If you look on any railway platform book stall, one picture exists invariantly—square face tapering down, big alive eyes, and sunken cheeks—that is Premchand. I am not saying that he is alone, but company figures are not constant, except for Premchand. I wonder how, and why even after eighty years spent his demise, he is still so ubiquitous in India, but mainly shelled in its boundary. I have not read his whole collection, but a few ones are stuck in my memory, particularly Godan, Idgah, and Kafan. They were written explicitly, commenting on social issues, like, dowary tradition, child marriage, the Jamindari system, widowship, and family issues. In his drama Karbala, he inserted a scene, where a Hindu character in the place of Karbala, chanting Hindu songs, showing his support for the religious battle fought by Muhammad Paigamber descents, Hasan and Husain. This scene appears so artificial—all the artistic work needed in great writing, seems replaced by the reformist ink. He seems to be trying to bring communal harmony. It all appears bizarre, Premchand’s imagination seemed paralysed with his ardent desire to be stuck to the contemporary issues, which were critical for that time. He seems much nearer to the Ram Mohan Rai, and William Benedict,—what they did through movement and the legal way Premchand did through his pen. Much of his writings are journalistic, with a moderate creative slice.
Why does he exist on every book stand in India, but remains vanished in the international world? In context, we can choose Anton Chekhov, whom Premchand admired a lot and published the Hindi translation of Chekhov’s stories in the magazine he edited.
While the communist revolution flamed in Russia, Premchand got enchanted by the communist victory, and said in a romantic tone—‘We can follow Russia, if the workers can carry the revolution, then why not in India? For it, we have to awaken the Indian workers, as Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gorgi did in Russia.’
This was Premchand’s conception of revolution. Franz Kafka’s vision was not confined or fixed—‘each revolution has the same ending, they leave behind the stinking bureaucracy.’
Now we can examine both visions, as more than a hundred years were spent on the Russian Bolshevik revolution. What do we see? The same stinking bureaucracy today in the dictatorship, if not on par, then surely not better, than it was at the time of the Russian Tzar. We are seeing a new dictator aligned to Franz Kafka’s clairvoyance. After the Bolshevik revolution how many Chekhov, Tolstoy sprouted? The golden era of writers seemed ashed in the fire. In the Russian Communist regime, most of the writers became guidebook writers, and those who didn’t bend were forced to leave the country and spend expatriate life. The revolution about which Premchand advocated —what it did? It clipped the imaginative wings of the artists. If Premchand had remained in this regime, his pen would have been plucked down, and the opinions and writings he was doing in his slave country under Britishers would not have seen the sunlight in a post-revolutionary country.
Premchand’s pen was a tool to reform, while Anton Chekhov’s quill was a mirror to the soul. I don’t think Premchand was unaware of the human feelings reeling in the character’s mind. In his story, Kafan Premchand has captured a slacker’s sardonic situation, and he gives a message, that poverty is not always fated, but it is the self-inflicted curse of idlers. In this story we see the soul stumbled to the nadir of odiousness. It is obvious that he was the master in capturing the fleeting glimpses of the subconscious world, but it came in his few fictions—courtesy to the overshadowed of his reformist, his big, speaking eyes, not only observed, but escalated his mind to opine, criticise, and search for a solution. Due to this lengthened chain, sometimes artistic languidness developed, and artificiality crept in, as above I have given an example about a scene in his drama Karbala. And also the languidness locked his artist in a local terrotiary. He got anchored in the soil of his era. Anton Chekhov’s artistic whim remained fresh because he was without the burden of solutions. The endpoint came just after observation. He said—‘It is not an artist’s duty to give an opinion.’ After observation the subtle journey started, and his ink dived, into the subconscious soul, to picture the ripples, emanating an undertow.
In the short story Nadirshah, written by Premchand, a group of enslaved Begams of conquered kings are brought to Nadirshah. In the story, Nadirshah’s character is showing moral elements, not debauchery. Nadirshah aspects Johar or resistance from the conquered Begams rather than a malleable surrender. Here we see Nadirshah’s character shining in valour and morality. Premchand’s reformist perspective is prominent, the mental landscape, the feeling going in Beham’s mind is underplayed. It is interesting how it would have been presented by Anton. He would have written much about the dismal souls, and the mind of Nadirshah, a moral feeling erupting amidst the flames of destruction and cruelty. Anton would have concentrated on—‘A butcher with ideal notions!’ But it all has been left unexplored in the story. He is seen sacrificing artistic nuance for moral and social commentary. Feelings are obscured and underscored in the whims of opinion that ‘what should be done?’
In the words of D. H. Lawrence—”Nothing matters, only feeling matters.”
The feeling is fluid-like, which permeates space and time, and percolates through the human experiences. That is the artist’s lynchpin of making a legend, eternal and widespread.