Premashram: Premchand

First published in 1922, Premashram resonates with the disturbing notes of the Awadh Peasant Movement. Concentrating on the story of a zamindar and his tenants in a small village in the erstwhile United Provinces, the novel weaves into its saga the deteriorating feudal and economic structure of the Indian villages, just before the real onset of the Gandhian wave in the nationalist movement. Interwoven within a rural tragedy are questions concerning the future of both the peasant and the landlord; both discovering a final resolution deemed too idealist for its times. Besides these two sections, there are the officers, the evolving bureaucrats, the women and the educationists or social activists; each offering a viewpoint towards the evolving nation and national agendas; jostling for space and difficult to ignore. This first ever translation of Premashram brings to light the deep concerns of an author struggling to define his own version of this new nation and its professed goal of swaraj, which ironically seemed to have little space for the peasant and his issues.