‘Premchand is India. If you haven’t read Premchand, you have missed out on a lot!”- The Hindu
In Hindi and Urdu fiction genre, Munshi Premchand is acclaimed as the greatest of all times due to his multitudinous, unparalleled and unmatched writing skills. His writings transcended various borders as he wrote on diverse themes like satire, gender and social identity, romance and social inequality. In a skillful way, Premchand’s writings have been written in a variety of literary moods as well including poignant, tragic, comical among others.
This post in specific explores the ‘themes of Premchand’s writings’. It is interesting to note that while his earlier works centered around idealist and prescriptive themes, his later works were centered about the the essence of human life, life’s ironies, fragility, unpredictability and the idea of ‘poetic justice’.
The prominent themes in his writings were-:
1. Patriotism– Premchand wrote numerous stories exhibiting patriotism and nationalistic ideas to counter the narrative of invaders, by using revivalist modes and revoking earlier patriotic literature of various cultures and linguistic communities. It is said that he was also influenced by writings of Leo Tolstoy and Bankim Chand Chattergee.
2. Social and Political Issues– Premchand was also very sensitive to the social and political environment around him. He sincerely believed that literature was a potent medium for analyzing the prevalent ideas in the field of politics and bring to the light the social condition of various sections of society.
3. Family– A lot of Premchand’s works touch directly upon the intricacies of daily life and the foundation of an individual unit of society- a family. Themes of family life, like rivalry between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, domination of male patriarchs in the family and betrayal have been discussed.
4. Poverty– Premchand has repeatedly discussed the unfortunate bane of ‘poverty’ in our society particularly in rural areas. He has presented trenchant and logical arguments against deprivation, poverty and caste based inferiority and discrimination system.
5. Feminism– Premchand has also discussed some feminist ideas in his works like the agency of women in themselves and the plight of females in patriarchal societies in the twentieth century. Women were expected to be docile, submissive and confined to household chores.
6. Freedom struggle for India’s independence– Premchand wrote at a time when Indian subcontinent was colonized by the Britishers. So, he has included the subjects of ‘indigenous goods’ and ‘boycott of foreign goods’, ‘Sawraj’ given by Mahatma Gandhi, ‘picketing of shops’ and solidarity of peasants against the oppressive zamindars’.
7. Pastoral and village lifestyle– Premchand, himself was very impressed by the pristine and simple way of living life in Indian villages. Village folk lived by the values of honesty, integrity, contentment, innocence and simplicity. He also cared for draught animals in village spaces.
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