The Child by Munsi Premchand

 

The Life of Munshi Premchand

Munshi Premchand is regarded as one of the most important writers of Hindi-Urdu canon. His prolific style of writing widely contributed towards the shaping of the genre of short stories in India. Writing these short stories, Premchand used this opportunity to critique social issues such as moral bankruptcy, the plight of women, caste injustices, blind faith, patriarchy and many more.

Premchand was born of Kayastha parents in a village called Lamahi, on the outskirts of Benaras. His mother passed away when he was eight years old and his father, a postal clerk, remarried soon after. He first went to school in Gorakhpur where his father was posted. Born Dhanpat Rai Shrivastav, Premchand was fondly called Nawab and published his early writings under the name ‘Nawab Rai’.
After passing his class 10 examinations in 1898, Premchand began a long career as a teacher and school administrator, during which he passed as a non-formal candidate in the class 12 examination. This was in 1916. Three years later, he did a BA with English literature, Persian and history as his subjects.

He published his first collection of five short stories in 1908 in a book called Soz-e Watan. The stories were all patriotic and the British government interpreted these as seditious. He had to appear before the district magistrate who told him to burn all copies and never write anything like it again. This incident gave birth to the new pen name Premchand. It was only the first of Premchand’s many brushes with authority though and he was required to deposit a security of Rs 1000 many times in the 1930’s.

Indian history and mythology, Indo-Muslim cultural history, contemporary society and his own wide readings of literature from across the world influenced Premchand’s work. He was the first Hindi and Urdu to writer to write in depth of the lives of the deprived sections of society. As a rule, he wrote on contemporary themes of immediate social and political relevance, after experimenting with a few short stories set in the historical past. His work became a vehicle for his socially engaged agenda of social reform.

In 1918, Gandhi had declared Hindi to be the national language and Premchand had, between 1915 and 1924 begun to write in Hindi instead of Urdu.In 1921 he resigned government service at the call of Gandhi during the Non-Cooperation Movement. He bought a press in 1923 and started the publishing house Saraswati Press. Due to low income, he also worked as the editor of the Hindi journal Madhuri in Lucknow in 1924-25 and again from 1927-32. In 1930 he started a journal called Hans and two years later, took over another journal called Jagaran.

Premchand died on 8 October 1936, at the age of fifty-six. He had returned to Benares four years before, and lived in Lamahi in a bigger pukka house that he had built, which still stands. He had written what are now reckoned to be close to 300 short stories and published thirteen novels, including one left unfinished. At least four of his novels, Sevasadan, Rangbhumi, Karmabhumi, and Godaan are considered among the greatest written in Hindi.

Source:

 https://penguin.co.in/the-life-of-munshi-premchand/#:~:text=Born%20Dhanpat%20Rai%20Shrivastav%2C%20Premchand,in%20the%20class%2012%20examination

THE CHILD

Analysis of Story 

The story contains various issues of Indian society and the psychological aspects of the Indian mindset. The story starts with an introduction of an illiterate Brahmin servant “Gangu” who thinks he is superior among all the servants because he is “Brahmin”. The owner of the house is the narrator of the story and he could be Premchand himself. The rigid mentality of Gangu irritates his master again and again but he is not much affected with this kind of behaviour. One day Gangu confesses his love towards a widow named Gomti Devi, and he also marries Gomti, who has betrayed three husbands before her marriage with Gangu. Gomti gave birth to a child, a baby boy just after six months of her marriage with Gangu and Gangu accepted that child as if that was his own child. 

The interesting part of this story is a  change in the psychology of characters, first Gangu was a rigid Brahmin and was not allowing anyone to disrespect him but when he falls in love with Gomti, he forgets everything and marries her. On the other side, the master who was not interested in the caste system, he was against that marriage and he was happy when Gomti run away and left Gangu, even when Gangu has shown his child to him, he was taunting Gangu about his child’s birth just in six months. In the end, master has realized that what he was doing was not appropriate because he was an educated man and a writer but he learned a lot from an illiterate Gangu, and then he apologized Gangu and went to meet Gomti.

Source: http://wwwsanjeevgandhi.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-child-summary-and-analysis.html

Character Analysis

Gangu is a delightful character portrait in the story 'The Child' by Munshi Premchand. Gangu was a Brahmin by caste. He served in the household of the narrator. He was very much different from other servants. He was away from all the vices. As he was a proud of his high caste, he did not bow to his master. He is short-tempered Of course, he showed no characteristics of an ideal Brahmin. Unlike the Brahmins he was not educated, did not take bath in the river or pray regularly. But as a Brahmin, he expected respect and service from others. But his broad social mind is exposed in the way he marries Gomti, a widow of a bad reputation. In-spite of people's criticism and resent from his master, he married to the widow and lived happily. Gangu had strong convictions of the man-woman relationship. He believes that a woman should not live where she doesn’t find love and respect. The orthodox Gangu showed progressive approach when he did not bother about the past life of Gomti. His pure love for others is revealed when he accepts Gomti with the child from her previous husband. Thus Gangu is a good man with a kind, devoted and generous heart. We are impressed by the courage and sincerely of Gangu. He proved to be a noble human being.

Source: https://www.sevadalmahilamahavidyalaya.ac.in/skins/img/el1.pdf

Video link to Panel Discussion on Prem Chand's The Child: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOjeNGJGFUg