Modern Hindi Novel

Any review of Hindi fiction cannot fail to take into account the achievements and contribution of Premchand in this field. If one looks at the vast panorama and the progressive march of Hindi fiction one finds Premchand standing in all his glory like a majestic tower in the middle of the road which all the previous forces culminate to and the future takes a start from. He was the first novelist to bring Hindi fiction into close contact with life and forge through its medium a form capable enough to give adequate expression to life’s hopes and aspirations. Above all, he was a beauty expert of Hindi fiction which achieved a structural unity in his hands. We use the term structure to mean the arrangement and interrelation of all the elements in the book governed by the general character of the whole. Premchand’s novels may be populous and extensive in spatial designs, they may contain a number of episodes but they are well knit as intimate cause and effect into a single action in obedience to a single impulse from start to finish. Godan, Sevasadan and Gaban, besides bringing down fiction from the blood-curdling height of horrors and mystery to the ordinary flow of life, have positively established the reign of structure and negatively raised a strong barrier against a repetition of the loose-structured novels of the pre-Premchand era.

Modern Hindi fiction has developed mostly as a reaction, to Premchand’s art, for or against. Premchand had adopted in his fiction, the point of view of an ominiscient author who enters into the mind and thoughts of his characters, having a full control over his narrative, commenting and interpreting in his own person as it suits him. If we look to the core of the novels published year after year, not in Hindi only but in European literature also, we will conclude that the convention of the author’s omniscience has remained predominant, clear down to the present day. There might have been some minor variations, the authors might have tried to corporate in their plots certain special phenomena, cropping up with the evolution of society and unknown during Premchand’s day; but they are not entitled, on this slender basis, to any claim as contributors to the art of Hindi fiction. We do talk in terms of post-Premchand era, but the fact is that Premchand’s influence is still very predominant and most of our novelists take inspiration from him and thus pay a high compliment to Premchand, the father of the Hindi novel.

But, the Hindi writers have not remained mere dummies, passively exposed to any outward influence, foreign or indigenous; they are vitally alive, ready to make a creative use of anything which suits their end or needs. The reaction against Premchand’s method set in sooner than later. There grew up a band of a young novelists who, though sitting at the master’s feet and getting mental nourishment from him, refused to be bullied into the belief that Premchand’s was the last word in the art of fiction and the ‘orderly unfolding of plot’ was the only form for fiction to assume. Jainendra, through his novels Tyagpatraand Kalyani weakened the myth of plot to a great extent, if he did not actually demolish it. He showed the way how a brilliant novel can be constructed with a negligible amount of story element in it. The story qua story was relegated to a subordinate position.

This does not amount to saying that Jainendra completely ignores the structure-value of fiction. Premchand has made this position impossible to be taken. With all the ingenuity and force of originality at one’s command, it was not possible to revert to the ‘Chinese-box days’ of fiction. But there came a change in the very conception of structure. Premchand conceived of plot in terms of logical continuities, in terms of relations of cause and effect, in terms of a particular consequent under a given set of antecedents. Chronology dominates Premchand with action or plot as an organising factor in it. But Jainendra models his novel on the operative character of consciousness as such. Not action but psychology and the subjective aspect of experience controls form and maintains unity in the novels of Jainendra. The novelty of Jainendra’s method will be clear by reading the plot-ridden novels of Premchand side by side with his novels with the relative unimportance of Plot in them.

But Jainendra has done one thing more. He has tried his best to convince his readers that he is telling nothing but the truth and thus he falls here in line with the school of English novelists beginning with Defoe who employ ‘documents, memorandums’, letters etc., in order to create a sense of verisimilitude and increase the illusion of verifiable fact. Nothing definite can be said of where Jainendra got his clue from but two of his novels Tyagpatraand Kalyani (and Jaivardhan, the latest one) have been imposed upon readers as nothing but a reproduction of documents fallen, by chance, into the hands of the author. In Banbhatt ki atma katha, one of the most successful novels in Hindi, its author Hazari Prasad Dwivedi has tried to trick readers into the belief that it is a transcript of an old document unearthed by an old Austrian Indologist and it has worked so successfully as to lead some historians of Sanskrit literature to say that a new light was being thrown upon the life of Bana. However, modern criticism does not appreciate this factual orientation of novels so much. It is a relic of the past when fiction enjoyed no rights of its own and could bask only in the reflected glory of facts. Now the situation has completely changed. Creation has risen so much in critical esteem that facts themselves are being fictionally oriented.

Agneya is another novelist to take Hindi fiction out of the beaten track of simple narrative and bring about a freshness of vision and approach to bear upon it. It is in his novels, and those of Jainendra’s, that the influence of modern psychology has begun to be appreciably felt. Words like ‘projection’, ‘transference’, ‘inferiority complex’ become of frequent occurrence in the body of the novels. Sisters begin playing an important part in shaping the life of brothers and the father becomes a rival of his son in winning the mother’s love. This tendency has become very predominant in Ilachand Joshi’s novels like Pret aur Chhaya and Parde ki Rani which appear to have been written with a copy of a book of psycho-analysis in his pocket. The merit of Agneya’s fictional art lies in the fact that he has depicted the progress of his story from a limited point of view, a single point of view i.e., of Shekhar’s in Shekhar ek Jivani and a multiple point of view in Nadi ke dweep i.e., of the four characters whose life drama has provided the material for the novel. The space at our disposal forbids discussion of the comparative merits of the two points of view i.e., those of author’s omniscience, and limitedness of viewpoint, but there is no denying the fact that the latter has a peculiar charm of its own. Here the author has full control over the tempo of the story and is in a privileged position to dole out each part of the story at a properly rationed rate.

Yashpal, though adding but little to the art of narration, has enriched Hindi fiction by bringing more and more of Marxian themes, problems of class struggle and the progressive march of the proletariat to its final victory. At times he has been outspoken and frank in the discussion of sex, but here also Hindi fiction has been wisely cautious and is behind the limit to which authors like Sartre and Faulkner have reached. His two novels Divyaand Manusya ke roop can take a proud position by the side of successful fiction in Europe.

Bhagwai Charan Verma (Sahitya Akadami Prize Winner) has written about half a dozen novels; but his laurels rest mainly on Chitra lekha where the problem of evil and good has been discussed with an artist’s touch. Amrit Lal Nagar is another outstanding fiction writer. Then comes Brindavan Lal Verma a successful historical novelist. Among other new writers working in the field of Hindi fiction Rajendra Yadav and Mohan Rakesh deserve mention. Cumulatively the efforts of all these writers have gone a great length in limbering the stiff machinery of novels. But no review of modern Hindi fiction will be complete without taking into account its regional trend.

Indian soil is particularly suited for the regional novels to thrive on, because it is here that so many different cultures, races, religions, with their diversities, corresponding to geographical division, are living side by side under the aegis of a national culture. With the achievement of independence and the consequent release of genius, this side of the novel could not have been neglected for long. Many factors might have combined to bring about a sudden flowering of regional novels at present in Hindi but one reason, paradoxical though it may appear, is that regionalism is becoming less regional and is being reoriented to nationalism, thus making one more conscious of one’s own region. A fuller consciousness of individuality dawns upon a man when he comes in contact with others. Every inch of English soil has received the illuminating touch of its genius and has been celebrated in English literature. Why should Indian genius be found wanting in this respect?

All the four novels namely Rathinath ki Chachi, Balchanama, Nai Paudh and Baba Bateswarnath of Nagarjuna, that budding literary genius, are of regional nature and have portrayed the life and culture of Darbhanga district of Bihar. Phanishwarnath Renu’s  Maila anchal depicting the life of East Purala has created a furore among the critics and is the talk of the day. One cannot forget the recently published novel of Udai Sankar Bhatt named Sagar Laharen aur Manusya. In this novel Hindi fiction has discovered the sea-fishermen in their increasing struggle with the natural forces and gives a truthful account of it. Devendra Satyarthi is another prominent novelist working and exerting his genius In this direction.

Thus we find, casting our mind’s eye over the whole of Hindi fiction, that many powerful talents are diligently engaged in enriching it both quantitatively and qualitatively and it is sure to receive its due recognition if proper steps are taken to bring it, through translation, to the notice of the world.