the family and in society early attracted his attention and forms the central theme of all his novels that appeared before 1920 and Ghaban and Nirmala later. As an important secondary thread, it exists in almost all the others. His attitude, as reflected in his books and which was in line with the ancient Indian ideal of self-denial, self-sacrifice and self-control–ideals which placed woman on a higher pedestal than man–remained consistent throughout his life; there was no appreciable modification. That way Premchand was a conservative writer. But in his last novel, Godan, his views on the various aspects of this problem were crystallised and are brought out with great artistry.
Miss Malati, an England-returned doctor, is a
social butterfly. She is vociferous and demands equality with man in regard to
votes and the right of courtship. Chance brings her info contact with the
philosopher Professor Mehta, who may be said to be the mouthpiece of Premchand,
and to express the author’s views. She falls in love with him and ultimately
forgets all about her ideals. But Mehta does not love her; his outlook on life
is different; he envies Mr. Khanna, an industrialist and banker who sucks the
blood of the poor labourers another prototype of John Sewak in Rangabhumi,
because of Mrs. Govindi Khanna, who is ten times more sensible and practical
and honest than her greedy husband. She is the ideal woman of Premchand’s
conception and has few faults, although for these qualities she has once to
leave her house, the real cause being Malati whom Khanna loves, in spite of the
fact that she merely flirts with him.
But Malati, or Mehta, or Khanna, or Rai Sahib form
only the second important theme of the novel: they all belong to the middle
classes, which formed the central theme of Premchand’s pre-1920 novels, that
is, till the time Gandhiji came on to the Indian stage and Premchand resigned
his job to participate in the Non-co-operation Movement of 1921. From now
onwards the central theme of all his novels was, primarily, the peasant. Premasram,
Rangabhumi, Kayakalp, Karmabhumi and Godan are all
agrarian novels, wherein everything else revolves round the life of the
peasant. In Premasram or in Gosha-i-Afiat (Urdu), it is his
struggle against the Taluqdar or the hereditary landlord; in Rangabhumi or
in Chaugan-i-Hasti (Urdu), the struggle is against the
pseudo-nationalist industrialists; in Karmabhumi or in Maidan-I-Amal (Urdu),
it also envelops the Harijans and the labour class in the fight for the
vindication of their rights. The shame-faced and ruthless exploitation of the
peasant by the moneylender is the theme of Godan.
The last of his agrarian epics, Godan, is
also the last of Premchand’s novels, published in the year of his death, 1936.
And it is his best. For its characters are more Chiseled, polished and
realistic, the plot more coherent, although herein, as in most of his novels,
the two main themes run parallel to each other and touch only at a few points
and that too only at the surface. The ideas are more systematically arranged
and the dull monotony of long speeches and harangues is broken by the periodic
criticisms and interruptions by Pandit Onkar Nath, the editor of the Bijli,
and in the speech of Mr. Mehta on women’s demand for equality with man.
Premchand’s art is seen here at its best. Unlike far too many of his novels,
wherein the characters die unnatural deaths, by epidemics, suicide, murder or
drowning and far too many improbable happenings and coincidences take place, in
Godan, these defects cannot be pointed out.
Besides, the language herein used is unparalled in
homeliness, vivacious simplicity, spontaneity and suggestion. There is the
excellence of style and narration. The novel is quick with the rhythm of life.
Those messages wherein the author expresses his own philosophical or
metaphysical reflections are superb, because, although they are polished and
finished to a great degree, the language used is very simple. Rural and homely
words come to him without the least effort.
In all his novels that preceded it, idealism almost
always swayed him. Herein realism and its twin-brother, pessimism, are
predominant. In all his novels before Godan, he created idealist heroes,
Premshankar in Premasram, Sur Das in Rangabhumi, Chakradhar in Kayakalp
and Amarkant in Karmabhumi, all of whom bear the indelible imprint
of Gandhi and Tolstoy. Valiant fighters against tyranny, inspired by the
highest and noblest ideals of love and service of the down-trodden masses whom
they organie for mass-scale satyagraha, they always pursue, undeterred by the
sacrifices they are called upon to make, the path of Truth.
Perhaps the only idealist character in Godan is
Prof. Mehta, who is sagacious, but verges on eccentricity, and he figures only
in a minor theme in the story. Save one very isolated strike in Mr. Khanna’s
mill, there are no strikes, let alone mass movements. One wonders if Premchand,
in his last days, lost faith in the efficacy of non-violent struggle. And if he
did not lose his faith, he at least came to entertain some doubts about the
same.
Unlike all other agrarian novels, Godan does
not end in a compromise, in the triumph of the peasant. As a matter of fact,
herein Premchand refrains from suggesting any solution to any problem, an idea
so dear to his heart. He had absolutely no faith in votes for the peasant, in
Councils, in elections and in popular ministries (they had not come into
existence then, and Premchand had before him only the 1919 experiment.) They
could not ameliorate the lot of the peasant. He makes Tanakha say that
democracy is the rule by the big bankers and traders. The futility of rural
reconstructions, a fad started in those days, is reflected in what Malati,
after her conversion and dedication to a life of service, achieves. She
analyses the problem of rural indebtedness as being due to fragmentation of
land and the extravagance of the peasant on social functions; But she suggests
no real solution. She merely employs Gobar as a mali and gives him a
rather privileged position in her family; it is more or less by way of charity.
When we first meet Gobar, we find him a rebellious soul.
We hope that, like all other characters of Premchand, which are dynamic and
never static, changing with the changing environments and always developing the
traits talent in them. Gobar would grow into, perhaps, a Socialist leader and
would organise people for a struggle against moneylenders and the system which
grinds down the peasant into a paste. Our hopes are, however, belied. Gobar
becomes a part of the system which victimises the peasants and against which
Gobar was to raise voice. Instead, he now hates the village and prefers to be a
poor servile labourer in the town where, in the first instance, he carves out a
place for himself. He earns some money and lends it to others at exorbitant
rates, which, if the moneylender charged from Hori, perturbed Gobar. In a way
he becomes a cog in the machine which is responsible for Hori’s ruination and
ends in his death. But could Gobar help it? Perhaps not, for, as Premchand
says, in the society as it is constituted to-day, either one is an exploiter or
is exploited. There can be no third alternative. The only solution of the
problem, Premchand said, was a thorough shake-up of the present system. And
till that comes the peasant’s fate would be the fate of Hori.
Hori’s is the most realistic characterisation in
Premchand’s works. It is indigenous to the Indian soil. Hori is not merely an
individual; he is the representative of a class, whose virtues and failings he
shares. If you know Hori intimately, as you actually do from Godan, you
know almost everything important about the peasant in India, for the U. P.
peasant is not much different from, say, the peasant from South India, as also
about the class or stratum he comes from. Indeed, Hori is the class.
It is significant that Godan is a romance in
ugly names. Hori, Gobar, Jheengur, Dhaniya, Paniya, Jhuniya, Nokhe Ram, Magru
Shah and Chuhiya–all bring to our mind their proximity with the soil.
To Hori, ideas count for little. For him feelings
and instinct are the only real things. Realism is the backbone of his life. He
does not believe in Gobar’s reasoning, which may all be very sound, but cannot
be put into practice, because Hori’s ancestors did not act that way.
Gobar resents Hori’s kowtowing before the Rai
Sahib, when he enjoys no concession and pays almost the same taxes as others
do. But Hori knows that his mere visits to the Rai Sahib raise him in the
estimation his fellow-peasants. Indeed, without any teachings of Dale Carnegie,
he is the master of the engineering of the human mind. He is clever that way;
he sympathises with Bhola, in the latter’s difficulties in re-marrying, and
promises to help him–all this because he has an eye on one of Bhola’s cows, an
objective wherein he ultimately succeeds. By speaking highly of middle-aged
Dhaniya, he tickles her vanity, so that she may give hay free of charge to
Bhola without any fuss. All this is instinctive.
Gobar says that God has made every one of us equal.
Hori differs. He believes that all those who are born poor would not have
earned good by their actions in their previous life while those who were born
rich must have.
The Past is Hori’s only argument; it is his only
sheet-anchor. He is a slave to custom. He believes in things, he acts, he
behaves exactly in the same way as did his forefathers and does so because they
did so. He does not have anything, not even a rupee, to offer at the altar of
the idol at the annual “Katha” and feels remorseful, not because he is poor but
because he could not offer anything, his mite at the altar of God, whom he
truly fears.
The brahmin is another agency which the peasant can
never defy Pandit Data Din is a moneylender with all the privileges that a
high-caste birth has given him, for as Hori says: “The last pie that is the
Brahmins due shall break through our very bones.”
Hori knows, and Dhaniya has an argument with him,
that the Council of Five may be wrong. Nevertheless, its orders must be obeyed:
“In Council of Five resides God.” And he obeys its orders because its orders
had always had the seal of sanctity which was respected by his forefathers. And
if he disobeyed, the family’s izzat was at stake. So when the Council
actually fines him Rs. 100, almost his entire produce of the season, for giving
shelter to Jhuniya, a widow whose hand had been accepted by Gobar in camera,
and who had no other place to go to with her five months old burden, knowing
that he is already under heavy debt, he borrows money to pay the fine. Besides,
his children are starving. And he also knows that those who have fined him are
fornicators themselves. Still, Hori cannot, must not, defy the Council. It had
the seal of sanctity and custom.
Hori shares the vices of his class, too. He beats
his wife, whenever he feels like it. Nevertheless, he is faithful to her,
although he would not loose an opportunity to cut a few vulgar jokes with
Dulari Sahuyayin, a woman moneylender, whom he jestingly addresses as “Bhabi”
or sister-in-law.
Hard-pressed by circumstances, he “sells” away his
daughter, Rupa, to an aged widower. His house is already mortgaged; Data Din
demands his money back, while Hori has none. His land, which is more than
peasant’s life, is in danger of being taken away. Although Gobar says there is
nothing basically wrong so long as the money taken from the son-in-law is
returned, Hori feels remorseful and this event hastens his end.
The policeman to Hori is death incarnate. His very
sight freezes Hori’s blood. But he is not a coward. When he sees that his
landlord life is in danger and is sure of the latter’s implicit approval, he
simply jumps at the “Pathan,” jeopardising his own life.
The supreme ambition of Hori is a cow. And he does
bring one although it proves to be his undoing. When the entire village comes
to see it and admires it and only Hira does not come to see the cow, Hora is
pained. He is even restless and sends an emissary for him to come and have a
look at it little knowing that Hira is jealous and harbours sinister designs on
the animal. He poisons the cow and, because of the crime, leaves home. By doing
this, however, he has sealed the fate of Hori, for the death of the cow is only
the signal for calamites after calamities. Hori has seen Hira approaching the
cow in the dark with his own eyes. He does not report to the police, and when
police does come he swears by his son that he has not seen Hira near the cow.
To his already heavy debts he adds more by borrowing more money to bribe the
police, so that they may not search the house of Hira, because Hira’s izzat is
his own izzat. During Hira’s absence, Hori first tills and cultivates
Hira’s fields and then is own, for he asks who else would help Paniya if he did
not. As a result whereas there is plenty in Paniya’s house, Hori’s own children
starve.
Hira is the real cause of all Hori’s difficulties.
When, however, he comes back, a day before Hori’s death, there is absolutely no
difference in Hori’s love for Hira. Hori does not see in him the source of all
his troubles, but only as a child as when left by their parents. The
intervening 30 years melt away. He says: “Why weep. To err is human. Where have
you been all the time?”
But all these good and noble qualities are of no
avail. In spite of them, indeed because of them, Hori is subjected to a system
which provides him with scarcely enough for a bare living. He works harder and
ever harder. At the opening of the book, we find his tender-aged children
working at midday in the hottest month of the year. He lives under conditions
of forced and convict labour. Life for him is no feast; it is not work
even. It is a dull heavy tiresome burden. It is a battle which he never wins.
And yet he works, because he must work, because the peasant has always worked.
He is a true “Karma Yogi.”
On the one hand, he is buffeted by the inclement
forces of Nature. On the other, there is the system which reduces him to a
blind mechanical force, gradually exhausting itself out. He sweats and toils,
so that the fruit of his sweat and toil may be enjoyed by others. He fights
others’ battles, others who would stop at nothing short of devouring him. There
is not one agency, but there are many which grind him down. The bureaucracy,
the aristocracy and the guardians of religion all conspire “to eat him up,” his
exploitation being their common bond.
First, there is the landlord, Rai Sahib. He is a
friend. He has retained all the faults of the East and has grafted on those of
the West. During the Congress movement of Civil Disobedience, he courted
imprisonment. He puts on khaddar and claims to be a nationalist. He has
literary gifts too and writes occasional skits. At heart, he says, he is a
Socialist, believing in the nobility of manual labour and recognising the
inherent injustice of the present system. But that is theory; in practice he is
not a whit different from other brutish landlords. When the labourers refuse to
give “begar,” he is wild with rage. When the mercenary editor of the Bijli voices
the grievances of the peasants, he shuts the editor’s mouth with subscription
for a hundred copies. He raises 500 rupees from the poor peasants to be spent
on drinks, though the party is in connection with “Dhanush Yagy.” Again, when
Hori is fined by the Council of Five he feels that injustice has been done to
Hori. He asks the Council to disgorge the money but….the money goes not to Hori
but to the exchequer of Rai Sahib!
There are also the petty officials and the
pseudo-nationalist industrialists who suck the peasant’s blood. But, in
cruelty, the moneylender is supreme. He is shrewd and clever and would never
see the peasant die, or give up work, or even the village, for if the peasant
goes, the moneylender loses the hen that lays the golden egg. He just keeps him
alive.
Hori says there are over half a dozen moneylenders
to every one peasant. There is patwari Pateshwari Shah, there is
Jhinguri Shah; there is Nokhe Ram; there is Magru Shah; there is Dulari
Sahuyayin, with her mask of feminine kindness; and there is Data Din, with the
sanction of religion behind him. There are so many of them, for, as Premchand
says, money lending is by far the easiest and the most profitable business.
The system works this way:
Hori took 30 rupees from Dulari. After three years
it became 100 rupees. Then a promissory note was written. After another two
years it became 150 rupees. From Magru Shah he borrowed 60 rupees; this has
been twice paid over, and yet the loan stands at the same figure.
How cruel the system is is shown vividly in a
farcical drama staged by the villagers. The peasant comes, falls at the feet of
the Thakur and weeps. The Thakur, after much hesitation, consents to lend him
ten rupees. The promissory note is written and it is signed by the peasant. The
Thakur then gives him five rupees. The peasant is taken aback. He says: “But
they are only five, master.”
“They are not five; they are ten. Go home and count
them again”
“No, master, they are actually five.”
“One rupee as your nazrana,” says the
moneylender.
“Yes, master.”
“One rupee for the draft.”
“Yes, master.”
“One rupee for the ‘Government paper.”
“Yes, master.”
“One rupee as the dasturi?”
“Yes, master.”
“And five cash. Does it make ten or not?”
“Then, master, keep these five, too, with you for
me,” says the peasant.
“What a fool you are.”
“No, master. One rupee as nazar to the
Senior Thakurani; one rupee for her pan beeda. One rupee as nazar to
the Junior Thakurani and another for her pan-beeda. The balance, one
rupee, for your last rites.”
Premchand was so moved by the suffering of the
peasant that in his last days he lost his faith in the existence of God, for to
believe in God also implies the belief in His kindliness and fatherliness.
Premchand portrays another, perhaps more hideous
and sinister picture of this system. Mr. Khanna has established a Sugar Mill
near Hori’s village. The entire produce of the village, therefore, is sent to
it. There is a sort of fraternity between the moneylenders and Mr. Khanna’s
agents. Jhunguri Shah looks to the transactions “so that his clients may not be
cheated.” When Hori’s turn for receiving the money comes, it is Jhinguri shah
who receives the money and, out of the 120 rupees that he receives, he deducts
95 and pays him 25, which also is snatched away by Nokhe Ram, who accosts Hori
as soon as he goes out of the premises. As a result, Hori comes home
empty-handed, where is abject poverty. Premchand’s
description of poverty brings tears to the readers’ eyes.
On the way home, Hori meets Giridhar who is tipsy
with toddy. He says to Hori: “Jhinguria has taken all, Hori Kaka. He hasn’t
left a pice with me–the brute. I wept, I entreated, but that tyrant would have
no pity.”
Sobha put in: “But you are drunk with toddy and
still you say that he has not left you anything.”
Giridhar replies, pointing to his stomach; “it is
evening now. Honestly, not a drop of water has gone down my throat. I hid a
one-anna pice in my mouth, which I spent on today. I said to myself: ‘Man, you
have sweated the whole year through. Have the fun of toddy one day.’ But, to
tell you the truth, I am not drunk. How could one be drunk with a stuff worth
one anna...It is so very good, Kaka, the account is cleared. I borrowed 20 and
have paid 160. Is there a limit?”
Indeed there is none. Listen to what Gobar finds,
when he returns from the city:
One portion of the house was about to collapse. On
Hori’ s doorstep there was only one bullock and this one too was half dead.
Hori’s wasn’t an individual case. The entire village had the same sorry tale to
tell….There was not one man whose condition was above pity. It looked as if in
their bodies there was not life, but grief making them dance like puppets. They
went about, they worked, they were ground down only because they were fated to
be so. There was no hope for them in life; they had no ambition. It was as if
the very source of their life had dried up; all its verdure was gone. It was
the harvesting season, but there was no corn. Unhappiness was writ large upon
every face. A major portion of the produce had been sold away, while it had not
yet gone beyond the winnowing place, to the moneylenders and the petty
officials. That which was left belonged to others....The future of the peasant
is dark; he sees no way out; all his senses are dead and dulled; before his
house, there are heaps of refuse and waste which stinks, but his sense of smell
is dead. His eyes are without a beam. At dusk, jackals roam about his house.
None, however, takes notice of it, or feels sorry about it...Whatsoever is
placed before them, and howsoever, they eat–just as the engine eats coal. What
a shame that even their oxen do not put their mouth into the manger, unless
there is gram flour. But they have just to fill the stomach. Taste is
immaterial. Indeed, their palates do not know what taste is. They, these
peasants, therefore, would be dishonest for half a pice, strike anybody for a
handful of grain. And so deep is their degeneration that they cannot
differentiate between self-respect and shame.*
One is led to ask what is the peasant’s ambition.
When Sobha asks Hori if ever they will be free from the moneylenders clutches,
Hori says:
There is no hope in this life. We ask neither for a
kingdom nor for a throne, not even for comfort. We want to have coarse meals
and coarse clothes, and to live with honour intact. But even that is denied to
us.
For Hori, his life is a living death. Premchand
says:
After a struggle lasting for thirty years, to-day
Hori has lost his battle. His defeat is final. He has been, as it were, made to
stand at the city gates. Whosoever enters it, spits at his face and he cries
out to them: ‘Brethren, I deserve your pity. I never knew what the June heat or
what the winter chill or rain was. Dissect this body and see if there is life
in it. See how hard it has been kicked to pieces and trampled under foot. Ask
it: ‘Have you ever known what comfort is? Have you ever enjoyed shade?”
And in spite of all this, what he gets is mere
insults. Still he lives–impotent man, greedy, mean...
Horis end comes soon, sooner than one could have
expected. He is heavily under debt. To earn his bread and to pay the interest
on the loans, he has been forced by circumstances to take loans and these are
ever piling up, he makes ropes by night and works on double shift as a labourer
on the road, for now only that is left to him. After days of semi- starvation,
one day he collapses on the roadside, to be brought home to die. There is no
money in the house to send for the doctor. And now again, the moneylender comes
this time in the shape of the heartless brahmin, with the sanction and
authority of religion and custom behind him. Pandit Data Din says: “The end is
come. Let Hori give away a cow with his dying hand to seek his salvation.” But
there is no cow in the house, nor is there money for it. There are only 20
annas in the house, the previous night’s earnings. Dhaniya brings it, puts it
into the hand of the brahmin and says: “Maharaj, there is no cow in the house,
not even a she-calf. And there is neither money, save these 20 annas, which is
all that is left in the house. This is his gaudan.” She faints: Hori
dies. The curtain drops: The novel ends.
* The
translation is not literal but conveys the general sense of Premchand’s
narration.