Page 167 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 20: Premchand: Godan—Introduction to the Text

20.2 Summary Notes

• Godan, a story of stark realism, is Premchand’s most outstanding work. It is his last completed
novel which brings out the realistic interpretation of Indian village society. This is a story of
people, hungry and semi starved, yet hopeful and optimistic in the truest spirit of the age it
represent. The dominating shadow of the original concept looms over the English. The Hindi
word, or rather the concept, Godan, is so culture specific that there is really no English
equivalent to it: daan is not just charity, nor donation. Neither can it be translated merely as
"gift". The English title passes off because the original Hindi title immediately registers with
the reader. But then, why would a reader who knows Hindi go to this translated text.
Hopefully, the original title on the cover may intrigue even a non-Hindi reader who would
then wish to comprehend the concept!
• Both, Vasudha Dalmia and Roadarmel present the literary and the social context of the
novel in their introductions. Dalmia offers a critique of what she calls the two major narrative
frames of the novel, the economic and social codes of Awadh on the one hand and the
colonial and the nationalist politics on the other, through which different characters live the
story of unremitting suffering. While Dalmia perceives the novel as "eminently political" and
progressive, Roadarmel discusses Premchand`s depiction of "changes of heart" as the most
potent force for change in society. Quoting Premchand himself, Roadarmel pinpoints the
interface of the didactic intentions with the author`s literary sensibility: "Idealism has to be
there," says Premchand in 1934 "even though it should not militate against realism and
naturalness."
• With the protagonist Hori in the centre, the novel Godan tells the epic story of a wide range
of characters situated in a complex social reality, rural as well as urban, filtered through a
progressive consciousness and yet committed to an authentic portrayal. It is rightly said that
a classic literary work gains in meanings and relevance as time passes. This is amply
demonstrated by the new Introduction to the novel. Vasudha Dalmia makes a very pertinent
point when she discerns how Premchand presented in his fiction an understanding of the
social reality decades before academic scholarship could "squarely face it." She suggests the
use of some essays from the volumes of Subaltern Studies published in the early eighties for
a greater comprehension of Godan through a political and social history of Awadh. Similarly,
the Bakhtinian term "parodic stylization" applied to some of Premchand`s masterly strokes
in the novel gives added meaning to the double-edged tone of the author in describing the
so-called authority figures in the society, such as Pandit Nokharam, Jhinguri Singh or Brahmin
Datadin.
• The 2002 Introduction indicates the complexity of thematic issues emerging through the
narrative of Godan, thanks perhaps to the sophisticated and advanced critical tools and
knowledge accessible to the contemporary reader. Dalmia identifies the immense tension
between the dharma of Hori and the social and political pulls away from it, and describes the
rebellion (vidroh) of Gobar and Dhania as progressive strains within the novel. She shows
how the novel unravels both, helplessness of major characters in the face of social practice
and notions of piety upheld by most people around.
• Roadarmel`s Introduction of 1968 addresses the readers of the West in establishing the
significance of the novel in Hindi literature. "Novels in English dealing with India" he says
"usually spell out the unfamiliar cultural details for the Western reader"… this statement can
indeed be contested today in the light of any significant Indian novel written in English after
Rushdie`s Midnight`s Children. But Roadarmel demonstrates extraordinary postcolonial
sensitivity when he says "One of the attractions of novels written first in an Indian language
is that one can explore the situation from within the local context, not feeling that the author

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