Dhanpat Rai Shrivastava
Premchand
(1880 - 1936)
• Sixty-five years after his death Premchand
remains the most outstanding figure in
twentieth-century Hindi literature.
• When he began writing Urdu prose barely
existed and Hindi had only recently taken
the place of Braj, a major literary dialect for
northern India, as the primary literary
language.
For Premchand writing
was an integral aspect of
social and political
activism.
• He is seen as the first in India to write short
stories, that is short realistic fiction
centering on social themes.
– Stands in contrast with folk narratives and
romances.
• Fiction is both a critique of social ills and an
instrument of social change.
• Directly involved with India
struggle for freedom from
British rule.
• In 1921 he resigned his
government job mainly in
response to Gandhi’s anti
cultural movement for social
change.
• Premchand wrote on social issues like
– child widowhood,
– prostitution,
– exploitation of the peasant by the landlord
and on
– the freedom movement taking place all
around him
• His solutions were idealistic, but his
great contribution lies in posing the
question at that point in time, and
through the medium of novels and
short stories which, as noted earlier,
had till then been restricted to
romance.
The Road to Salvation
What Do We Take Away from
their Struggle?
• Jhingur vs. Buddhu – what are they like as
the story begins?
• What experience is important?
• Why is this called “the road to salvation?”