CHAPTER III

JAMALZADEH & PREMCHAND:

LIVES AND TIMES

A. JAMALZADEH AND HIS TIME

Jamalzadeh's pre-eminence is due mainly to his timely clarion call for a

regeneration of Persian prose. Making no extravagant claims to greatness, he

stated that he was very proud of his Y aki bud Y akin na Bud, for it was the origin

of a new school of prose.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century many political changes were

taking place in Iran. Among them the various ill-advised concessions to

foreigners, the frequent loan and mortgage from Russia, and a general

deterioration of internal affairs increased public's lack of confidence in the

regime. The first open conflict between the people and the government took

place after the granting of the notorious Tobacco Concession, resulting in the

riots of 1891. The victory of the nationalists, supported vigorously by religious

leaders, encouraged them to seek further reforms.

This was the period when one of the greatest literary personalities of

Iran namely Jamalzadeh was born. He began his secondary school education at

Antoura, a Catholic school run by a Lasarite mission near Beirut in 1908. It was

in this school that the first gleam of his literary talent was noticed. In a school

newspaper, edited by one of his classmates and himself, he wrote pieces in

French, expressing his wish to be like Voltaire. This was not, which he later

informed, because he knew much about Voltaire, but mainly because a French

Journal had called his father "the Voltaire of Iran".

From Lebanon, after a short stay in Egypt he traveled to France (1910),

then to Switzerland where he started reading law in the University of Lausanne

and later in Dijon, where he took his degree. Meanwhile, his father was executed

on the orders of Muhammad Ali Shah Qajar, as a result he did not received any

money from home and lived in abject poverty. Only the care and assistance of

his friends and occasional fees from pupils saved him from starvation.

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During the First World War (1914-18), Jamalzadeh joined the group of

nationalists in Berlin who were in engaged in a political and cultural campaign

directed mainly against foreign influence and intervention in Iran. The first

mission entrusted to him was the founding of a newspaper in Baghdad in 1915,

and some precarious activities among the tribes living near the Iraq-Iran border.

The newspaper, Rastakheez, which soon appeared under the editorship of

Ebrahim Pour Davood, fulfilled the first part of the mission; but the second part,

despite Jamalzadeh's sixteen months stay in the north-west provinces and his

friends' endeavor to win the friendship of tribal clans, failed to produce any

positive result. Eventually with the approach of Russian troops, they all fled to

the neighboring country.

He returned back to Berlin in 1916, and there along with his friends

published the famous journal Kava. His first contribution to this new paper was

an article entitled "when a nation is reduced to slavery", a translation of which

appeared in some German newspaper of the time. Meanwhile, the Persian

nationalists in Berlin chose him to represent them as the representative of

"Iranian National Committee" in 1917 at the World "Socialists Congress" in

Stockholm. In a message to the Congress he violently attacked Anglo-Russian

policies in Iran and condemned their interference in the internal affairs of the

country.

It was during this time that he published his first book, Ganj-I Shayigan

ya Awza-I Iqtesadi-ye Iran ("The worthy treasure, or the economic situation of

Iran"), which deals with such matters as the physical geography of Persia, her

commerce past and present, her customs, transportation, mines, arts and crafts,

reforms, finances, weights and measures, post and telegraph system, life in the

capital, and a great deal of other useful information.

Jamalzadeh's second book, Tarikh-I Ravabit-I Rus u Iran ("the history

of Russo-Persian relations"), which appeared serialized in kava, was in fact

never completed because of the journals' closure.

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Jamalzadeh's career as a short story teller began with the publication of

"Farsi Shikar Ast" ("Persian is Sugar"), the first modern Persian short story to

enjoy an enormous success. This, together with five other stories of the same

kind, appeared later in the celebrated collection "Yaki bud Yaki Nabud" in

1921. Apart from laying the foundation of modern prose and indicating the

prevailing trend, this book throws light on Jamalzadeh as a literary figure.It

shows the young author's amazing gift, as well as his painstaking cares and

devotion, in producing a masterpiece despite his apparent handicaps. The

magnitude of his achievement can be judged by his own testimony:

"My knowledge of the written language was slight and I

used to write Persian with utmost difficulty. When, still vel)' young, I left

Iran, Persian was not properly taught in Iranian schools and my

Persian was extremely weak. But as I was passionately fond of it, I used

to read and practice a great deal. Gradually writing became easier for

me and I was. deeply imbued with a zest for writing things which has

never flagged in me. In other words, without any preliminary, without

any teacher or lesson, I learnt Persian entirely on my own by whatever

means came to hand. Still, day and night, I continued to be engrossed in

this process: from evel)' book or article I read in Persian, pencil in

hand, I extract notes. I note idioms, expressions, and even words and

phrases, which I generally con afterwards". 2

After the success of his first collection of short stories m 1921,

Jamalzadeh refrained from literary activities for the next twenty years (which

coincided with Reza Shah's entire reign). The reason for this silence went

deeper than the antagonism of the political regime towards critical and creative

writers. The publication of Yaki Bud Yaki Nabud had caused a tremendous stir

and controversy among the reading public of Persia. At variance with the young

2 Modern Persian Prose Literature, Hasan Kamshad,Cambridge University Press,1966,p.94

33

intellectuals and progressive elements, who regarded it as a work of genius,

there were some reactionary religious circles and literary dunces who

condemned it as a piece of blasphemy offensive to national pride. A newspaper

editor who had published one of the stories in his paper was publicly denounced

by mullahs and threatened with exile and prosecution. Political conditions

encouraged the sophistry of latter group, and Jamalzadeh's brilliant lead in

regenerating Persian prose did not gain much following during this time.

Conversely, the hue and cry raised against his book made the young author loose

heart, and for a while his mind and heart were not in writing. Furthermore,

during this period he gave himself body and soul to the joys of life and the

temptations of youth.

Thus, except for Yaki Bud Yaki Nabud and a few other short stories

published here and there in the early twenties, all Jamalzadeh' s literary works

appeared since the war, which is why despite his seniority and leadership, he is

included among the post-war writers.

After financial difficulties forced Kava to close down, Jamalzadeh found

himself a job in the Persian embassy in Berlin. He spent a couple of years there

looking after the welfare of Iranian students sent to Germany on government

scholarships. In the meantime, apart from contributing to a student paper called

Farangistan, he and some friends set up a magazine, 'Ilm u Honar' ("science and

art") of which he was the editor. Despite its comparatively short life, several of

his earlier short stories were first published there.

The next and the longest stage of Jamalzadeh's life has been his stay in

Switzerland. In 1931 he accepted a post in the International Labour Office in

Geneva, where, until his retirement, he worked for nearly twenty five years.

While in that office his duties took him to Iran several times, and during his last

visit the Prime Minister of the time asked him to stay at home and take part in

his Cabinet as the minister of labour. This offer he politely refused.

Nevertheless, he retired from the "Labour International Office", in 1956.

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Jamalzadeh's second novel, Qultashan-Divan (1946), concerns the age

old struggle between good and evil. It is Jamalzadeh's most matured novel.

Through out the book, satire, humor, social criticism and condescending love for

feeble human beings are well weighed and the discontent with the lighter lot of

the unjust only strengthens the elegiac tuning of the novel. The picture of Tehran

and its inhabitants in the first twenty years of the last century is vivid and

appealing.

Jamalzadeh's Raa'b-Nama ("The Drainage Controversy", 1948) stands

high above his other novels for its social criticism, study of the characteristics of

different social classes, for humor and excellence, of style and language.The

framework of the book is rather similar to that of Qultashan-Divan: the scene is

a cul-de-sac in Tehran.

After his silence of more than twenty years, Jamalzadeh resumed his

literary activities in 1952; proving himself one of the most prolific authors of

modem Iran. Jamalzadeh is concise, coherent, and very much to the point. The

author's knowledge of deep insight into the inner lives, habits and thinking of

middle class Iranian families deserves praise. The unrestrained criticism of the

national character however is not entirely free from exaggeration.

There appears a sharp distinction between the early stories written by

Jamalzadeh and his later compositions common to all his compositions is the

language he uses: the charm of his prose discourses cast in a familiar yet

individual style. Every day expression adorns almost every line, to the extent

that his care for juxtaposing idioms seems to override other considerations.

Years of hard wok with the masses have equipped him of slang and colloquial

proverbs, and he has the gift to use them with skill; but his indiscreet dwelling

on these terms appears over righteous at times. The frequently synonymous

phrases render a kind of superficiality to his description and a certain amount of

immobility to the progress of the narrative. From the technical point of view,

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then, the majority of his novels lack a firm and continuous narrative: they are

episodic, and in this regard he displays more gifts for short than long story

writing. In his later works he has grown increasingly keen on abandoning fiction

for erudition.

Mention should be made of sundry works compiled, composed, or

translated by Jamalzadeh as sidelines to his creative writings, published on the

700th anniversary of publication of The Gulsitan, is a compilation of the prose­

counsels laid down in that immortal book. Qissa-yi qissa-ha ("The Tale of

Tales", 1948), written by Muhammad-ibn-Sulayman of Tunukabun in 1873. It

throws light on the life and works of some Shia doctors who lived between the

1Oth and 19th centuries of the Christian era, in the Muslim world.

Through out his literary carrier Jamalzadeh has been either closely

associated with or an ardent contributor to the Persian press inside or outside the

country. A note on some of his major contributions does not seem out of place

here.

To introduce European men of letters and their way of thought to the

Iranian public, he has written articles in various papers; his subjects include

Maxim Gorki, Nietzsche and James Joyce, and a comparison between Khayyam

and Anatole France.

Besides, the introduction to Muhammad Ishaque's Sukhanwaran-i Iran

dar Asr-i Hazir ("Poets and Poetry of Modern Persia") expresses Jamalzadeh's

ideas about the new trends in Persian poetry have been expressed fully and

candidly. His books review and scholarly essays on various literary

controversies are read with keen interests by the bulk of Iranian intellectuals.

After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, he returned to Iran for a brief

period. He passed away in Geneva in 1997.

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B. PREMCHAND AND HIS TIME

Premchand (1880-1936), decidedly the most outstanding short-story

writer that Urdu produced, starting writing around the beginning of the 20th

century. His first published story is perhaps Duniya ka sabse Anmol Ratan. It

was he who brought short stories closest to real life and is legitimately regarded

as the Adam of the New Short Story. He spreads his social canvas very wide and

unfolds before the reader a panoramic view of the world, with its conflict

between classes and interest, ideas and creeds and gently probes into the social

complexities to seek resolution of these conflicts.

Premchand, claimed by Hindi and Urdu alike, was born in a small

village Lamahi (Pandeypur) in Varanasi m a Kayastha family and was

christened Dhanpat Rai. His parents were persons of small means and could not

afford to give him proper education. It was through his own perseverance that he

learnt Urdu and Persian and some other subjects to pass the Entrance

examination. He joined the Education Department on a petty job. By stages, he

graduated and became a Deputy Inspector of Schools but reverted as a school

master because of ill-health and stayed at Gorakhpur. He had to work very hard

in order to earn a living by sustaining himself in the profession of writing.

When Premchand started writing at the age of about seventeen, India

was experiencing a pronounced and profound economic and political impact by

the British rule. The economic policies followed by the British led to the rapid

transformation of India's economy into a colonial economy. The nature and

structure were determined by the needs of the British economy. There were

many results of this subordination of the Indian economy.

There was a sudden and quick collapse of the urban handicrafts industry

which was caused largely by competition with the cheaper imported machine­

goods from Britain. The ruin of rural artisans industries and handicrafts thus

contributed to the destruction of the self sufficient rural economy. The peasants

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were also progressively impoverished under their rule. They were left to the

mercies of the zamindars that oppressed them in diverse ways. In the prevailing

atmosphere patriotism made an appeal to many. It was as a result of the intrinsic

nature of the British imperialism and its harmful impact on Indians that a

powerful anti imperialist movement gradually arose and developed in India. It

was visible in the literary sphere also. The formation of Indian National

Congress in 1885 marks an important phase in. The writers and press was the

chief instrument through which the nationalist's minded Indians spread the

message of patriotism and modem economic, social and political ideas. They

were also inspired by other international leaders who fought for the freedom of

their motherland.

Premchand' s fame had spread far and wide by now. His writings

acquired patriotic fervour after 1907. Between 1905 and 1907, he wrote

biographical articles on well known nationalists like Gopal Krishna Gokhale,

Garibaldi, Swami Vivekananda and Mazzini, highlighting their nationalistic

feelings. This was a period when political scene of India was experiencing

significant developments. The Partition of the Bengal province in 1905, by Lord

Curzon led to the birth of two important movements namely the Swadeshi and

the Boycott.

Mass meetings highlighting the message of Swadeshi or the use of

Indian goods and the Boycott of British goods were held in different parts of the

country. The National Council of Education set up in 1906 as an outcome of the

two movements. The Partition of Bengal also became responsible for the

emergence of militancy and growth of revolutionary terrorism in India. The

Surat Session of the Indian National Congress in 1907 saw the split of Congress

into moderates and extremists. The extremist faction was led by Bal Gangadhar

Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai, leading to the emergence of extremist nationalism.

The British government played the game of divide and rule. Falling

short of popular expectations the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 thus sowed the

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seeds of Hindu-Muslim disunity by providing Separate Electorate. Thus along

with the rise of nationalism, communalism too made its appearance. This was a

big setback of this period. Thus political uncertainty prevailed during this phase.

Premchand was an ardent supporter of Hindu Muslim unity. He

commanded respect even among the contemporary muslim literary personalities

like K waja Hasan Nizami, Asaf Ali,Maulana Muhammad Ali,Firaq Gorakhpuri

and a host of others. His writings bear testimony to his secular and democratic

credentials.

In this atmosphere, Premchand tried to infuse patriotism into the hearts

of his countrymen through his writings. He adopted the pseudonym of Nawab

Rai to evade British vigilance but the government discovered it .He was

administered a strong warning and was asked to surrender the remaining copies

of his first collection of short stories printed under the title ,Soze Watan, on

sedition charges. Another version has it that his friend Munshi Daya Narain

Nigam (editor of Zamana) himself did the job of destroying the printed copies

without allowing the police to intervene. Furthermore, he was asked not to write

anything without the permission of the government since it was insulting them.

Subsequently, the government passed the 'Indian Press Act' in 1910. As a result

of which printing press, newspapers, journals, books etc were put strictly under

the government's control. Thus he was forced to adopt yet another pen name­

that of Premchand-which stuck to him for the rest of his life. Today most

people regard this as his real name.

The rising tide of nationalism also found expression in movements to

reform and democratized the social and religious outlook of the Indian people.

The works of earlier reformers, like Rammohan, Vidyasagar were carried

forward by the likes of Dyanand Saraswati, Sir Syed, and Gandhiji etc.

The First World War (1914-18) witnessed the growth of Home Rule

Leagues movements in 1915-16, by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant. The

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Russian Revolution of 1917 also had a profound influence on the minds of the

Indians .This War led to increased misery among the poorer classes of Indians.

Deeply moved by the sufferings this war caused on the innocent people,

Premchand refused to participate in the celebration marking the First World

War victory held in Normal School of Gorakhpur at that time.

Meanwhile, the Rowlatt Act passed in 1919, enabled the government to

suspend the civil rights of the people. Gandhiji who was in India by now,

protested against this Act. Determined to suppress the mass agitation, the

popular protest was met with repression, particularly in Punjab leading to the

infamous Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919 in Amritsar, by the British.

The years 1921 and 1922 saw the emergence of national schools like

Jamia Millia of Aligarh, the Kashi Vidyapeeth and the launching of the Non

Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and the Khilafat Movements. Gandhiji visited

Gorakhpur on 8th February, 1921 to attend a meeting during his all India tour.

Notwithstanding, his poor health Premchand attended this meeting along with

his wife and children. Highly impressed by Gandhiji's speech he resigned from

government service in 1921, the Freedom Movement being at its peak.

The caste system was another major target of attack for the social reform

movement. Moreover the castes were gradually graded into a hierarchy of status.

The caste consciousness particularly with regard to marriage and dowry

prevailed also among Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs. In this aspect Gandhiji

played a significant role. All his life he kept the abolition of untouchability in

the forefront of his political activities. In 1932 he founded the All India Harijan

Sangh for the purpose.

The Congress Socialist Party was formed in 1934 by JP Narayan,

Acharya Narendra Dev helping in stimulating thinking on radical agranan

reform and industrial labour issues.

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Premchand worked on the staff of several magazines including the

Zamana of Kanpur, and ultimately brought out his own monthly in Hindi and

built up enough funds to establish his own press. He even entered the film

industry but found the atmosphere disgusting and left. His has been a life of

constant struggle and he could never live in ease and comfort. He presided over

the First Conference of the All-India Progressive Writers' Association and was

actively involved in promoting the movement until his last in 1936.

Premchand is essentially a writer of Urdu. He began with Urdu and most

of what he wrote was in that language alone. Later, when he returned to Hindi,

he did not give up Urdu. Most of his works have been translated or transliterated

and printed in both the languages. Premchand's short stories disclose a

progressive evolution of art and thought. He moved from reformism to

revolution, from Gandhian idealism to Marxian realism and if his writings are

studied historically it will be found that he was always on the side of progress.

Like all great artists, he does not walk along a straight and

predetermined line. At times he takes a zigzag route to reach the collective

consciousness of the age and at others, his realism puts on a veil of idealism. It

was he who introduced the trend of realism in Urdu novels .His realism was

further strengthened by the writers of The Indian Progressive writers

Association like Sajjad Zaheer, Chrishna Chander and Ismat Chughtai.

There is a strain of revivalism in his earlier short stories. He highlights

Rajput chivalry and betrays and idealistic attachment to feudal values in morals

and social custom. This is a facet of his personal reaction to his to the prevailing

disintegration of the social norms. His characters express the sufferings resulting

from the outdated and oppressive customs and ceremonies and he wants the

Hindu society to be rid of the bane through spread of education and inculcation

of moral values. That generates a revivalist attitude. As time passes, these values

acquire a secular and ultimately a progressive colouration.

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Premchand is a sensitive artist who takes inspiration from all that he

sees around. It is not just the bounteous nature, the frenzied love and the

bewitching physical beauty that holds charm, but the stirrings of the collective

soul, the aspirations of a future struggling to be born, the nostalgic glimpses of a

past glory that the writer wishes to capture in the humdrum of the present day

reality and not in the realm of imagination. First, he wants to change whatever

clashed with the lower middle class interests to which he was then sentimentally

aligned. Patriotism showed him the way of freedom which alone was capable of

changing people's lot.

Then his interests widened and, first under the Gandhian influence and

later under the impact of socialist thought, he came to hold the firm belief that

the soul of India resides in the villages. He has given us some of the most

intimately charming and panoramic pictures of our village life in simple and

unostentatious language and demonstrated that where a writer's grip over his

material is unyielding, language follows the indicators effortlessly and situations

and characters troop in and out without stage management.

His characters are drawn from the milling crowd of peasants, petty

craftsmen, Zamindars, untouchables, traditional religious functionaries, fake

leaders, small revenue officials, policemen, contractors, landless labourers,

courtesans, village school teachers and the like who act and believe like others

of the species with all the faults and virtues of their class as part and parcel of

the social milieu. He portrays life realistically and penetratingly to bring out into

sharp focus the conflicts that inhere in situations and he paints the many-hued

innermost feelings and aspirations of the common people. He paints villages in

their pristine simplicity and unsullied purity, their flaws born of history and their

strong points shared with the society in its grinding poverty and helplessness. He

weaves his plot with artistic accuracy, honesty and clarity and his characters

have a psychological genuineness and develop to maturity in a natural way.

Complexities of plots are not thrust upon them.

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According to Professor S.M.Aqeel, apart from translations and

adaptations, his stories in Urdu number 280. His Urdu collection includes Soz-e­

Watan, Prem Pachisi, Prem Battisi, Wardat, Zad-e-Rah, Khwab-o-Kheyal,

Khak-e-Parwanah, Aakhiri Tohfah, dehat ke Afsane and Doodh ke Qimat. Some

of his Hindi short stories still await translation in Urdu and it is now proposed to

publish all his stories in a deluxe series. His most important short story which

has become a classic in our fiction is Kafan (The Shroud).

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