² Georg, Lukacs (1978, 1950), ‘Tolstoy and the Development of Realism’, in Studies in European Realism: A Sociological Survey of the Writings of Balzac, Stendhal, Zola, Tolstoy, Gorky and Others, London: The Merlin Press, p. 160Google Scholar.

³ Ibid., p. 146.

⁴ Ibid., p. 139.

⁵ Premchand (1880–1936) is considered the most important novelist in Hindi language. Since he initially wrote exclusively in Urdu, and later in both languages, he is accorded a place of considerable importance even in Urdu literature.

⁶ Some significant exceptions to this were Nazir Ahmad's religious reformist novels and Mirza Hadi Ruswa's Umrao Jaan (1899), a realist portrayal of a courtesan's life. See Muhammad, Sadiq (1995), A History of Urdu Literature, Delhi: OUPGoogle Scholar; and JawadZaidi, Ali Zaidi, Ali (1993), A History of Urdu Literature, New Delhi: Sahitya AkademiGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Dr Parasnath, Singh (1985), Premchand Kaleen Upanyason Mein Grameen Jeevan (Rural Life in the Novels of Premchand Era), Delhi: Capital Publishing House, pp. 5–7Google Scholar.

⁸ The Oxford India Premchand (hereafter OIP), 2004, appendix. Some of Premchand's stories used in this essay are translated by David Rubin given in OIP. Gordon Roadarmel's translation of Godaan (2007 edn) has also been used. The rest of the translation of the Premchand's Hindi texts is mine.

⁹ , Premchand (1962), Chiththi Patri (Letters), vol. II, edited by Rai, Amrit and Gopal, Madan, Allahabad: Hans Prakashan, p. 211Google ScholarPubMed.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 76.

¹¹ Vividh Prasang (Journalistic Writings of Premchand), (1962), edited by Amrit Rai, Allahabad: Hans Prakashan. Hereafter ‘VP’. VP I, pp. 19–20.

¹² VP II, p. 21.

¹³ VP III, p. 53.

¹⁴ Details of Premchand's life can be found in two of his standard biographies: Amrit, Rai (1991, 1982), Premchand: His Life and Times, English translation by Trivedi, Harish, Delhi: OUPGoogle Scholar. Original Hindi biography, Kalam kaa Sipaahi, was published in 1962; and Madan, Gopal (1990, 1964), Munshi Premchand: A Literary Biography, New Delhi: Criterion PublicationsGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ For elaboration of this concept see Raymond, Williams (1981, 1952), Drama: From Ibsen to Brecht, Hammondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 8–14Google Scholar.

¹⁶ The Urdu tradition, being predominantly urban, did not encourage the portrayal of peasantry as an integral feature of literature. Novelists like Nazir Ahmad, Ratan Nath Sarshar, and Mirza Hadi Ruswa mainly dealt with the townspeople. The Hindi tradition, on the other hand, had a relatively closer association with village life. The contrast is obvious as Sadiq, in his monumental history of Urdu literature, considers Sevaasadan (Bazaar- e- Husn in Urdu) as Premchand's best novel, and dubs Godaan as ‘insignificant’. He also considers Rangabhoomi (Chaugan –e- Hasti in Urdu), another novel based on village life, as an inferior and didactic novel. Hindi tradition, on the other hand, considers Godaan, which portrays the heroically silent struggle of the peasants Hori and Dhaniya to hold their own against the pyramid of exploitation erected on their back by the colonial regime, as the best novel not only by Premchand but also in Hindi literature as a whole.

¹⁷ In 1914, he was reading the ‘tales of Count Tolstoy’ Rai (1991) p. 80. Later he ‘adopted twenty-three of these stories to the Indian context and published them in a volume under the title Prem Prabhakar’ p. 113.

¹⁸ Premchand Rachnavali (Collected Works of Premchand,), vol. 20, Delhi: Janwani Prakashan. 1996: 377–425.

¹⁹ Sevaasadan (The House of Service) (1918, 1999), Delhi: Raja Pocket Books.

²⁰ Premashram (The Abode of Love) (1922, 1999), New Delhi: Prakashan Sansthan.

²¹ During the five years from 1918 to 1923, Premchand wrote around 40 stories, most of which were concerned with the national movement. So, obviously, the bulk of his stories related to the ongoing struggle for independence from colonial rule. See Talwar, V.B. (1990), Kisaan, Rashtriya Andolan Aur Premchand (The Peasant, The National Movement and Premchand), New Delhi: Northern Book Centre, pp. 239–68Google Scholar.

²² Sevaasadan, p. 11.

²³ Rangabhoomi (The Stage) (1925, 1999), New Delhi: Prakashan Sansthan.

²⁴ Karmabhoomi (The Arena) (1932, 1999), New Delhi: Prakashan Sansthan.

²⁵ Godaan (The Gift of a Cow) (1936), English translation by Gordon C. Roadarmel (2007, 1968), New Delhi: Permanent Black.

²⁶ Thompson, E.P. (1993), ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, in Thompson, E.P., Customs in Common, London: Penguin Books. (1993)Google Scholar.

²⁷ Thompson, E.P. (1993), ‘The Moral Economy Reviewed’, in Thompson, E.P., Customs in Common, London: Penguin Books. p. 337Google Scholar.

²⁸ Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd’, p. 188.

²⁹ Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy Reviewed’, provides an account of the critical scholarship on this concept.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 260.

³¹ Ibid., p. 337.

³² Ibid., p. 339.

³³ Scott, James C. (1976), The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia, London: Yale University Press, p. 2Google Scholar.

³⁴ Ibid., p. 6.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 44.

³⁶ Ibid., pp. 61–2.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 56.

³⁸ A debate around this issue was conducted in The Journal of Asian Studies, August 1983, 42:4, under the title ‘Peasant Strategies in Asian Societies: Moral and Economic Approaches—A Symposium’.

³⁹ One of the earliest and most prominent among these is Samuel Popkin who considered this approach as ‘romantic’, ‘greatly overdrawn’, ‘misleading’, and the ‘myth of the village’ Popkin, Samuel (1979), The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, p. ix, p. 3Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ For example, William Booth argues that the moral economy approach as evident in Scott's work places more emphasis on the economic than on the moral half of the term. Owing to this, the debate between Scott and Popkin has been ‘conducted within the borders of the economic approach to human behavior and society’. Booth, William James (1993), ‘A Note on the Idea of the Moral Economy’, The American Political Science Review, December, 87:4, 951CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ See, for example, Hardiman, David (1987), ‘The Bhils and Sahukars of Eastern Gujarat’, in Guha, Ranajit (ed.), Subaltern Studies, V, New Delhi: OUP, pp. 44–50Google Scholar; Guha, Ranajit (1983), Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, New Delhi: OUPGoogle Scholar; Appadurai, Arjun (1984), ‘How Moral is South Asia's Economy?—A Review Article’, The Journal of Asian Studies, May 1984, 43:3Google Scholar. However, in the works of some of the subaltern historians, the approval of this concept is registered. For example, Gyan Pandey, in his study of the peasant revolt in Awadh, emphasizes that the ‘idea of a just, or moral, struggle appears to have been fundamental to the peasants’ acceptance of the necessity of revolt’, Pandey, Gyan (1982), ‘Peasant Revolt and Indian Nationalism: The Peasant Movement in Awadh, 1919–1922’, in Guha, Ranajit (ed.), Subaltern Studies, I, New Delhi: OUP, pp. 171–174Google Scholar. Similarly, in a study of food riots in south India, David Arnold states that ‘the character of many of the disturbances demonstrated the existence of a consensus, comparable to “moral economy” described by E.P. Thompson’, Arnold, David (1979), ‘Looting, Grain riots and Government Policy in South India 1918’, Past and Present, No. 84, August, p. 114. Even Hardiman's analysis of the relationship between the Bhils and Banias in Gujarat comes quite close to it: ‘. . .the Bhils rose not because they were then starving. . .but because they considered that their shahukars had violated a moral code’, p. 43. On the other hand, David Arnold who, in the earlier essay supported the concept, later criticizes it on the ground that it fails to take the class antagonism into account. He asserts that there ‘was not reciprocity in any meaningful sense because the relationship was founded on inequality between the two sides’ (Arnold, David (1984), ‘Famin ein Peasant Consciousness and Peasant Action: Madras 1876–8’, in Guha, Ranajit (ed.), Subaltern Studies, III, New Delhi: OUP, p. 78Google Scholar.

⁴² Tom Brass is unrelentingly critical of any trace of moral economy wherever he finds it. Whereas the Subaltern School is also critical of this concept, Brass accuses the Subalternists for themselves being guilty of this charge. See Brass, Tom (2000), Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism: The Return of the Agrarian Myth (London and Portland OR: Frank Cass)Google Scholar; and Brass, Tom (2000), ‘Moral Economists, Subalterns, New Social Movements and the (Re-) Emergence of a (Post-) Modernized (Middle) Peasant’, in Chaturvedi, Vinayak (ed.), Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial, London, New York: VersoGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ Greenough, Paul R. (1982), Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal, New York, Oxford: OUP, p. 208Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Greenough, Paul R. (1983), ‘Indulgence and Abundance as Asian Peasant Values: A Bengali Case in Point’, The Journal of Asian Studies, August, 42:4, 832CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Greenough, Paul R. (1980), ‘Indian Famines and Peasant Victims: The Case of Bengal in 1943–44’, Modern Asian Studies, 14:2, 207, f.n. 6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

⁴⁶ Greenough, ‘Indulgence and Abundance. . .’ (1983), p. 847.

⁴⁷ Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy Reviewed’ (1993), p. 347. Srimanjari, a historian of War-time Bengal, partly agrees with Greenough about the ‘relative lack of protest among the famine victims’ and the ‘vulnerability of certain groups—particularly women, young children and the elderly’. She, however, shows ambivalence in explaining these phenomena. For consideration of the lack of protest, she sides with those who provide economic and political explanation such as the absence of national freedom and famine-induced physical weakness of the people. On the other hand, the exclusion and abandonment of the weak family members are sought to be explained through an argument given by Greenough about the culturally-determined role of the korta (head of the household) in a Bengali family , Srimanjari (2000), ‘War, Famine and Popular Perceptions in Bengali literature, 1939–1945’, in Pati, Biswamoy (ed.), Issues in Modern Indian History, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, pp. 281–284Google Scholar. At another place, however, she points out that the people sometimes did resort to attack and looting, particularly for food, during the Quit India Movement in 1942 preceding the famine, , Srimanjari (1998), ‘Denial, Dissent and Hunger: War-time Bengal, 1942–44’, in Pati, Biswamoy (ed.), Turbulent Times: India 1940–44, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, p. 48Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ The peasants and landlords in most of Premchand's literary world belong to the Awadh region in North India. Although sometimes the neighbouring Banaras region is also depicted, Premchand's focus is basically on the agrarian conditions and relationships in Awadh, as Ramvilas Sharma has pointed out, Sharma, Ram Vilas (2006, 1952), Premchand aur Unka Yug (Premchand and His Era), New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, pp. 218–219Google Scholar. The Awadh region was marked by particularly inequitable agrarian relationships. Here the landlords were given disproportionately large powers over the peasants, most of whom were reduced, through administrative decrees, to tenants-at-will. See Siddiqi, Majid Hayat (1978), Agrarian Unrest in North India: The United Provinces, 1918–22, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing HouseGoogle Scholar; Kumar, Kapil (1984), Peasants in Revolt: Tenants, Landlords, Congress and the Raj in Oudh, 1886–1922, Delhi: ManoharGoogle Scholar; Pandey, ‘Peasant Revolt and Indian Nationalism’ (1982); Metcalf, Thomas R. (1979), ‘From Raja to Landlord: The Oudh Talukdars’, in Frykenberg, Robert Eric (ed.), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History, Delhi: ManoharGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁹ Metcalf, ‘From Raja to Landlord’ (1979).

⁵⁰ Premchand (Premashram), p. 15.

⁵¹ VP I, pp. 174–182.

⁵² VP I, pp. 258–269.

⁵³ This may also be traced to a general tendency amongst people to speak nostalgically about the past. However, in an Indian context, it is also more religiously grounded with the conceptualization of the present as Kaliyug, the worst age in an ever-recurring cyclical time in which the past was always better than the present. For a detailed discussion in the context of Bengal, see Sarkar, Sumit (2005, 1997), ‘Kaliyug, Chakri and Bhakti: Ramakrishna and His Times’, in Sumit Sarkar, Writing Social History, New Delhi: OUPGoogle Scholar. In Premchand, the references to the Kaliyug are there, but not frequently. He refers more to the living memory, VP III, p. 207.

⁵⁴ Premchand (Godaan), p. 73.

⁵⁵ Ibid., p. 23.

⁵⁶ Ibid., p. 27.

⁵⁷ Premchand (Premashram), p. 247.

⁵⁸ Ibid., p. 76.

⁵⁹ Mansarovar (Selected Stories of Premchand) [1997], 8 volumes, MS 1 to 8, New Delhi: Prakashan Sansthan.(Hereafter MS). MS 2 p. 123.

⁶⁰ Premchand (Premashram), p. 153.

⁶¹ MS 8.

⁶² The Oxford India Premchand, p. 48.

⁶³ Ibid., p. 2.

⁶⁴ VP II, p. 481.

⁶⁵ Ibid., p. 501.

⁶⁶ Ibid., p. 503.

⁶⁷ Ibid., p. 506.

⁶⁸ Ibid., p. 509.

⁶⁹ Premchand (Premashram), p. 187.

⁷⁰ Ibid., p. 141.

⁷¹ Ibid., p. 7.

⁷² VP II, p. 493.

⁷³ Premchand (Premashram), p. 48.

⁷⁴ VP II, p. 495.

⁷⁵ VP II, p. 488; James Scott writes about the risk-averse nature of the subsistence peasantry: Scott, James C. (1976), The Moral Economy of the Peasant. In Premchand's world also the only innovation is the growing of sugar cane which serves basically as a means of getting cash for payment of rent or taxes. Shahid Amin explores the linkages of sugarcane production to the tax structure of the land settlement. Amin, S. (1982), ‘Small Peasant Commodity Production and Rural Indebtedness: Culture of Sugarcane in U.P., c. 1880–1920’, in Guha, Ranajit (ed.), Subaltern Studies, I, New Delhi: OUPGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁶ VP II, p. 497.

⁷⁷ MS 4, pp. 138–143.

⁷⁸ Premchand (Godaan), p. 6.

⁷⁹ Ibid., p. 36.

⁸⁰ Ibid., p. 51.

⁸¹ MS 7. A story with the same title, written in 1916, literally meaning that the gods reside in the village council which imparts impartial justice.

⁸² MS I, ‘A Winter Night’ (1930).

⁸³ Edelman, Marc (2005), ‘Bringing the Moral Economy back in. . .to the Study of 21st-Century Transnational Peasant Movements’, American Anthropologist, 107:3, 332CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁴ Much has been written on this issue. For example, Sudhir Chandra thinks that Premchand ‘seemed lost when confronted with the need for a solution’, Chandra, Sudhir (1985), ‘Premchand: A Historiographic Review’, in Panigrahi, D.N. (ed.), Economy, Society & Politics in Modern India, New Delhi: NMML & Vikas Publishing House, p. 437Google Scholar. A.R. Desai criticizes Premchand for not being able to ‘systematically build a theoretical critique of capitalist system’, for not comprehending the ‘role of emerging proletariat as the basic force, which alone could provide the leadership for ending the entire capitalist exploitative system even in colonial hinterlands’, for not understanding that even in the countryside ‘this class alone could provide the basic solution, under its own leadership, for the problems of pauperization and proletarianization’. According to Desai, the basic problem with Premchand was that he ‘could not transform himself into a radical Marxist’, Desai, A.R. (1986), ‘Munshi Premchand: An Appraisal’, in Sharma, Shiv Kumar (ed.), Premchand: Our Contemporary, Delhi: National Publishing House, pp. 25–26Google Scholar. On the other hand, there are critics who are intent on proving that Premchand had already achieved a revolutionary stance. See Singh, K.P. (1976), ‘Prem Chand's Ideology’, Social Scientist, 5:3Google Scholar. In both views, there seems to be an obsession with a revolutionary solution.

⁸⁵ Premchand (Godaan), p. 21.

⁸⁶ Premchand (Rangabhoomi), p. 73.

⁸⁷ For a detailed discussion on this novel, see Upadhyay, S.B. (2010), ‘Resisting Colonial Modernity: Premchand's Rangabhoomi’, in Bel, Bernard, et al. (eds.), Communication Processes, vol. 3: Communication, Culture and Confrontation, New Delhi: SageGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁸ Ray, Rajat K. (1986), ‘The Rural World of Tarashankar Banerjee: Social Divisions and Psychological Cross-Currents’, in Robb, Peter (ed.), Rural India: Land, Power and Society under British Rule, New Delhi: Segment BooksGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁹ Godaan has been interpreted by some scholars as depicting ‘the unabated cynicism’ [Pandey, , Geetanjali (1989), Between Two Worlds: An Intellectual Biography of Premchand, Delhi: Manohar, p. 178Google Scholar], and ‘the outrage of everyday life’ [Zook, Darren C. (2005), ‘The Outrage of Everyday Life: Disillusionment, Despair, and the Endless Search for Justice in Premchand's Godaan’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, n.s., XXVIII, 3].. But, as Gordon C. Roadarmel, the translator of Godaan, correctly points out, there is ‘a hopeful note despite the tragic end of the protagonist’ (p. xx). However, he seeks to pin this hope on certain changes of heart by the end of the novel, and not on the steadfast struggle of the peasants, Hori and Dhaniya, in defence of what they perceive as the moral order.

⁹⁰ Premchand (Godaan), p. 436.

⁹¹ Vasudha Dalmia (2007), in her ‘Introduction’ to Godaan (The Gift of a Cow) (English translation by Gordon C. Roadarmel, New Delhi: Permanent Black), speaks about ‘the hollowness of such pious acts’. This act may be hollow in purpose but not in intent. Such substitution has been a part of Hinduism for centuries, and was crucial for popularizing Vedic rituals. Thus the substituted gift of cow at the end of Godaan is not meaningless, unless we speak in purely secular-scientific terms. From the point of view of a Hindu peasant, it is deeply meaningful. A few drops of water from the river Ganga, and the gift of cow will work towards the salvation of Hori. However, it is deeply ironical, and Premchand resorts to this irony time and again. The person, who died wishing for a cow all his life, receives the substituted gift of it after his death. As Ghisu says in ‘Kafan’ (The Shroud, 1936), one of Premchand's best stories: ‘What a rotten custom it is that somebody who didn't even have rags to cover herself while she was alive has to have a new shroud when she dies!’ OIP, p. 237.

⁹² Premchand (Godaan), p. 434.

⁹³ For a relatively detailed discussion on ‘Kafan’, see Upadhyay, S.B. (2002), ‘Representing the Underdogs: Dalits in the Literature of Premchand’, Studies in History, n.s. 18:1, 77–79Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ MS 5 (1928).

⁹⁵ Premchand (Rangabhoomi), p. 5.

⁹⁶ Premchand (Premashram), p. 202.

⁹⁷ VP II, pp. 507–508.