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A Comparative Study of Dalit characters in Premchand’s The Shroud and

Bandhumadhav’s Poisoned Bread

Article · March 2020

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Studies in Indian Place Names ISSN: 2394-3114

Vol-40-Issue-50-March -2020
(UGC Care Journal)

A Comparative Study of Dalit characters in Premchand’s The

Shroud and Bandhumadhav’s Poisoned Bread

Dr. Govindaiah Godavarthi and S M Fasiullah

Department of English

Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad, T.S.

Emails: govindmanuu@gmail.com; smfasiullah@gmail.com

Abstract:

Munshi Premchand produced numerous works of fiction that shed light on life and culture of
people belonging to Indian villages. A majority of population of India dwells in rural areas with
Dalits being in considerable number. In the works of Premchand, people from lower strata and
castes also find space. He was one among many Indian writers who painted realistic picture of
the downtrodden classes and castes. Right from Om Prakash Valmiki to Bandhumadhav, many
Dalit writers narrated their own experiences in various forms of literature. Through a
comparative analysis, this paper looks at characterization of Dalits in two short stories, namely
Premchand‘s The Shroud and Bandhumadhav‘s Poisoned Bread.

Keywords: Munshi Premchand, Kafan, Bandhumadhav, Poisoned Bread, Dalits Characters

Introduction:

Literature reflects the society. Characters reflect people and their customs, rituals and ideologies.
Creation of characters in works of fiction is a creative exercise. The writers draw inspiration
from the society to create characters. They add suitable shades to make the characters look
relevant to the story. Powerful characterization makes writers great. A Shakespeare becomes
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immortal because of the characters he creates. And his characters become indelible part of the
readers‘ memories. Therefore critics have been focusing their attention and investing their
energies in analyzing fictional characters and characterization. This paper also critically looks at
the Dalit characters created by two different writers, namely Munshi Premchand and
Bandhumadhav. Before delving into details of characterization and their characters, it is pertinent
to look at what constitutes ‗Dalit‘ and Dalit identity, and place the two writers in context.

Dalit Identity

‗Dalit‘ is a word that comes from Marathi, the language spoken primarily in the Indian state of
Maharashtra. It is translated variously as ―ground‖, ―crushed,‖ or ―broken to pieces‖ in the past.
In the government parlance, Dalits are Scheduled Castes. Scholars working in the area of Dalit
literature understood and interpreted it distinctly and differently. Anupama Rao points out that
‗Dalit‘ denotes both a community and an identity which are being shaped (1). But Arjun Dangle,
a Dalit literary critic from Maharashtra, calls Dalit to those who were persecuted and exploited
culturally, socially and economically because of the religion and other reasons. He also argues
that rather than a caste, Dalit a realization that encompasses struggles, sorrows, joys and
experiences of the people from the society‘s lowest strata (lii-liii). In India, there are various
castes that still remain in the lowest strata of the society including untouchables. These
untouchables, called with various names like Mahar, Mang, Chamar etc., had been
―dehumanized by the caste Hindu order‖ (Rao 1). These people had been excluded from the
society‘s mainstream and denied expressing themselves in the Hindu caste order (Saini 439). In
the wake of India‘s nationalist movement for freedom, a band of writers realized the need to
represent people from lower castes and the oppression they face in day to day life in the country.
The publication of Untouchables by Mulk Raj Anand brought a turning point at national scene,
while Munshi Premchand continued realistic portraying of sufferings endured by lower caste
people living in Indian villages. In the meantime, Dalit Panthers began asserting their identity of
being Dalits and narrating their own experiences.

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Premchand and Bandhumadhav

Munshi Premchand was a prolific writer of Urdu and Hindi fiction. His actual name was Dhanpat
Rai, and he belonged to upper caste in the Hindu caste hierarchy. He lived in Northern part of
India and tried to portray a realistic picture of Indian villages in his fictional works. Though
being part of the upper caste, Premchand was often praised for bringing into limelight the
sufferings of people from lower castes through his short stories and novels. He attained
reputation for creating his narratives around social problems, village lives and people from lower
strata of the society. In his stories, he sympathizes with the oppressed classes and castes. Unlike
his novel Godan, Alok Rai (2008) argues that Kafan drew negative criticism for poor
representation of Dalits and their societal conditions, especially from writers and critics
belonging to the Dalit community. He was concerned with the caste system‘s inhumanities but
received harsh criticism for his short story Kafan.

Unlike Premchand, Bandhumadhav hailed from one of the lower castes in the Indian state of
Maharashtra. He was a Marathi writer, and rose to prominence with the publication of a short
story titled Poisoned Bread. The story sheds light on categorization in the Hindu society in terms
of caste (Singh 129). It was part of a collection of poems, short stories and essays titled
‗Poisoned Bread‘, which set a new trend in Dalit literature. He was active during 1960s in
shaping what is called Dalit identity and literature. He also wrote Ramai, a life story of Ramabai
Bhimrao Ambedkar in Marathi. These two writers differ drastically in their identity, social
upbringing, economic background and in many other respects. This paper analyzes how these
writers portrayed Dalit characters with respect to the short stories The Shroud and Poisoned
Bread.

Dalit Characters in Kafan and Poisoned Bread

Munshi Premchand‘s short story Kafan was translated into English as ‘The Shroud’ by Frances
W. Pritchett. The story is about father-and-son duo—Ghisu and Madhav—who belong to a lower
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caste and live in an Indian village. Set in an unknown village presumably in Northern India and
populated predominantly by peasants, The Shroud has three main characters—Budhiya, Madhav
and Ghisu. Budhiya is Madhav‘s wife. These three characters are chamar, a lower caste whose
primary job is leather tanning. The village has a Zamindar or landlord, a wine-shop, among many
other things. In the very beginning of the story, Premchand portrays the family of chamars as
―notorious in the whole village‖. The notoriety of the family comes from the father and son, who
have been depicted as penniless, notorious ―slackers‖ who are indifferent to pain and suffering of
a woman. When Budhiya was enduring labor pain in her hut, Madhav did not care and failed to
attend to her the whole night. They are shown as beggars, frauds, selfish and drunkards. In
addition, they have been shown as thieves as ―they had dug up‖ potatoes from ―somebody‘s
field‖. The two collect money and other stuff for the last rites of Budhiya. Whatever money they
get to buy the shroud and perform last rites, they end up drinking and feasting with that money.
They get food and happiness because of her, but fail to provide her the shroud at death. It shows
they are callous and selfish. The unheroic qualities in both the major characters in the story of
Premchand create a negative image about poor laborers from the Dalit community.

On the other hand, Poisoned Bread is a story of a Dalit in his own words. Mhadeva, the
protagonist and narrator of the story, reveals the suffering and humiliation faced by him and his
grandfather Yetalya for being Mahar at the hands of upper caste Babu Patil when they go to seek
labor work at his threshing floor (Bhuyan 334). Elderly Yetalya, who is fully aware of his
position in caste hierarchy and the dire need to find a loaf of bread for survival, greets Patil
politely and submits himself: ―I am your slave… My Lord is our bread-giver… I am your
begging mahar and feel proud to be so.‖ But Patil responds with contempt and humiliates
Yetalya: ―Don‘t give me that line, you‘re no longer the mahar – mangs of the good old days to
beg… You are now Harijans! You‘ve even started claiming equality.‖ Yetalya shows enormous
patience in the face of humiliation and his self-conscious grandson Mhadeva attempts to assert
himself but gets schooled by Patil and his fellow upper caste man. After the sour start, Yetalya
manages to find some work at Patil‘s threshing floor and completes it with hard work. When
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time comes for paying Yetalya, Patil again humiliates him. Yetalya gets stale bread contaminated
with bovine urine. Even then Yetalya does not lose patience and respectfully lifts up the bread,
which turns poisonous when cooked at home and takes life of Yetalya. The Dalit characters in
Poison Bread are self-consciousness and have values of hard work and patience in them. They
show restrain even when humiliated by upper caste landlords. They courageously fight poverty
and social conditions imposed on them. Whereas the characters in The Shroud are shown to have
negative values of slackness, stealing, and apathy towards suffering of woman. In this story, both
the major characters are hardworking and self-conscious. Unlike Ghisu and Madhav, they lead a
respectable life despite abject poverty and subjugation in a social order.

Conclusion

The two stories reveal how Dalit characters have been portrayed differently by Premchand and
Bandhumadhav. The former is a non-Dalit writer and the later is a non-Dalit writer. Known for
championing the cause of downtrodden and people oppressed under inhumane caste system,
Premchand attempted to portray a realistic picture of the conditions of Mahars but fails to
provide positive characteristics to his two Dalit characters in The Shroud. On the contrary,
Bandhumadhav also shows the suffering of lower caste people but gives positive characteristics
to his Dalit characters. It makes two writers poles apart in characterization of Dalit characters.

***

References

Bandhumadhav. ―Poisoned Bread.‖ Poisoned Bread, translated by Ramesh Dnyate, Orient

BlackSwan, 2009, pp. 167-175.

Boruah, Alimpa Bhuyan. ―Bandhumadhav‘s ―The Poisoned Bread‖: A Mapping of Dalit

Consciousness.‖ IJELLH, vol. III, no. IV, June 2015, pp. 330-337.

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Dangle, Arjun. ―Introduciton: Dalit Literature Past, Present and Future.‖ Poisoned Bread, edited
by Arjun Dangle, Orient BlackSwan, 2009, pp. xix-xlviii.

Premchand. ―The Shroud (Kafan)”, translated by Frances W. Pritchett. Columbia University, 31

Jan. 2020, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/kafan/translation_kafan.html.

Rai, Alok. ―Poetic and Social Justice: Some Reflections on the Premchand—Dalit Controversy‖.
Justice: Political, Social, Juridical, edited by Rajeev Bhargava, Michael Dusche, Helmut
Reifeld. Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., 2008.

Rao, Anupama. ―Introduction.‖ The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India.
University of California Press, 2009, pp. xiii-1.

Saini, Rajni. ―Mulk Raj Anand and Om Prakash Valmiki As a Representatives of the Unheard
Voices: A Study of Untouchable and Joothan.” IJELLH, vol. IV, no. XII, December 2016, p.
439.

Singh, Jayshree. ―Dalits‘ Existence and Environment in the Literature of Margins: "Poisoned
Bread by Arjun Dangle"‖. RJELAL, vol.2.2.2015 (Apr-June), pp. 128-131.

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