A Pandemic and a Literary Account

Just like today, the world was gripped by a deadly pandemic at least a century earlier. The 1918 influenza pandemic spread all across the globe leaving no major inhabited place untouched. Quaranties proved useless almost everywhere. According to various estimates, 20 to 50 million people died all across the world. The pandemic, caused by the virus of H1N1 family, spread in three distinct waves which prolonged to more than a year. The first "spring" wave began in March 1918 and diffused to Europe, Africa, India, China and Australia in April and July. The second and the most deadly known as the "fall" wave began in late August and fanned out quickly from France. Many places experienced a third, but "less well-defined wave" in the winter of 1918 and spring of 1919. The disease seriously jeopardised the social and demographic pattern of the world.

Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was a great Hindi poet, essayist, novelist and pioneer of Chhayawad poetry. He is remembered for his great experiments with different genres and themes. Nirala provided a vivid account of this deadly pandemic in the Indian countryside. But more on that later.

The Global Spread of the Virus 

According to Patterson and Pyle, the earliest case of the virus was reported from an army recruitment camp for World War I in Kansas, USA where the epidemic began on March 5. The flu diffused to war-torn Europe as the American troopships reached France by early April. They point out that since Spain did not censor news and epidemic was widely publicized there, it led to the coinage of the misleading term Spanish Flu. Influenza engulfed the whole of Europe by June-end. 

Tram conductor in Seattle not allowing passengers aboard without a mask, during the Influenza  Flu Pandemic in 1918

Africa was infected in May. Troops returning to Indian subcontinent carried the virus the docks of Bombay in May. Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia were infected by June. The spring wave waned in July and August. But, on the other hand, a new and more deadly second wave began in western France in Early August. The majority of deaths were of young adults.

The Pandemic and India

India was the focal point of this Influenza spread and loss of life. The estimates of the data regarding the mortality rates in India are wide-ranging. It differs from 6 million to 30 million. The official records of the British Indian government suggest a total toll of 6 million, which is definitely an undercount. Davis calculated the death toll to be 17.21 million. 

Spanish flu weekly trends in 3 Indian regions in 1918. 

(Source: Siddharth Chandra and Eva Kassens-Noor/BMC Infectious Diseases, 2014)

In the 19th century, the influenza pandemic broke out in the years 1803, 1833, 1837, 1840 and 1890. Colonel Norman White, Sanitary Commissioner to the Government of India diagnosed influenza as similar to that of 1890. But the 1918 influenza epidemic was more lethal in terms of mortality. According to a report by the Sanitary Commissioner of Punjab, the symptoms of the disease were: fever, slow pulse rate, ache in ache body, physical and mental depression and respiratory distress and inflammation in the air passage. The people exposed to the disease were normally dead in three days.

The diffusion of the disease was mainly aided by the enhanced pace and volume of the human movement. The soldiers returning to their villages from the military campaigns, the trade and commerce through ships and inland movement through railroad and postal services helped the virus to fan out in the entire Indian subcontinent. However, in most places, the first case was recorded after the movement of soldiers. 

(Courtesy: R. Bala)

In India, the largest number of deaths was reported in the United Provinces, which also had the largest population in British ruled India. According to an official estimate, more than one million people died in this province only. K. Davis, however, has shown that this data is full of discrepancies. The province experienced a death rate of 89.07 deaths per thousand population. Central Provinces and Berar lost 5.6 per cent of the population due to influenza deaths. Delhi was right behind where the 5.5 per cent population was wiped out. Bombay, Punjab and North-West Frontier Province also experienced high mortality rates. The majority of the people who died were in the prime of their life. 

A Literary Account of the Pandemic

A Life Misspent provides an account of Suryakant Tripathi Nirala's life. It also happens to provide an account of his friendship with Kulli Bhaat. It also provides a moving account of the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. Nirala was married to Manohara Devi from a small town named Dalmau in Rae Bareli district of United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). She was the one who motivated him to learn and write in Khari Boli. It was in Dalmau where he met an ordinary man but a great soul Kulli Bhaat. It was also here where he was exposed to the biggest jolt of his life.

A rare image of  Suryakant Tripahi 'Nirala'

The account from Sutti Khanna's translation goes like this: "There was a violent outbreak of influenza about this time...I received a telegram: 'Your wife is gravely ill. Come immediately.' I was twenty-two...The newspapers had informed us about the ravages of the epidemic. I travelled to the riverbank in Dalmau and waited. The Ganga was swollen with dead bodies. At my in-laws' house, I learned that my wife had passed away. My cousin had come over my ancestral village to help with wife's illness, but he had taken ill himself and returned home. I left for our ancestral village the very next day. As I was walking towards my house, I saw my cousin's corpse being carried to the cremation site."

The influenza infection did not spare his family yet. He further wrote: "My uncle was the head of the family. He, too, contracted influenza...Words cannot describe how pitiful the scene was, how helpless, how tender...Sister-in-law passed away on the third day of my cousin's death. The nursing child was also sick. I slept that night holding her. She, too, passed away in the morning. I buried her in the riverbank. Then Uncle died. One more corpse to cart to the Ganga. Sister-in-law's three sons contracted fever. Somehow, I was able to nurse them back to health. My family disappeared in the blink of an eye. All our sharecroppers and labourers died, the four who worked for my cousin and the two who worked for me."               

This excerpt brings up the horrifying situation that gripped United Provinces and the whole of India at that time in the absence of the basic health care facilities and the presence of an unsympathetic and exploitative colonial regime. "I would go sit on a mound by the Ganga and watch and watch the file of corpses brought to the river", Nirala further added. 

To conclude, the world had never seen such a cataclysmic disease before. First, no other disease in the past had spread with such rapidness in the entire world. Second, no other disease had spread to such geographical expanse with hardly any pocket of the world left untouched. And lastly, influenza affected far more number of people than any other disease.

(Excerpts from Suryakant Tripathi Nirala's A Life Misspent translated by Sutti Khanna)

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Representation of the Peasants and Dalits in the Literature of Premchand

Munshi Premchand (Dhanpat Rai) is arguably the greatest and finest writer in the Hindi and Urdu literature. His realistic and non-romantic portrayal of the characters and narrative makes him different from his contemporaries and even the post-independence writers. His corpus still remains effective because his characters are simple, with simple desires, values and morals. The narrative is also simple and straight-forward. Krishna Datt Paliwal rightly points out that Premchand still remains relevant because he draws most of his characters from the rural-agrarian background. "He did not create, but presented his characters."

Premchand's corpus is vast, with 302 short stories, 15 novels, 3 plays, 86 journalistic essays, around 700 editorial comments, around 150 book reviews and some translation works. In his works, he brought into fold the many forms of manipulation and exploitation, be it gender, class, caste or religion. His literature is robust because of, as Gulzar said, "Utopian Idealism of Premchand". In one of his speeches at Madras in 1934, he had said, "Without idealism, what is the use of literature? Without idealism, it is only to entertain and satisfy the lust for amazing."

Approaching the Question of Caste Subjugation

It is beyond any argument that Premchand was the first person in the pre-independence phase to write about the marginalisation, subjugation and exploitation of the Dalit community. Kamal Kishore Goenka identifies Premchand's 40 short stories depicting Dalit life and thought. This, he argues, is certainly not a dominant trend but represents a separate stream of writer's humanity and sensitivity.

It is interesting to note that Premchand's first story with the plot relating to the upliftment of the Dalit community, 'Dono Taraf Se', was published in Urdu in March 1911. It was a time frame when neither Gandhi nor Ambedkar had entered the scene of movement for Dalit upliftment. Gandhi came back from South Africa in 1915. The sanyasi's speech in 'Sirf Ek Awaaz' (published in 1913) reflects what the author thought. Similarly, stories like 'Sadgati' (1930), 'Rashtra ka Sevak' (1930), 'Mandir' (1927) etc. reflects the politics revolving around the concepts of purity and untouchability through the Dalit body.

   

However, in the later years, Gandhi's impression can clearly be seen in his thought process. In 'Hans', he wrote: "We accept that we have done injustice to the Shudras. We exploited, dominated and crushed them. This injustice has pained Gandhiji the most, a saint who worked for their betterment for the whole of his life."  He dreamt of a caste-less society in future independent India. In a critical essay titled 'Kya Hum Vaastav me Rashtravadi Hain' (Are We Truly Nationalist) published in Jagran on January 8, 1934, he wrote; "The nationality for which we are dreaming, won't have any caste bound by birth, it will be an empire of our workers and peasants, where no one would be a Brahmin, a Harijan, a Kayastha or a Kshatriya. Where everyone would be an Indian, either each person would be a Brahmin or everyone would be a Harijan."  

Kamla Kishore Goenka has made an interesting observation that Premchand's Dalit literature is a literature of empathy, which carries the same pain as sympathy. In 'Thakur ka Kuan' (1932), Premchand depicts how people from lower castes were even denied access to essential objects such as water. He was certainly influenced by Gandhian call for Dalit entry into the temples when he wrote 'Mandir'.

Peasant Consciousness and Struggle

Premchand thought that he owed his 'rural brethren' that they should feature in his literature. His protagonists mainly came from an agrarian background crushed under the class hegemony of the landlords and their agents, the colonial state and their officials, the moneylenders and priests. Though sometimes the protagonists perish due to the exploitation, there also exists some kind of poetic justice. In fact, nationalism and peasantry were the central themes in his writings. 

In the initial phase (1903-18), the issue of peasants does not find a frequent mention. Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay thinks that it is because, in this phase, Premchand wrote mainly in Urdu, which catered to elite urban culture. Besides, the rise of Gandhi, his peasant movements in Champaran and Kheda and the Russian Revolution in 1917 drastically changed his literary paradigm in his second phase of writing. In Rangabhoomi's protagonist (published 1925), we see a clear impress of Gandhi. Many scholars believe Surdas symbolises Gandhi and the idea of a struggle between good and evil with mass support.

Peasantry occupies a central role in his novels such as Premashram, Rangabhoomi, Karmabhoomi and Godaan. In Gaban (published 1930), though indirectly, he stressed the superiority of rural culture over the city life. 'Sava Ser Genhu' (1924) is an excellent portrayal of a peasant by a moneylender. In the same story, he also portrays the problem of the bonded labour which continues from one generation to the other. The author leaves a note in the end: "Please don't consider it as a figment of the imagination. It is a true story."

Criticism: Revolutionary or Not?

Dalit and Marxist writers have criticized Premchand for not professing a revolutionary solution to the problems of Dalits, peasants and workers. Such critics believe that a revolutionary solution to such problems feels more practical than Gandhian or Tolstoyan solution. He seeks to pin hope on certain changes of the heart rather than a steadfast revolution by the Dalits or peasants.

   

But, at a deeper level in Premchand's works, there is a presence of a spirit of resistance which can be located in the most neglected and marginalised groups such as Dalits and women. Manohar in Premashram, Surdas in Rangabhoomi, Chaudhari in Karmabhoomi, and Hori and Dhania in Godaan are all revolutionaries in their own capacity. Surdas in Rangabhoomi fights a prolonged battle against the factory and its supporters who want to take away his land. In Karmabhoomi, the situation becomes so desperate that peasants have to rebel.  

There is a certain revolution in 'Mandir' where a mother who was considered untouchable revolts against the hegemony of upper castes on temple entry. In Godaan, Harkhu Chaudhary, a Chamar, even goes to the extent of putting a bone in Brahmin Matadin's mouth when she harasses a Dalit girl. This act was aimed at making Matadin a Chamar. According to Virendra Yadav, the Dalit discourse of Godaan is the symbol of the internal fragmentation of the Hindu society which forces Matadin to throw away his sacred thread.  

It would not be incorrect to say that Hindi and Urdu literature has not seen any other writer like Premchand. As Gulzar puts it: while his contemporaries were busy writing either the escapist romantic fiction or the slogan-ridden stories, he found his protagonists in Chamars, kisans, and the corrupt Brahmins.

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