Chapter IV

Politics of the Popular: Contestations within the Field

Part I

Introduction
This chapter examines those examples, which stood on the thin dividing line
between high and popular literature. Though some could straddle both fields
successfully, this was also the period when the politics of differentiation had begun
to acquire graver proportions. The attempt in this chapter will be to locate those
processes through which some writers, texts etc. were first hailed and then
condemned by the literary establishment. I have chosen two specific instances to
probe these questions. The attempt is first to locate those texts, which got a
widespread approval, and then to examine the ways in which their producers fell
from the eyes ofthe literary establishment. By establishment I mean not only the old
schools dominating the debate over literary aesthetics but also certain institutions
like the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and universities like Banaras Hindu University.
More importantly, the attempt is to locate the different writers' position within the
interplay of these institutions. The debate over literary and non-literary also involved
the question of just who had got the requisite sanction to discuss these matters. In
this respect, even political figures with their institutional backing through certain
journals, political patronage_etc. tried to carve a niche for themselves. In view of the
reasons behind the immense popularity of some of the texts examined here, the
question that needs to be asked if their popularity also lead to their exclusion from
the hallowed precincts of highbrow literature. This will be discussed in the next two
parts with the help of two specific instances; it is also necessary for us to take a
general look at popular print-production. It is also important to look at those texts,
specifically novels which could be categorised as nothing but simply catering to 'the
popular reading classes'.

Early debates on the form of novel

It is important to note that even as the debate on popular versus elite was underway
for long, the debate around the novel was, a rather new phenomenon as the genre
itself was comparatively recent. Even then, with the immense popularity of

160
Devakinandan Khatri's Chandrakanta series type pseudo historical-thrillers from the
late nineteenth century onwards, a debate had already been initiated about the form
and utility of the novel. Though a part of this debate has been discussed in the third
chapter itself, some of the early conjectures on this theme would not be out of place
here. One of the early figures of this century, Chandradhar Sharma Guleri, was
among the first to launch a tirade against the novels of the above-mentioned type.
His main two targets were Kishorilal Goswami and Khatri, both of whom were
immensely popular. While Khatri, as pointed out earlier, mainly wrote novels thinly
disguised as historical adventures with replete with magical world of tilisms;
Goswami was famous for social-adventure romances, often accused of crass
vulgarity in the name of proposing social ideals. Guleri, himself a well acclaimed
storywriter and critic, while accusing Goswami of imitating the popular British
writer W.E.M. Reynolds' characters (who according to him was himself a 'cheap'
writer) argued:
Now we ask all of you, is there anyone among these characters (of
Goswami's novels) through whom our hearts get solace, our souls and lives
get sublimated; depicting whom Goswamiji could uplift wretched insects
like us in accordance with his duty? No one!. .. Putting out of the lamp by
Gulab and making Shambhu sleep with him, Batukprasad's treachery, the
sarvanash (rape) of Chameli inside the rail, the stripping of Kamini, these
images are really very dirty; What kind of inspiration (the term in original)
is found in them? 1

The very use of the word inspiration indicates the deep impact of contemporary
Victorian aesthetics that had also made Reynolds its target, despite his immense
popularity2 . A long debate ensued- between Guleri through his journal Samalochak
and the writers of Sudarshan and Shri Venkateshwar Samachar of Bombay. While
Sudarshan was published by Lahri Press, Kashi, owned and edited by Devkinandan
Khatri, the latter was a weekly from Bombay run by Marwari businessmen. Guleri's

1
Chandradhar Sharma Guleri, 'Kishorilal Goswami ke Upanyas', Samalochak (monthly), Jaipur,
Sept. 1903 (Vishwanath Tripathi ed., Chandradhar Sharma Guleri: Pratinidhi Sankalan, National
Book Trust, N. Delhi, 1997, pp. 29-33).
2
W.E.M. Reynolds (1814-79) whose extremely popular The Mysteries of Court of London (depicting
the underbelly of London) was serialised for twelve years, had an immense impact on the Hindi
writers and readers as well. Several translations of his novel under the title Lundan Rahasya
continued to be published for long. Large-scale, full-page advertisements were placed in many
contemporary periodicals throughout the period of our discussion. One of the typical examples of the
contemporary Victorian attitude towards Reynolds was that of John Parker, who while
acknowledging the 'well penned' and 'artistically wrought' elements in his novel, claimed that his
appeal was to tlle young men and women of 'imperfect moral education' and that they "fearfully
stimulate tl1e animal propensities of tlle young, the ardent and tlle sensual". See, Victor, E. Neuberg,
Popular Literature: A History and Guide, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1977, pp. 161-7.

161
 debates with Khatri through their respective journals went on for quite some time.
Khatri in fact in a series of charges went on to allege that it was the commercial
success of his books (rather books published from Kashi) that had become a thorn in
the flesh for Guleri. In response to this Guleri wrote a long rejoinder systematically
replying to most of these charges. According to him, if only commercial success was
the reason for criticism, why did not people criticise Tulsi Das' Ramayan, which
sold, much more than the novels of Kashi. For him, the purpose of criticism (italics
mine) was to reform the taste of the people. Guleri argued that whereas novels such
as Macbeth, Kadambari, Mary Price and Faust used certain supernatural props to
further the story and to show the hidden emotions of the human beings,
Chandrakanta was nothing without such props: 'Dry skin and bones and the
tasteless language ofDevakinandanji ... it is too empty to be looked upon! (Italicised
words originally used in English) ' 3 Upon the defence of Chandrakanta on the
grounds of 'tradition', i.e. by citations from Gadya-Kavya Mimansa, a classical
treatise on prose mentioning different categories of novels that included 'historical,
imaginary and mixed' (mishra), Guleri in return, cited the negative opinion on
'unnatural' descriptions from the same text. More importantly, he further argued
that,
Even as the origins of prose-poetry might have been laid out by our old
acharyas, but modem novels have been modelled on the western novels.
Even though we had taught the West the prose form through things like
Panchtantra, but European novels have played a big role in the creation and
life of present novels .... Europe also has a right to be heard in this
matter ... .it is evident that the writing of hyper-real romances has been dealt
a severe blow. 4

Guleri while evidently following the contemporary debates on the moral criticism of
such novels in the West was also insisting on adherence to realism. He was also not
averse to accepting the fact that despite debates over tradition, the contribution of
the West towards certain literary forms needed to be acknowledged and their model
emulated. In the same debate, the role of certain institutions acting as an arbiter, was
also touched upon. While around this time (early years of the twentieth century), it
was the people under attack, i.e. Khatri et al, who asked for setting the debate by an

3
Chandradhar Sharma Guleri, 'Sudarshan ki Sudrishti', Samalochak, Oct-Nov. 1933 (Vishvanath
Tripathi op. cit., pp. 34-42.)
4
Ibid.

162
institution like Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Kashi (henceforth KNPS) 5, later, it were the
people like Banarasi Das Chaturvedi, who argued that the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan
be brought in. It is also important to note that KNPS at this time was still in its
infancy (set up in 1893). Yet the attempts to use them to sort out literary battles had
already begun. This time it was Guleri who promptly rejected such a proposal. The
common element in both the cases was that it was the writers who defended their
autonomy against any outside intervention by an institution.
A contemporary figure like Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi wrote a separate piece on the
role and utility of the novel. Accepting that initially it was meant for only
entertainment, he went on to define a new role for it in the changed scenario.
These days there is an abundance of books titled upanyas. Out of these
almost ninety five per cent are not novels in any way, whatever else they
might be .... The time has gone when novel was merely thought of as a
medium of entertainment for two hours. Sitting idle; let's read something.
Can't pass the time; let's read Chap/a or Chanchala (a dig at the two
popular novels of Kishorilal Goswami, making his titles generic for 'useless
stuff'.) Novel should be the crown of the community life (Jatiay jeevan ka
mukut). 6

Dwivedi thus followed his by then -familiar line of literature for utilitarian purpose
and in this case too, it was for social and community reform. Thus for him, all forms
of literature were merely different garbs to impart education to masses in a rather
interesting way. Yet there were figures emerging and writing during those very years
who used different mechanisms to traverse all these areas.

Some popular figures

The important thing to note is that before the arrival of Premchand on the novel
scene, the novel as a genre was popular despite objections by some writers like
Guleri and Dwivedi over its contemporary form and uses. Thus Khatri and
Kishorilal Go swami reigned over the market of the novel. Even as the attacks began
to become gradually stronger and the attempts to find a respectable place within the
'respected' genres took shape, the popular novel always remained around as it
helped to further the 'cause' of Hindi by attracting people to learn it. This actually
was the only credit granted to these novels by the established critics of the day. It

5
It is to be noted that around this time Khatri himself was an important figure within KNPS. See,
Shyamsundar Das, Meri Atmakahani, Indian Press, Allahabad, 1957.
6
Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, 'Upanyas Rahasya', Saraswati, Oct. 1922. Also see, Bharat Yayavar ed.,
Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi Rachnavali, Kitabghar, N. Delhi, 1995, pp. 99-105. .

163
would be important to discuss two authors of this genre in brief. The first among
them is Gopalram Gahmari, probably the most well known detective novelist of his
age. Beginning his career as a teacher and a journalist (as the editor of the
prestigious Bharatmitra of Calcutta), Gahmari wrote more than one hundred and
fifty novels and plays, mostly detective (many of them translations or 'inspired'
from other languages mainly, English). He also published and edited a periodical
called Jasoos (1900-39), the only detective periodical of its kind. It eventually
closed down, surprisingly, due to lack of readership. Interestingly, Gahmari
throughout his life remained associated with the various ongoings in the literary
sphere and also held many positions of authority. He also participated in the major
debates of his time for example, by taking Sridhar Pathak's side against Pratap
Narayan Mishra, supporting the cause of Khari boli as against Braj bhasha.
Interestingly, despite continuous tirades against his kind of writing by the
'establishment', he got his place among 'the makers of Hindi' ('Hindi ke Nirmata')
in the second volume of the series written by none other than Shyam Sundar Das.
It's a different matter that Das praised Gahmari only for his use of simple and
comprehensible language. 7 Gahmari's titles like Ajeeb Lash, Khooni Kaun Hai,
Gadi mein Khoon etc. were a rageofhis times. While evaluating his contribution, a
contemporary writer interestingly argued that even as the 'detective novels helped in
solving the complex problems of life', they were still not worthy of being counted in
the sthayi sahitya (durable literature). 8 The ambiguity thus remained vis-a-vis such
popular genres till late.
Another figure to be mentioned in this context is that of Harekrishna 'Jauhar' (his
pen name which he had adopted due to his early love for Urdu). In some ways
Jauhar's career graph is even more interesting. Beginning his career with Urdu-
writing which he left for the 'national cause' of Hindi, he went through various turns
in his life. From being a successful editor of various newspapers (including Hindi
Bangvasi of Calcutta which shot upwards from a mere three thousand circulation to
seventeen thousand during his tenure), he moved on to write extremely popular
plays for Parsi Theatre companies and later film companies before switching back to
editing the prestigious Shri Venkateshwar Samachar. During his first tenure as

7
Shyam Sundar Das, Hindi ke Nirmata (Bhag 2), Saraswati Series no. 69, Indian Press, Allahabad,
pp. 16-21.
8
Kunwar Rajendra Singh, 'Hindi mein Upanyas aur Natak', Veena, 1930, pp. 964-9.

164
editor, he helped set up the Calcutta branch of Nagari Pracharini Sabha in
association with Saint Nihal Singh, a popular intellectual of his period. Interestingly,
his career as a professional playwright began when he went to the owner of the well-
known Madan Theatres as part of a delegation to plead for the use of' Shuddh' Hindi
instead of the one 'corrupted' by Urdu and Persian. He was hired by the owner and
became one of the most successful playwrights of his time. Interestingly, this was
the time, i.e. early 1920s, when Nirala and his associates in Matwala had launched a
tirade against the so-called vulgar and cheap plays of Parsi Theatre companies in
favour of an idealised notion of 'cultured' Hindi plays. Jauhar also wrote novels
which again had titles like Bhooton ka Makan, Nar-pishach, etc. On the other hand
he also wrote books on history (such as on the Russo-Japanese war, Afghan wars
etc.), popular sciences, plays of social and political ideals like Savitri-Satyavan,
Patibhakti, Veer Bharat etc. and interestingly translations of Shrimadbhagwat,
Adhyatm Ramayan, various Purans etc. Thus despite a major campaign against so-
called vulgar and cheap novels, plays etc., the producers of these works also wrote
tracts of moral and religious ideals, something which was the agenda of Dwivedi -led
Hindi establishment. Popular Hindi writers also remained closely associated with the
activities of the proponents of high Hindi participating in various movements led by
them. This phenomenon went simultaneously with the gradual hierarchisation within
the popular genres like novels and plays. Thus while popular writers like Gahmari
and Jauhar occupied one end of the Hindi spectrum, a novelist like Premchand
(despite his immense popularity) and Jaishankar Prasad (despite his commercial
failure as a playwright) remained on its other end, gradually gaining prominence in
the high literary pantheon. This happened despite serious differences among
Premchand and Prasad over the treatment of prose form.

The role of advertisements

The influence of the moralist and reformist ideals of the times was so complete that
they remained important grounds on which popular novels were sold. It will be
imperative in this context, to cite from some of the advertisements of these tracts
that continuously appeared in those very journals engaged in a tirade against them.
Among various such advertisements were the eight-page leaflets released by
Upanyas Bahar, Kashi cataloguing its popular publications with short notes on each
title. Interestingly many of them were the Indianised 'novel' versions of plays of
165
 Shakespeare, Mahabharat etc. apart from other titles. The notes also referred to
many of these texts being the 'photographs' or 'true reflections' of reality, again
reflecting the attempt to accommodate people like Guleri's criticisms on this ground,
though even Reynolds' novels were defended on these grounds 9 . Some of the
examples are:
Kaali Nagin (based on Julius Caesar): The way it has been laced with
scene-sceneries and honey-dipped (chuhachuhate) songs, in the same way it
is packed with moral education.
Khwabe Hasti: To those people who hope to be happy through evil deeds,
it's a burning example. It is a photo of how happy is the end-result of true
love. It is also counted among the famous plays (khel) of the Parsi drama
companies of Bombay. 10

The use of the term khel indicates its direct acknowledgement of the West as it is the
literal translation of the word 'play'. This incidentally was different from natak, a
word reflecting the quest for an 'indigenous' term by the aspirants of high Hindi.
There were advertisements attracting people over fictional accounts of. battles
between 'Hindu dharm virodhi' Aurangjeb and 'Hindu-Pran' Yashvant Singh as
well as that of the lavish and corrupt life styles of the Muslim Nawabs laced with the
stories of palace-intrigues. Thus,
Nawabi Paristaan: If you want to witness the depravity of Lucknow's
(Awadh) infamous Nawab Wajid Ali Shah; the sensational story of his
times; his puzzling .secrets and.the secret of-his palace; the cleverness of the
beghums; the horrible acts (bhayanak lee/a) of his lovers (chahetiyon); the
shocking punishments etc. and want to roam around their Kaiserbagh and
have the pleasure of their palaces while sitting at home, then read this
novel. Price I Rs. 11

So while Muslim rulers were shown as morally depraved, this also became a point of
attracting the readers by promising to give them a realist pleasure of the 'inner
happenings' of the palace. The cry for realism thus served a different kind of
purpose for these publishers. From one end, by attempting to depict the lives of the
ordinary masses to the other end of trying to produce 'the real pleasures' of lavish
lives, it was thus 'realism' as a genre which held sway. It was in this context that
writers like Ugra devised a formula for combining the two and were immensely
successful. But they were later to be targeted on precisely these grounds. Another

9 N euberg, .
op. ctt.
10
'Upanyas Bahar, Kashi ki Sarvottam Pustaken, Shreshthatam Natak', Maryada, Feb. 1916,
monthly, Allahabad.
11
Ibid.

166
 aspect of this realism was the belief in literature as evoking the exact emotions
according to the scene described in a melodramatic fashion. This in fact could be
taken as a continuation of the earlier oral traditions of kissagoi, dastangoi, which
also got transferred to the new medium of cinema. One of the notes from the same
advertisements thus was again a combination of various such elements:
Kashmir mein Hulchul: ... One will have to admire Kanakprabha's integrity
and defiant acts for saving her honour (satitva-raksha); some times tears
will come to your eyes or some times you will be chewing your own lips in
sheer anger or the blood will appear in your eyes while reading the
wickedness of Jubbar Khan and Azim Khan's cruelty and depravity. You
will have to give kudos (wah-wah) after reading Mahatma's courage,
Maheshwar's patience and Fateh Sinh's bravery. Price 10 annas. 12

Not only the assertion of the advertiser is towards evoking a moving image in the
minds of the readers and thus hoping to create the resultant reaction but importantly,
the idea attempt-is to create an imagery where everybody is drawn inside a coliseum
in the middle of a battle. In the novel, the style still was closer to a play and hence
justifying the indigenous name khel. But as argued earlier, the attempt was also to
highlight the moral 'benefits' of these novels. This on one hand was definitely the
outcome of the general agenda of moral and social reform set for literature in that
period and on the other hand it was determined by the aims to push the sales of the
book through various official channels. Hence in the same series of advertisements
we find,
Trailokya Sundari: This novel has turned out to be so much educative that
even the Textbook committee of Punjab has praised it. (emphasis added)
How God makes the Truth prevail, how dharm wins in the end etc., various
educative things like these have been written in this. Read it and get
educated for free. Price 10 annas. 13

There were many elements involved in the production and circulation of these
novels. They chose to use an ambiguous language to perpetuate their readership
while simultaneously underlining its salacious parts in order to target their 'real
audience'. Even as a concrete campaign went underway to oust the practitioners of
popular novels from the domain of high literature, such attempts did not succeed till
late. In the process while the form of these novels did undergo a transformation, the
idea of literary aesthetics also went through various combinations and mutations.
Even as late as 1928, a prestigious literary journal like Sudha, whose editorial group

12
Ibid.
13
lbid.

167
 boasted of people like Nirala, could not fully do away with them. Hence while they
published books on 'popular history' like Prithviraj Chauhan, Tantia Bhil (a tribal
dacoit popular for his Robinhood image and hanged by British); and books on
Tajirat Hind (Criminal Procedure Code), Manu Smriti, Durga Saptashati; and also
popular themes like Shyama Rahasya, Tara Rahasya, Bhairavai Chakra, Mesmerism
Shiksha, Dakni Vidya (Hypnotism Shiksha) etc. Though novels of the above
mentioned type always remained a staple diet for the reading classes despite regular
lamentations and injunctions against them, even works on themes like different type
of rahasyas and magic and tantras were regularly advertised and sold in great
numbers. Thus prestigious literary journals waging a war against such texts were
dependent upon the sale of these very texts published fromtheir press to survive.
Though exact data of their sale is not available, popular literature sold far more than
any ofthe books slotted in the 'high literature'. In this respect a writer like Ugra on
an individual scale and journals like Chand, Hindu Panch and Matwala devised new
formulas not only to survive but also to boost their sales manifold. The success of
I
these endeavours was achieved on a tight ropewalk. Very soon the fissures were to
re-appear. Their success and the subsequent fissures are the concern of my next two
parts.

Part II
Representing the Popular: Ugra's ChandHasinonKeKhutoot
(Letters from some Beautiful people) 14
Section 1
Introduction
This part of the chapter attempts to explore the possible common ground between
the popular and elite notions of literature in the colonial context. It is important also
to locate these conflicting notions at a time when these notions were themselves in a
formative stage and the boundaries between them were quite fuzzy. I have taken
Pandey Bechan Sharma Ugra's Chand Hasinon Ke Khutoot as a possible example

14
Though the term Hasina literally means a beautiful woman, it is not to be confused with Hasin,
which includes both men and women, and thus, I've translated it as beautiful people in the context of
this novel. Anyway, the letters in the novel are by both women and men. The novel henceforth will
be referred to as either CHKK or Khutoot.

168
for exploring these ideas. The novel, which was first published in a serialised
version in the then famous journal Matwala, went through several editions in a very
short span of time. The first edition was sold out within a month of its publication
and within the first year itself three prints had come out. The tension that operates at
various levels within this novel made it extremely popular among wide sections of
the Hindi reading classes. An attempt is made to inquire into the author's avowed
adherence to the genre of realism in the novel. It is argued that by exploiting the
possible loopholes within this principle, the novel tried to construct or create a
reality by which certain stereotypes of Hindu- Muslim relations were reinforced and
a subtle agenda of Hindu nationalism was simultaneously put forward. It is my
intention to analyse the novel in its contemporary concerns and to explore its
politico-literary interface. Ugra and his novels proved to be possibly the last instance
where the literary establishment as well as the masses concurred in their approval.
But even this was to be short-lived as the politics of defining popular vs. elite, high
vs. low literature gathered momentum.

Hindi novels and the contemporary literary scene before Ugra

By the time Ugra emerged on the Hindi literary scene, novel writing had already
entered its Premchand phase. Before Premchand, there were two distinct trends,
which also enjoyed a wide readership. One was the type of pseudo-rational, pseudo-
historical fantasies like Chandrakanta by Devakinandan Khatri. The other trend was
represented by Kishorilal Goswami's novels, which again were either portrayals of
palace-intrigues or sensationalist (to the point of being termed as vulgar) pictures of
the contemporary society, while simultaneously projecting the absolute idealist
characters in contrast. By the early twentieth-century, the criticism of these rampant
trends had begun to acquire pace. People like Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, and
Chandradhar Sharma Guleri vehemently criticised these novels for projecting
15
falsehood by citing examples from British realist novels. Even though there
always remained a debate about the extent to which 'Realism' as a Western genre
was to be adhered to, the time had come when critics began to stress the need for

15
Referring to 19th century English novelists like George Eliot, Guleri castigated both these styles
tongue in cheek, "You write novels of two types: one is those extraordinary and impossible acts of
spying (aiyari) and tilisms which were never there, nor would ever be possible even if science
progressed to an unlimited scale. Second, to portray those ideal pictures of home and society that are

169
literature to talk of common people. Of course it had to be done through a distinct
sense of high culturalism. It is not coincidental that Ramchandra Shukla, who wrote
the pioneering work on the history ofHindi literature in 1929, did not give any space
to the novels prior to the coming of Premchand. Chandrakanta' s contribution was
accepted only to the extent that it motivated a large number of people to learn Hindi.
In an age of growing nationalism, the socio-political role of literature began to get
precedence over entertainment. It had to be combined with a realist genre, which
16
claimed to give voice to the hopes and sorrows ofthe common people oflndia.
Premchand' s emergence by the early 1920s with Sevasadan, his first published
17
novel in Hindi, and a little later Premashram, heralded a new age. With its new
realist style, his Premashram defined a new criterion of literary aesthetics as well as
that of common popularity. Published in the heyday of the Non-co-operation
movement and the peasant movement of Awadh, the novel was primarily read as a
political document of its times. Premchand himself stressed on the twin criteria of
literature: the projection of social ideals and entertainment. 18
It was this negotiation between 'a realistic portrayal' and 'a social ideal', which
remained at the centre of the debate over realism. The conflict simultaneously
operated between 'a western principle' and 'a need for hope' in the contemporary
circumstances. As an 'Indian ideal', Premchand sought refuge in Adarshonmukh
Yatharthvaad or an idealist realism. Most of his contemporaries also came round to
this view.
Nevertheless, by the late 20's, barring Premchand, not too many authors managed to
stick to this method. Premchand too had started experimenting. In 1927, the year
Chand Hasinon Ke Khutoot was published, Premchand's Kayakalp also came out.
Apart from having the usual overtones of Hindu-Muslim unity, anti-colonial, anti-

not known in present and were there only in distant past and even then in imagination". 'Hindi ke
Upanyas Lekhakonke Naam', Samalochak, Jan.-April1905.
16
To quote Meenakshi Mukherjee, " ... but a novel is necessarily bound by its historical and
geographical co-ordinates. An organic product of a specific environment in a particular society at a
given point of history, the novel crosses the frontiers of culture less easily than a fable or an
allegory". Meenakshi Mukherjee, Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India, OUP, N.
Delhi, 1994, p. 5.
17
Shukla, while praising Premchand especially pointed out the fact that, "some of the characters of
his novels showed such a natural individuality, that most of the people felt that they had seen them
somewhere or the other". Ramchandra Shukla, Hindi Sahitya Ka Itihaas, Nagari Pracharini Sabha,
Kashi, 28th edition, Samvat 2051, p. 294.
18
"We have to admit that whatever reforms have taken place in the western countries in the last few
centuries have been sowed by the novels", Premchand, 'Upanyas Rachna', Madhuri, 23 October
1922.

170
zamindari positions, the novel also talked about the transmigration of souls and
bodies. It is not surprising that most of his later critics have sought to sweep this fact
under the carpet with an almost apologetic air. But his contemporaries saw this as
his growing bend towards spiritualism and thus a sign of maturity. Realism
meanwhile continued to remain the widely accepted principle 19 . Quite a few years
later, while defending Ugra against the charge of vulgarity, another noted critic
wrote in almost parallel terms, 'the discussion of vulgarity that comes in Ugra's
20
realistic descriptions is the means and not the end. ' Another of his later novels was
Ghanta (1937), a historical spy thriller in the backdrop of the first World War.

Ugra's emergence as a writer

By the late 20's, Ugra emerged with the credentials of depicting 'the gory realities'
of Hindu society, which simultaneously outlined the need for wide scale reforms.
Coupled with an innovative and humorous style, Ugra generated a lot of enthusiasm
within the contemporary literary world. Noted critic Ramchandra Shukla admired
Ugra for 'bringing forth scandalous pictures of hypocrisy and sinful activities
happening in the name of modern civilisation, social reform, religion, business,
government work etc. ' 21 Even the large-scale advertisements of his work sought to
underline this fact. His works were thus considered successful exposes of the
supposed evils oflndian society like prostitution and homosexuality.
Ugra' s claim to authenticity came from his real Jife experiences. Born in a poor
family, .he became a 'vagabond' at an early age and toured various parts of the
country with a Ramlila troupe, where his two elder brothers also worked. 22 He was
also exposed to the other popular versions of theatre. He used many of these devices
in his novels. Intermittently exposed to education and literature, he was spotted by
the acclaimed editor of Aaj, Pandit Baburao Vishnu Pararkar. Soon, he began to
write regularly and even edited an issue of Swadesh, published from Bhagalpur,
which was proscribed for its clear political overtones. Ugra was imprisoned for nine

19
Even earlier, while replying in defense of the fantasy element in Chandrakanta on the lines of
comparable novels in English, Guleri wrote that "while in these novels (British), extraordinary events
help in furthering the story, in Chandrakanta, the story helps in furthering the extraordinary events"
in 'Sudarshanki Sudrishti', Samalochak, Oct-Nov, 1903.
20
'Hindi Katha Sahitya Se', Chand Hasinon Ke Khutoot, 8th edition, Ugra Prakashan, Mirzapur, p.
142.
21
Karmendu Shishir, Matwala Manda/, Pehal booklet, Bhopal, Nov-Dec 1988, p.26.
22
He has vividly outlined these experiences in his autobiography Apni Khabar, Rajkamal Prakashan,
N. Delhi, 1984 (first published 1960).

171
 months. Equipped with these patriotic credentials, Ugra joined Matvala, a journal on
satire, published from Calcutta. Nirala and Shivpujan Sahay who were also
associated with the journal were soon to be sidelined by Ugra's enormous
popularity. The extent of his success was such that his novel, Dilli Ka Dalal sold
eleven hundred copies within a month and a half in its first edition. 23 About Khutoot,
Ugra admitted later that he had become rich overnight soon after its publication.

The Novel
It is in this twin backdrop of the contemporary literary scene and Ugra's past that
one has to locate Khutoot, not to forget the wider politico-social connotations this
entailed. Written with the avowed aim of projecting Hindu-Muslim unity, the novel
was an experiment even at the level of form, as it was written as a collection of
correspondences between a few characters in the novel. The characters are
introduced in all of 6 letters. Events are discussed in the flashback mode,
anticipating a later cinematic device. There is a discussion of society and its tenuous
relationship with individuals.
At the centre of the novel lies the love between a Hindu boy, Murari Krishna and a
Muslim girl, Nargis. The hero hails from Prayag and the heroine from Lucknow.
Both are studying in Calcutta and reside in different hostels. They are projected as
representative of their communities and hence the cities they belong to. Prayag is the
centre of education of modern Hindus and Lucknow is the traditional seat of Muslim
culture. The story begins with an account of the romantic interlude between Murari
and Nargis in a football match where Murari plays brilliantly and Nargis falls for
him. The villain of the piece, Yakub is also introduced. As the story proceeds, we
come to know of the obstacles that come in the way of the lovers, including
objections from their respective families. Except for Nargis' sister-in-law and
Murari's friend, Govind, everybody is against the match. The climax comes with the
onset of Hindu-Muslim riots in Calcutta, where Yakub finally manages to kill
Murari. The novel ends with Nargis shunning her religion and vowing to live the life
of a true Hindu widow in memory of Murari. All these incidents are recounted in
flashback through the letters between Murari and Nargis, Murari and Govind and the
rest through a letter ofNargis' sister-in-law to her husband.

23
Karmendu Shishir, Matvala Manda/, op.cit., p.28.

172
The Themes
We now come to a more detailed study of the levels at which the novel operates. It
displays a unique tension between a realist setting and melodramatic sequences
(with heightened theatricality), heavily charged dialogues and a
colloquial/conversational style peppered with English-Urdu words. There is a
palpable tension between the extreme individualistic notion of modern love and a
more romantic one drawn from traditions of folklore, traversing the entire gamut of
physicality and spiritualism. This tension is reinforced by the author's avowed
aspirations to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity on one side and a parallel
demonisation ofMuslims executed in the crudest manner possible.
To take up the language aspect first, there are usages of a conversational language,
appropriate to the English educated student community. An example could be cited:
'The game resumed. Just before that the captain of the college team called out-
"Mr. Murarikrishna .. !" A fair, tall and handsome looking youth who played from the
forward answered-"Beg Your Pardon!" "Be Carejuf', the captain cheered him up,
"Try your utmost, ~on 't lose."[The italicised words have originally been used in
English.]'. 24
This style also takes a humorous turn, when it uses puns by mixing words of Hindi
and English. Thus, 'After enquiring among friends I found out that Shrimatijee is a
studentaa of the local girls' college'. 25 Here the Hindi word, Chhatra has been
"
turned into studentaa. Again, 'Bravo! What a getup! Which beauty's fort is to be
decimated?' (The word beauty here has been used as in original.) 26
Roland Barthes has pointed out that the reality effect in fiction is not created by a
literal copying of reality, but the use of certain codes of communication to persuade
us to accept the illusion of reality: by giving us details, literally 'untrue' as they
are.Z 7 The use of available standard devices to produce a realist effect in the novel
are a plenty.

24
Ugra, op. cit., pp. 40-41.
25
Ibid, p.52.
26
Ibid, p.57.
27
Roland Barthes, The Rustle of Language, Blackwell, 1986, pp.l41-8 (first published 1967). To
quote him further, "This mixture - this interweaving- of constraints has a double advantage: on the
one hand, aesthetic function, giving a meaning to 'the fragment' halts what we might call the vertigo
of notation; for once, discourse is no longer guided and limited by the structural imperatives of the
anecdote (functions and indices), nothing could indicate why we should halt the details of the
description here and not there; if it were not subject to an aesthetic or rhetorical choice, any 'view'

173
The discussion of events, their settings, the references to contemporary public
personalities give the impression of a very contemporary realist setting. For
example, the addresses of letters like- Miss Ali Hussein, C/o Khan Bahadur
Muhammad Hussein, Hazratganj, Lucknow or Sri Govind Hari Sharma, Lathi
Mahal, Cawnpore (p.47) or Zakaria Street, Calcutta (p.93) and last but not least, the
last letter written by Govind to the editot of the contemporary periodical Pratap,
known for its clear political overtones gives the reader an impression as if he is a
witness to contemporary happenings. Similarly, references to contemporary
personalities like Marx, Lenin, Tolstoy and Gandhi, particularly referring to the
latter's role in the ongoing national movement again tend to authenticate the events
of the novel. To make it more specific, the contemporary works of Hindi literature
too, like Premchand's Sevasadan, Maithili Sharan Gupt's Bharat Bharati etc. are
referred to. In the beginning itself, the event through which the characters are
introduced is a football match between the Indian students of the local college and
the British soldiers' team. It had a clear echo of the famous match between
Mohanbagan and the British team where the former had defeated the latter and
gained immense popularity in a nationally charged atmosphere. Here too, the
winners are the Indians and their best player is Murari. But simultaneously, an
element of improbable fantasy operates as well, as the Indian student's team, which
was trailing by three goals after the first half, won the match 5-3, thanks to all the
five goals made by Murari. The super-hero thus is shown operating in a
contemporary setting. The most important reference to its contemporaneity is the
recently erupted Hindu-Muslim riots in Calcutta, just prior to the publication of the
novel. Even Matvala where the novel was serialised had adopted a rabid communal

stance, which resulted in the imprisonment of its publisher-editor, Mahadev Prasad
Seth. It is in these circumstances that the events unfold, making it look like one of
the innumerable stories of individuals caught in the quagmire of their turbulent
times.
Yet, on the other hand, we come across highly theatrical and emotionally charged
dialogues within these settings:

would be inexhaustible by discourse: there would always be a comer, a detail, an inflection of space
or colour to report; on the other hand, by positing the referential as real, by pretending to follow it in
a submissive fashion, realistic description avoids being reduced to fantasmatic activity (a precaution
which was supposed necessary to the 'objectivity' of the account) ... "

174
 Are you listening? Right now your Nargis is not in her senses. With her
closed eyes she worships an idolator. She worships a kafir---Do you listen,
one who never remembered Khuda in her heart, recites the name of Murari.
(In this context it is important to point out, that while Murari is the name of
the hero, it is also another name for Krishna, the Hindu god, thereby being
counterposed to the supposedly Muslim Khuda.) 28

W~ile a highly romantic and devotional notion of love seems to be projected in this
case, interestingly, the language as one witnesses, peppered with quotes with Urdu
poetry, gives it a form of stage performance. It is this constant tension between a
seemingly contemporary and realist setting and a volley of dramatic monologues,
which keeps the attention of the reader riveted besides betraying the contradictions
inherent in the times.
Even the chain of events, the entry of various characters etc. seem to be lifted from a
modern Hindi commercial film. The first meeting between the hero and the
heroinetakes place when Nargis is going back with her friends after the football
match. Her shoelaces get slightly loosened up. In the meantime she sees Murari
coming with his friends and she deliberately takes time in tying them up so that she
can get a chance to speak to him. In other sequences, very often the hero or heroine
breaks into full-fledged songs whenever feeling lonely. There is a long sequence of
quawwali, when Nargis and her angry father go to a Sufi friend's house. While they
are listening to it, Nargis intermittently tries to point out the spiritual significance of
the lines of the song to her father. But he is already attentively listening to it. Again
the sequence anticipates a familiar cinematic device, at a time when talkie films
were yet to come on the scene. Thus it is more, resonant of the contemporary
p-opular Parsi theatre style. Ugra himself had a long training in theatre, as mentioned
earlier, which is used by him cleverly to produce a dramatic effect within a realist
setting.
The love theme, which is at the centre of the story, has surprisingly only one love
letter, i.e., from Nargis to Murari, out of the total of seven letters. Nargis' sister-in-
law writes another one to her husband. While the usual rhetorical ideal of love is
repeated umpteen times with dialogues like, 'Our greatest religion is love, devotion.
We don't accept as anything greater than love (not even God); Love is the soul of
29
the world'. Through this idea, while the novel on one plane argued for, 'Come,

28
Khutoot, op. cit., pp.40-41.
29
Ibid, p.73.

175
 let's help those engaged in spreading Universal Brotherhood' (again the term used
as in original), it simultaneously sought to project this love through a purely modern,
individualistic sensibility,
I consider all the prophets and incarnations of this world- not more than-
'humans'---Let's announce that we are first human beings, then a Hindu or
a Mussalman or somebody else ... .Today's world has become tired of
religion, rituals, caste, groupism, white, black, Hindu, Muslim. People are
in a hurry to find a better way out for the freedom of the humans. 30

The reference to the modern individualism and its supposed liberating aspect is clear
in the last lines, and yet, it simultaneously referred to the collective notions of
tradition and a plea for unity through the respective religious identities and not by-
passing them. This flux between the two ends runs throughout the novel. The novel
implicitly also stressed the inadequacies of modernity as well, as it was the
'traditional' father of the heroine who eventually accepted her love but not her
modern educated lawyer brother or Yakub. Of course this also becomes a device to
stereotype the Muslim characters in a negative manner.
The other element in this modern love, which simultaneously negotiates the popular
versions, is the way in which it breaks the taboos, undeclared censor on depictions
of passionate, physical love as witnessed in the detailed description of the kissing
sequence among the lovers. Even before and after this sequence, the corresponding
friends while recalling the past refer to the intense physicality (almost bordering on
homosexuality) that they enjoyed. The hero even likens Nargis to Govind by
writing, 'Eyes like you ... lips like you', and sums up the letter on the note that, 'If
you are coming to Calcutta then be prepared to leave your religion. Because I have
kissed a "Musalmanin" and you will have to kiss me'. 31 Interesting! y Murari
addresses Govind as Mere Priyatam something, which is generally reserved for
lovers. Bordering on blasphemy in many ways, breaking religious barriers, accepted
social norms, etc the references also perhaps outline the premises on which 'popular
literature' rested itself. It at the same time strove to cut across the high and
moralistic Hindi literary aesthetics.
It is in the same vein that the modernist agenda for social reform is also put forward
in respect to the women's question. Asghari, Nargis' sister-in-law, questions the

30
Ibid, pp.74-75.
31
Ibid, pp.51, 62

176
patriarchal set up of society (particularly Muslim society once again) in a letter to
her husband:
Your remark on the women of this country was one of a kind. Please
forgive your wife's audacity, but have the men taken it upon themselves to
control the women's heart and mind, religion and world (din-o-duniya),
heaven and hell? Woman should love only those whom men approve of?
Should only that person be accepted by her? 32

Yet in the same letter, she keeps addressing him as Mere Aqa, Mere Malik,
eventually pining to run to him, who is living away from her. This again reflects the
continuing tension between the two types of conflicting ideals: one, that of a
thinking and independent woman, the other that of a traditional woman, emotionally
dependent upon her husband. The same ambivalence is evident when Govind in a
letter to Pratap editor attacks the hypocrisy of Sanatan Dharma. According to him
even though it is not hesitant to entertain Muslim prostitutes, it shies away from
accepting Muslim women into its fold. But in a different letter addressed to his
mother, Murari, referring to Yakub's threats argues, 'He has challenged me in the
name of your milk; has challenged Hindu community (jati) and has threatened to
destroy a Hindu's love-idol'. 33 While the 'love-idol' referred to, is Nargis, the
heroine of the novel, thereby relegating her to the status of a personal property-of the
male and that too a Hindu one, it also contrasts starkly with the earlier progressive
statements of Nargis' sister-in-law on the rights of women. This is not simply a
matter of the two different views of the two different characters, rather, it again
underlines the latent tension between the-supposedly new ideas of progressivism and
the inherent prejudices of the-contemporary society, including those of the author.
After all, the above mentioned quote comes from the Hindu hero of the novel,
Murari, who has been portrayed from an idealist standpoint. Another thing to be
noted in the quote is the profusion of Sanskritised vocabulary like Hindu ki hriday-
pratima. This happens particularly when Murari begins to speak of the Hindu-
Muslim conflicts. The shift in the vocabulary from a more colloquial and a
conversational language to a rhetorical and sanskritised one is perceptible (as it
happens spatially as well in a more secular setting like college, football ground etc.,
and in direct debates on Hindu-Muslim relations through letters). This also reflects
the changing character of the Hindi language in those times. The tensions underlying

32
Ibid, p.68.
33
Ibid, p.l20.

177
the around Hindi-Urdu debate get reflected through distinct situational usage of
distinct vocabulary, thereby reflecting the clash of two distinct mind sets.
The ultimate 'persecution complex' of the Hindus gets illustrated a little earlier in
the same letter:
All are ready to give away life like dogs and nobody is prepared to die like
a lion. This is not only ours but also present-day Hindu community's great
weakness. And our Muslim friends benefit out of this weakness of
ours .... We don't want to sacrifice our lives for our principles, our religion,
our gods. 34

The earlier plea for love on purely individualistic grounds (against communal
ghettoism) is evidently sidelined in this instance. This was also the standard
rhetorical device of exhorting the Hindus to unite against the Muslims by harping on
the supposed organisational strength of the adversary. The contemporary periodicals,
literature etc. are full of such instances. As if to reinforce the castigation of the
whole ofthe Muslim community, a Sikh taxi driver is introduced in the end, who is
quoted by Govind as saying that it was the Muslims who deceived the Hindus and
35
were responsible for the riots.
The ultimate accusation comes from Nargis, the Muslim protagonist herself, who is
quite eager to learn Hindi from Murari,_reading Premchand, Tulsidas, Maithilisharan
Gupt and Chatursen (thereby converting this whole corpus automatically into the
Hindu fold, though the last two of them did betray such tendencies in their writings
overtly). But she warns him not to come to see her,
Don't come, don't come---Muslims have attacked a procession of the
Aryasamajis. This mohulla is filled with the Muslims. All of them
fundamentalists, thousands of them dangerous, hundreds of them
lumpens! 36

The dialogues certainly seem to emanate from a non-Muslim rather than a Muslim
mouth. In the end after getting to know the fate of Murari, she not only declares
herself as a Hindu widow but also vows to avenge his death by exhorting others to
destroy that 'evil religion' (shaitani majhab). 37
The novel ends with Nargis singing a ghazal of Bahadur Shah Zafar. Yakub in all
this, is a typical Muslim treacherous character. Lecherous and hated by Nargis, he
becomes an enemy of Murari despite being his playmate and friend earlier. He even

34
Ibid, p.ll6.
35
Ibid, p.l28.
36
Ibid p.l07.
37
Ibid p.l38.

178
threatens to kidnap Nargis and eventually kills Murari as a part of a frenzied Muslim
mob. The important thing to note is that the much-mythologised image of the
Muslim marauder on the rampage (a heritage of Orientalist historiography) is
reproduced here within a contemporary realist setting.
Murari on the other hand dwells over the supposed goondaism of the Muslims by
which they had been kidnapping 'Hindu mothers, sisters, daughters and wives and
sexually torturing them' .38 The love between a Hindu male and Muslim woman in
this context thus turns into an ultimate victory of the Hindu community over the
Muslim. In the process it compromises both the Muslims as well the womanhood of
Nargis, almost as the metaphorical revenge of the Hindus, despite Murari's
'glorious' death.
Ugra in the preface of a much later edition of the novel (8th edn., year not
mentioned) pointed out that he had deliberately toned down or changed a few words,
which concerned 'our Muslim brothers'. He denied thinking of writing another
Khutoot in the present circumstances focussing on Hindu-Muslim relations.
According to him the times had changed. 39 (emphasis added)
Another aspect, which needs to be looked in to, is the trope of space. It is important
to note that while the male protagonist, Murari, comes from Prayag, the traditional
seat of the Hindus (despite its then growing reputation as a modern seat of learning);
Nargis, the female protagonist, comes from Lucknow, the traditional seat of the
Muslims. And they both meet in Calcutta, the modern day metropolis, an entirely
British creation. While it could be read as the symbolic breaking away of the
traditional bonds and the meeting of the two individuals on supposedly modern,
rational grounds; the pitfalls in this reading become evident as one begins to look
carefully. First of all, the city of Calcutta depicted in the novel is not a city of
Bengalis (there is not a single Bengali character in the novel), rather it is a city of
migrants. It is a city where everyone has come to redeem oneself, both financially
and to seek an identity. Apart from the protagonists, there is the villain Yakub, again
from the north India. Then there is mention of a Marwari gentleman, at whose place
the hero's best friend, Govind, stays during his visit to the city. Even the taxi driver,

38
Ibid, pp.llG-7. Even in Premchand' s Kayakalp, it is a 'Muslim goon' who tries rape one of the
Hindu protagonist girls, even as his saintly religious father saves her from being punished. The
contemporary Hindi periodicals were full of news captions talking of Muslim goons abducting Hindu
women.
39
Ibid, p.6-7.

179
 coming in the end, is a Sikh. Among other minor characters described in the city
include the English Governess of the Girls' Hostel. The city on the other hand is
portrayed as Calcutta only through its name. No specific characteristic of the city is
mentioned, through which the reader could identify its character. This, thus, leads
one to assume as if these characters are suspended within a self-enclosed world, far
away from the supposed modernity denoted by the city. It is a place where the
protagonists meet as if in a suspended space, as atomised individuals. It is this
contradiction between the supposedly modernising aspect of Calcutta, which its
name evokes, and the above-mentioned autonomous, closed spaces of the migrants,
which remains present as a palpable tension. Despite umpteen talks of modem,
individual and rational relations, the given pre-modern identities of the different
characters resurface in the end, resulting in the riots. And it is in this sense that the
novel could be seen as 'realistic' and not in the fantastic and theatrical depiction of
love.
This further brings us to another aspect of its form. The novel seems to transform
into a 'kitsch', as a mixture of two forms: one, outgoing, the element of medieval
romances (as depicted in the idealised, Sufi love of the protagonists), and the other,
emergent, the prose form of the novel itself. 40 While the element of medieval
romance tends to reinforce those hierarchical values, whereby the hero turns in to a
Hindu warrior (albeit without a sword) and the heroine, forever ready to be
subservient to him (so much so that she declaims herself to be a Hindu herself by the
end of the novel), the form 'Of the novel genre itself, by its egalitarian mode, forces it
to bring out the contradictions inherent in such a position.

Reactions to Khutoot
The reactions to Khutoot were ecstatic. The apparent realism of the novel had
excited the people so much that one of his innumerable readers, sent him a
questionnaire asking a set of questions like,
Can you please send me the details about the condition of both the parents
after the killing of Murari Krishna? ... Can you tell me the exact story from
six to seven hours prior to Murari's death till five to seven hours later? Did
this incident trigger off some special activities in Calcutta? [and

40
Arnold Kettle, An Introduction to the English Novel: To George Eliot, vol. I, Hutchinson, London,
1977, pp.28-36 (first published 1951). Kettle has sought to juxtapose the medieval romances and the
modern novels within their specific historical milieu.

180
 eventually], 'can you please send the photographs of these two lovers, if
yes, then please tell me the cost'. 41

Even as the above quote could be taken as an extreme instance m which the
communal stereotyping of Muslims coupled with the public cause of Hindu-Muslim
unity and other themes was internalised by a reader, other responses were equally
enthusiastic if not so bizarre. Many of these were further used as advertisement
captions for the novel. In another personal letter to Ugra, the noted socialist leader
and later UP chief minister, Sampooranand praised the novel for it's 'new style, new
42
ideals and new cultural agenda, in_ fact the real arya sanskriti'. Compliments came
from as far as South Africa, from where Bhavani Dayal Sanyasi, a prominent worker
among the migrant Indian labourers, termed the novel as literary bombardment on
the fallen state of current Hindu society. 43 Premchand too promised to write a
detailed review. Makhanlal Chaturvedi, the noted editor of Karmveer, and a literary
practitioner himself, reviewed the novel in these words:
The writer has described some such characters in this novel, through whom,
one learns a good deal about social reform and love ... There is passion in
the author's language, an evidence of commitment, and most importantly,
the power to understand a lover's heart, away from the spoiled ideas of the
world. 44

The key to success, therefore, was a combination of experimental, yet entertaining

language and social commitment. One of the reviewers complimented the novel for
strengthening both the pillars: literary sanskara and social reform and prophesises
that 'every book lover will embrace it, every social reformer will keep it on his
head and every literary practitioner would consider it as his ideal'. 45 These were the
possible sections, i.e., the lay book lover, the social reformer and the literary
practitioner, catering to whom Khutoot eventually became so successful, even as no
questions were raised regarding its vilification of the Muslims.
The question that troubles one is in what ways does a particular text achieve
acceptance across the board? Even if there_ are several strands that run through
Khutoot, the question remains as to what guaranteed its wide-ranging success?
Scholars have pointed out that a text cannot be read in the same fashion by all. The

41
File or profile (a collection ofletters to Ugra), Radhakrishna Prakashan, Delhi, undated, pp.483-4.
42
File or profile, op. cit, p.430, 31-8-1927.
43
File or profile, op_ cit, p.240, 11-2-1928.
44
Chaturvedi, Makhanlal, 'Samiksha: Chand Hasinon Ke Khutoot', Karmveer, 18 June 1927. Taken
from, Shrikant Joshi ed., Makhanlal Chaturvedi Rachnavali, vol. 5, Vani Prakashan, Delhi, 1995.
45
File or profile, Anoop Sharma, op. cit, p. 33, 03-8-1927.

181
 reading of a text depends on a variety of factors that include its capacity to attract
people ranging from the specialist to. those not really skilled and still grappling with
the existent traditions of orality. 46 The latter was particularly true for the then Hindi
reading public. Miniscule as it was, even the literate section was trying to grapple
with the meanings conveyed by the new typographical and textual for:._ms. In this,
they were aided by the kind of writing Ugra came up with, e.g. an intermixing of
theatrical mode with that of the prose narrative form offered by the novel as a genre.
His presentation of the novel in the form of correspondences between the principal
characters, tended to give it a level of intimacy enjoyed by both, an upcoming
middle class looking for its private, individual spaces as well as an outgoing public
brought up on the staple diet of collective participation between the performers and
the audience, for example in the cases of Nautanki, Ramlila etc. In this sense, it was
able to bridge the seemingly wide gap between a differentiated reading public (even
in a little literate society like that of contemporary Hindi) with their distinct norms
and conventions of reading, distinct instruments and methods of interpretation. 47
This was further accentuated by the differing expectations and interests with which
the distinct groups of readers approached the novel, as exemp,lified in our discussion
of the varying responses to the novel, from the lay to the sophisticate. 48 In this
context, it is also important to note the way in which the established critics sought to
project a dominant critical view by praising it for its supposed high ideal of nation
building, Universalism and Hindu-Muslim unity. At the same time not a single critic
even made a cursory gesture towards an almost scandalous portrayal of the villainy
of the Muslims. While this does illustrate the extent to which some of the
stereotypes had made inroads in the contemporary setting, it also indicates how these
stereotypes were further reproduced through everyday churning out of such works,
particularly through contemporary periodicals. Yet as has been argued by several
authors, literary works do not simply reflect the dominant ideologies of their times,

46
For example see, Roger Chartier, The Order of Books: Readers, Authors and Libraries in Europe
between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Polity Press, 1994, p. 4.
47
Ibid.
Pierre Bourdieu has pointed out tha~ "If historical works are produced in objective historical
48

situations and institutional frameworks by agents using different strategies and following different
trajectories in the field, the reception of such works, regardless of the level of that reception, also
takes place in specific historically constituted situations. Works have significance for certain groups
and individuals based on their own objective position, cultural needs and capacities for analysis or
symbolic appropriation". Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and
Literature, ed. and introduced by Randall Johnson, Polity Press, 1993, pp. 20-l.

182
but very often they also seek to militate against them; that too not necessarily with
the consent of the author. 49 In the case of Khutoot, it seems to happen in many ways.
From the supposed vulgar description of the intense sexuality depicted in the novel
(in a way liberating the stifled aspirations of an extremely conservative society), 50 to
the rebelling voices of modern individualism (interestingly coming from its female
protagonists as against their patronising male counterparts), the novel at various
points seemed to rebel against its own conservative ideals of man-woman
relationship, that of womanhood, and a rather limited prescription for a conflict-
ridden society. It is in this sense that the importance of the reading of Khutoot lies
today, apart from the urge to understand the processes in which a society responds
towards a certain text.

The Attacks
The questions that were raised about Ugra's credibility ultimately lead to his
downfall from the literary establishment which targeted his commercial success, a
taboo for high literature. The other objection to his novels was on the grounds of its
apparent vulgarity. Yet there were other forces also working in the drama that
ensued shortly.
In 1928 itself, Banarsidas Chaturvedi began a movement targeting Ugra on the
grounds of commercialism and terming his works as Ghasleti through his journal
Vishal Bharat published from Calcutta. It is interesting that Chaturvedi's journal had
begun to be published, only from January 1928. It is important in this context to
dwell on Chaturvedi's background in brief Chaturvedi by then had made his name
as a middle rank Gandhian leader and was also in good terms with C.F. Andrews
and Tagore. He was involved in focusing on the plight of migrant Indian labourers,
and with the aim of creating a wider platform to raise such concerns that he was
made the editor of the journal launched by Ramanand Chatterji, the publisher-editor
of Modern Review. Representing a different generation of editors, he by his own
admission was not a connoisseur of literature. Simultaneously involved in
performing the mediator's job between the political and the Hindi world, taking
active part in the politics of institutidns like Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and ongoing

49
Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Post-colonia/ism, Routledge, London, 1998, p.74.
50
See for example, the discussions in the context of the contemporary Romantic movement in poetry.
Namwar Singh, Chhayavad. Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi, 1997 (first published 1955).

183
tussles between different literary groups and schools, he gradually began to
intervene in these debates. In this he mainly targeted the new emergent school of
Chhayavad poetry and the newly emergent writers advocating the cause of stark
realism. His allies in this project were old-school writers and critics like Padm Sinh
Sharma, he also acknowledged increasing authoritative role of Hindi Sahitya
Sammelan, which anyway by then had begun to perform the role of an arbiter over
disputes between journals, writers etc. directing them what to write and what not to
write.
Chaturvedi especially picked up Chaklet (October 1927), a novel centred on the
issue of homosexuality and cited even Gandhi's criticisms to substantiate his claims.
Inevitably the moralism of high literature and the predominance of Gandhian ethics
coalesced together enlarging literature's involvement with the public arena in a way
and yet, circumscribing its scope at the same time. It was only in 1950 that
Chaturvedi revealed that after reading the novel, Gandhi had taken his objections
back in a letter addressed to him, but Chaturvedi had not brought this fact before the
public at that time. But Chaturvedi's battle was also a part of the project of
establishing himself and his likes as the arbiters of Hindi literature. This was
particularly so because the 'authority' of Hindi literary field was still undergoing
contestations between those directly engaged in the literary production like Ugra and
Nirala and those involved in politics like Chaturvedi and Purushottamdas Tandon
etc. The latter through their direct involvement in the contemporary politics, sought
to direct the nature of literary production by also bringing in political patronage from
above. The institutions like Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, Nagari Pracharini Sabha,
Kashi and various journals under their direct control, became battlegrounds in this
respect. The high moralism as the aspired value of the contemporary Hindi
literature, and the battle for literary authority, thus were the two sides of the same
com.

Section 2
The Propaganda against Ghasleti Sahitya
This section of the chapter would take a look at the debates around the themes of
'vulgar literature' vis-a-vis the claims to 'hardcore realism'. Even as it is not directly
related to Khutoot the fact that its author had to pay the price of his immense success

184
 as he got embroiled in the fight over the battle raging around 'true literature' makes
this discussion imperative. In this respect the attempt is to go beyond Ugra and look
at the wider range of the texts that were brought within the ambit of this debate.
Around May 1928, almost a year after the publication of Khutoot and almost eight-
nine months after the publication of Chaklet, Chaturvedi began to write in his
editorials about the growing 'menace' of vulgar literature in the name of social
reform. The main targets were the then three immensely successful periodicals-
Chand (mainly devoted to women's issues but also famous for its special numbers)
for serialising a novel titled Ablaon ka Insaf, Hindu Panch (a rabidly propagandist
periodical of Hindu nationalism and similarly successful like Chand following the
same formula) for serialising a novel titled Vyabhichar-Mandir and Matwala (for
serialising a story titled Parde me in Paap) a periodical of satire brought by the likes
of Nirala, Shivpujan Sahay and Ugra himself (the first two of them had left it by
then due to differences with the publisher), Matwala had not received adequate
attention by the established people like Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and others. The
strategy of the attack was two-pronged. First, to expose them as simply writers of
pornography in the name of social-reform and harking for cheap success, and
secondly, as misguided writers who though might have had good intentions at heart,
had nevertheless gone astray by supplying titillating literature while attempting to
expose the ills of the society. In the former case, Chaturvedi et al went on to
compare them with the pornography-industry of the West giving detailed data etc.
In answer to these attacks_Hindu Panch hit back by sarcastically stating,
Let the society go into dumps, no need to bring it in literature! Literature
should always be pious ... Ifthe very attempt to sweep away the. dirt can be
termed bad and in this attempt the literature created for this purpose can be
termed as 'dirty', then we will be forced to say that the skull of the guy
calling everything dirty has become crammed with dirt. 5 1

The defence of the writers of these writings was that they were simply exposing the
ugly face of the society by laying bare its sores. Unless it was done, there would not
be any large-scale reform of the society. The form chosen for this was 'hard core
realism'. The topics ranged mostly around sex-scandals involving high and mighty
of the society; their other 'evil practices' etc. Interestingly quite a few years before
this movement began to acquire shape, Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi had taken a

51
Quoted in 'Sampadkiya Vichar' by Banarsidas Chaturvedi, Vishal Bharat, (monthly), June 1928,
Calcutta.

185
position along similar lines decrying the attempts to pass off 'ugly pictures' of life in
the name of realism. At that time though his target was Premchand. In defence of his
position he demarcated novel as a genre as something distinct from 'history' and
hence the need to project an ideal view of society. This was to be done for the right
psychological effect on the readers. 52
Chaturvedi by brushing aside the counter-allegations in return sought to bring the
matter before the 'public authorities' so to say. Thus he proposed that the matter be
referred to the former chairmen of Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. For this he proposed
names like Padm Sinh Sharma (the then editor of another literary journal Sudha and
a reputed scholar of Dwivedi school), P.O. Tandon (very influential through his
political stature and also as one of the founder members of Sammelan) and Sridhar
Pathak (again an 'old school poet' even preceding 'Dwivedi age'). He further
suggested that a specimen copy such as 'Vyabhichar-Mandir' serialised in Hindu
Panch could be sent. A motion to be presented before the participants in the
forthcoming annual session ofH.S.S. at Muzaffarpur was also proposed. Lastly, as
an ingenious method of psychoanalysis, he suggested that one such book be give to
twenty-twenty five boys studying in a college and the after-effect could be
analysed. 53 The first two proposals clearly show the way in which Chaturvedi was
trying to build up a movement through the help of an institution like H.S.S. and
helping it consolidate its authority to arbiter over literary tastes and the very
definitions of literature. In this endeavour, attempt was also to align with the
'established' people belonging to the old schools and hence people like Padm Sinh
and Sridhar Pathak. It was imperative because only with the support of these people,
'outsiders' like Chaturvedi and Tandon could get the 'consecration' necessary to
pass critical comments on the current literary practices. This could further be
achieved conveniently with the help of an institution like the Sammelan. Even as it
is difficult to impute any conscious design or conspiracy behind these acts, it was a
logical culmination of the ongoing battles of authority within and outside the literary

52
To quote him in full: "Some people believe that the novelist should not hesitate in showing the true
picture of society. My plea on this is that the novel is not history and not even a scientific creation so
that there would be a need to ponder over all its aspects. Then what is' the need to depict thieves,
dacoits, morally corrupt people etc. in it? If any such situation comes when it is necessary to do so
then it should be done in such a manner that it doesn't bring a bad effect on its readers. The novelist
who by depicting vulgar pictures instigates the animal feelings in the readers .. .is the enemy of the
society". Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, 'Upanyas Rahasya', Saraswati, Oct. 1922. Also see: Bharat
Yayavar ed., op. cit. pp. 99-105.
53
Chaturvedi, op. cit., June, 1928.

186
field. In this enterprise the larger question that always remained implicit was who
had the supenor authority, the 'direct producer' of literature or the
politician/propagandist. The last suggestion on the other hand showed the way
Chaturvedi as an 'outsider' to literary aesthetics current around that time, still
believed in the utilitarian value of literature in a strict sense; a legacy of Dwivedi
school. Chaturvedi's attempt was also to relate to an arena, (i.e., a public arena of
college boys in this case) whose functioning he was aware of as a public figure.
Chaturvedi went on to begin a regular column titled Ghasleti Sahitya inviting people
(mostly supporting his cause) to contribute their views on the matter.
Logically enough, in the subsequent July issue Chaturvedi went on to quote Padm
Sinh Sharma's critical views (as part of the speech given as chairman of the recently
concluded session of H.S.S. at Muzaffarpur) on the 'vulgarity in literature' to
strengthen his argument. Noting with satisfaction that all the questionable novels
being serialised in targeted periodicals had been stopped, he went on to quote
responses from Hindu Panch and Matwala as accepting his own argument. But
interestingly, the quotes themselves showed these periodicals stressing on the
autonomy of the writer to decide upon such 'complex' issues:
You have drawn the attention of this country's influential leaders and
newspapers/periodicals. But we believe that the writers themselves would
ponder over this question. They are not enemies of society or literature.
They will definitely correct their mistakes while safeguarding their
autonomy. 54

Chaturvedi in the same note, also-admitted that the proposed resolution (condemning
ghasleti sahitya) to be put in the Muzaffarpur session of H.S.S. could not be passed
due to the absence of the 'targeted' camp, i.e., supporters of ghasleti sahitya as also
due to lack of consensus on the issue. 55 The last admission makes two things clear.
First, many writers (particularly from the younger generation) did not accept the
legitimacy of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, and secondly, even till then the things
were still so much in flux that writers like Ugra could still escape from wholesale
censure and criticism by the literary establishment. This is also corroborated by the

54
Quoted from Hindu Panch, Ibid, July 1928. Interestingly, Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi in his
presidential speech at Gorakhpur session of HSS in 1930, even while criticising ghasleti sahitya,
cautioned against the over-propaganda against it as the danger was to give it more publicity. Not
himself a literary producer in a strict sense, he nevertheless was tempted like others to provide a
'guideline' for the Hindi literature. 'Bhasha aur Sahitya', the speech given at the annual session of
HSS at Gorakhpur on 2 March 1930. See Suresh Salil, ed., Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Sanchayan,
Sahitya Akademi, N. Delhi, 1998, pp. 276-93.
55
Ibid.

187
fact that no less than Padm Sinh Sharma of the old school himself in his December
editorial of Sudha, kept the criticism of Chaklet to a very mild tone while praising
Ugra's Khutoot wholeheartedly. While suggesting that Chaturvedi's inspiration
might have come from a similar ongoing movement against 'vulgar literature' led by
Bengali weekly Shanibarer Chithi published by the same Pravasi Press (the
publishers of Vishal Bharat), he went on to argue: 'There is no dearth of art in the
stories of Chaklet. Its language is mature. Yet this type of literature might be
harmful for the society'. 56 Interestingly the same session was also boycotted by
Chaturvedi's other target, i.e., the Chhayavadis, barring few minor figures of the
school. But while the former eventually got completely ousted by the establishment,
the latter eventually managed to throw the old people even as it took a long time for
the powers in universities to give them a space within their curriculum. The details
of this debate are given in the third chapter.
The August issue had a detailed review of Chaklet where the reviewer's name was
missing. Beginning with the mention that within three months of publication, its
second issue had already come out, it also mentioned the sixty page long preface
written by Ramnathlal Suman, a minor figure and supporter of Ugra, titled
'Aprakritik Vyabhichar ka Vaigyanik Vishleshan' (A Scientific Analysis of
Unnatural Sex-act). It also had a quote attributed to Young India (a periodical edited
by Gandhi): 'A public discussion on this very difficult and delicate subject has
become necessary'. Referring to another quote from Young India on the sixth page,
the reviewer clarified and criticised the attempt that the above-mentioned quote
came from an article written by a lady teacher and not by Gandhi as was sought to
be projected. Beyond the fact that both the sides were laying claim to the moral
authority emblematic in Gandhi, the debate was really around literary aesthetics
even though it did not remain the sole preserve of its practitioners. Giving his own
clarification that he was not a conservative man to bar discussion of 'such social
evils' from the public, the reviewer argued that instead of presenting in a critical
way as to repel the readers from such practices, such works sought to present them
in a very alluring way (particularly certain salacious scenes). He further went on to
decry Ugra's supposed effort to drag greats like Tulsidas, Shakespeare, Rama and

56
Padm Sinh Shanna, 'Sampadkiya' (under section 'Ghas1eti Sahitya'), Sudha, op. cit., Dec. 1928.

188
Krishna to depict the love between man and a young boy, the theme of the novel. 57
Interestingly in the novel also, the narrator decried such acts, but this was seen as a
legitimating effort on the part of the novelist himself and not the concerned
character. Further, while praising Suman's preface of the novel for its scientific
approach, he objected to reviwer, i.e., Suman's praise for Ugra's courage for a social
cause despite anticipating the brickbats coming the novelist's way in the wake of its
publication. In this long review, there was a note inserted by the editor (a regular
practise!) which claimed that the quotes were not being given from the novel simply
because they were so obscene as not to be fit for consumption by civilised society.
The review went on to proclaim it as being even more vulgar than the avowedly
cheap texts like Kissa Tota Maina, Raat mein Saat etc. available in the market by a
dozen. Decrying Ugra's own claim about his stories being 'pure quinine instead of
sugar-coated ones', he instead termed them as 'sugar-coated poison' and the worst
example of ghasleti sahitya. The last passage giving a set of proposals made it clear
that despite the absence of the name of the reviewer, it was Chaturvedi himself who
had reviewed the novel, because these proposals were same as that suggested earlier
by him in his editorials, e.g., the repetition of the demand that the matter be brought
before the authorities ofH.S.S. and the 'scientific analysis' of its effect over college
students. 58 In this whole review the important thing to remember is that barring one
singular reference there was no discussion of the novel in question but a general
diatribe against 'vulgar' literature in a highly rhetorical language. In the same issue
Chaturvedi in his editorial went on to ask the critics of ghasleti sahitya not to use
foul language against the authors and only restrict themselves to the texts. 59 While
the tone was obviously quite patronising, the projection of this superiority did not
come from the position of an established litterateur, which Chaturvedi evidently was
not, but from his public reputation of a Gandhian leader and his 'proximity' to
Gandhi.
In the next issue of Vishal Bharat, the column on ghasleti sahitya had three articles.
The first one went on to enlarge the scope of the debate by using a different term,

57
Anon., 'Samaloclma aur Prapti-sweekar', Vishal Bharat, Aug. 1928. It is important to note that
Ugra has described his witnessing to such practices during his childhood days of wanderings with a
Ramlila team. According to him, "it was due to the presence of his two elder brothers that he escaped
such an ordeal by the babas' batukabaji". See, Apni Khabar, op. cit., pp. 50-I.
58
Ibid.
59
B.D. Chaturvedi, 'Sampadkiya Vichar', ibid.

189
anisht sahitya (harmful literature). This category included works like shringar
poetry (the target of the Dwivedi School), nude photographs, Kamshastra, the
novels and plays enticing people towards evil things in the name of realism, the
'new' interpretations of Ramayan and Mahabharat and finally even those personal
controversies displayed in media e.g., controversies surrounding Hindi Sahitya
Sammelan, shastris and professors. 60 The second article addressed in the form of
letter to editor, argued that if the use of 'Bhand-phod' (scandal) was of social-
reform, there was no harm in it even as ghasleti sahitya written only for lascivious
pleasure was to be condemned. 61 The third article of the issue argued, following
Chaturvedi's line, for bringing Sammelan authorities into picture (while author's
subtle mention of his own position as former chairman of the Education Committee
of Banaras Board); it also wanted recognition for the the winners of the prestigious
literary award of Mangala Prasad Paritoshik instituted by Samelan. Further it
compared the aesthetic beauty of Ramayan with that of Urdu's Zahar-i-Ishq,
denigrating Urdu vis-a-vis 'pious' Hindi in the press. 62
This short discussion of three articles indicates that the debate was still amorphous
leading to a widening of its concerns; but while some people still didn't find it
correct to voice such issues in public, others argued for the implicit legitimation and
supreme status of 'consecrating' institutions like Sammelan and other literary prize
awarded by it. There were still others who were not clear what to declare as 'cheap'
and what to declare as 'good for society'.
The December issue of Vishal Bharat carried, a review of Ablaon ka Insaf- the
work of an anonymous writer -Kishoridas Vajpeyi. Like the earlier review of
Chaklet, this was also a clear diatribe against the novel despite its claim of
impartiality in the title. 63 There simply was no discussion of the novel or even a
I

single quote from it and yet it made disparaging remarks against its supposed
vulgarity. The essay began with a reference to an attack on Chaturvedi by one
Janardan Bhatt, M.A. in the December issue ofChand. 64 The article had alleged that

60
Sri Mahendra, 'Hindi mein Anishta Sahitya', ibid, pp. 363-5.
61
Badrinath Bhatt, B.A., 'Ghasleti Sahitya', ibid.
62
Ramdas Gaur, M.A., 'Kavi aur Lekhakon ka Dayitva', ibid.
63
Kishoridas Vajpeyi, 'Ablaon ka Insaf ki Nishpaksh Alochana' under the column 'Ghasleti Sahitya',
ibid, Dec. 1928, pp. 771-2.
64
Janardan Bhatt, M.A., 'Chaturvedi ji ki Ghaslet-charcha', Chand, Dec. 1928. Because Vishal
Bharat was published on the fifteenth of every month, it got a strategic advantage of fifteen days to
comment upon other fellow periodicals of the same month.

190
just as the government, few writers in Hindi had also begun to detect elements of
anarchy everywhere, the foremost among them being Chaturvedi. This was a direct
reference to the government's issuance of proscription orders against Chand's
controversial 'Phansi Ank', an open approval of revolutionary terrorism. Thus while
the strategy of defence included to equate the writings for the purpose of 'social
reform' with that of revolutionary nationalism (and both were paying incidentally),
the attackers were clearly not convinced. In defence of Chaturvedi, launching a
personal attack on the anonymous writer 'Srimati Sphurna Devi', Vajpeyi not only
claimed to know him personally as mainly a Marwari businessman looking for some
quick money, but went on to claim that it was he who had edited (even though the
name of the editor in print was that of Vidyavati Sahgal) and practically re-written
the book, which was originally written in a 'sadiyal' (rotten) language. This act of
his, he defended on the grounds of being a paid employee of the Chand press and
hence part of his duty to do so.
Another article in the same column, representing a student's viewpoint, sought to
confirm Chaturvedi' s apprehensions about the bad effects on the youth of such
texts. 65 Another article while discussing the issue went on to castigate almost the
whole of medieval literature including Vidyapati, Prithviraj Rasa, Jaisi (a sringar
'naturally' poet due to his Muslim identity) while leaving only Tulsi, Kabir and
Bhushan as the 'three genuine poets' .66 This kind of aesthetic judgement was of
course detrimental to the literary establishment itself, so painstakingly engaged in
the creation of 'glorious literary heritage' for Hindi by including these very people.
Thus the editor had to insert his 'note of disapproval' against the proposition of this
article. But such a flux in the debate certainly opened a Pandora's box by causing
confusion where despite an accepted critique of sringar poetry, one very often did
not know where to draw the line. The same article castigated a painting published by
Madhuri around the same time and the poetic extract published with it by terming
them as ghasleti. There were thus very thin dividing lines existing within aesthetic
beliefs, which also proved that despite a sway of certain figures and institutions, the
matter had still not been clinched. Rather, those seeking to control the movement
and direction of the literary production were on occasions, a confused lot. Thus even
as there were bigwigs to attack ghasleti sahitya, there were also people like Pt.

65
Jaiprakash Agrawal, 'Ek Vidyarthi ka Patra', Vishal Bharat, Dec. 1928.
66
Balbhadra Prasad Dikshit, 'Ghas1eti Sahitya ka Vikas', ibid.

191
 Krishnakant Malviya (nephew of Madan Mohan Malviya, editor of Abhyuday and
himself a reputed writer of sex-manuals, praised and accepted by high-brow literary
schools), Bhavani Dayal Sanyasi (a reputed activist among the migrant Indian
labourers) and Janardan Bhatt who took the side of this kind of literature.
Interestingly, even as Chaturvedi kept sermonising his followers not to use foul
language against ghasleti writers, he himself lampooned them through full page-
length cartoons. The January Vishal Bharat issue of 1929, carried two cartoons
published on this theme. The first cartoon was clearly centred on Ugra, showing him
marching on a podium, with his books like Dilli ka Dalal, Chaklet, Budhia ka Byah
etc., while the genteel held their noses in disgust. In a second cartoon, a ghasleti
writer was shown being joyously welcomed by the 'barbaric tribals' identified as
'Andamanis' in the editorial note. 67 This kind of attack through cartoons also
signified that the idea of literature was still amorphous and therefore it belonged to a
large cross-section of people.
Thus even as the scope and engagement ofthe readership with literature was getting
extended, a combination of moral conservatism, aesthetic values of the 'old school'
and power-play of high institutions continued its sway in the battle over literary
field. The battle raged for long and though Ugra had his supporters, he was
eventually sidelined from the pantheon of high brow literature. He himself turned
towards talkie films, a new rage of that period, and writing adventure thrillers like
Ghanta (narrating the story of a German detective's exploits in India during the First
World War). About eight years after ghasleti movement, Nirala continuing his tirade
against Chaturvedi (latter as the representative of the intrusion of non-literary in to
literary) called him a propagandist, mainly interested in increasing the sales of his
journal Vishal Bharat through these 'cheap tactics'. He went on to defend Ugra in
strong words. Terming him as a pioneer in writing political stories and praising his
Khutoot for Hindu-Muslim amity, and even Chaklet (the centre of the battle) from
the point of view of art (kala), he in fact very importantly defended him on those
very grounds on which he was targeted- his popularity. Giving the example of the
large-scale sales of his books, particularly in respect of Dilli ka Dalal which had
sold out its first edition within one and half month, he rated it as a living proof of
Ugra's art. Contradicting the arguments that Ugra's literary career had finished as he

67
Anon., 'Hindi Sahitya Sammilan', ibid, Jan. 1929.

192
had moved over to cinema, Nirala again saw this move as a living example of an
even greater involvement with literature and that too with greater transparency. 68
Thus involvement with a popular medium was seen by Nirala as a living proof of
involvement with the issues of the right kind. It was his abiding concern for the
autonomy of a writer, from external diktats, which led a practitioner of 'high
literature' like Nirala to speak out in defence of one who was condemned as writing
low level literature. This was all the more important for him as he himself had been
a target of a virulent attack by Chaturvedi which had almost driven him insane.
The patronising attitude of the middle-level political leaders and their wish to direct
the literary production remained strong despite resistance of certain people like
Nirala. Thus even as late as 1940, Purushottam Das Tandon chided an editor of a
small-time periodical for publishing a supposedly vulgar story in these words,
I had given a couple of issues of your periodical to the children of my
house. But I can't give this one ... This is my natural wish that your
periodical should make young men and women move towards a pious
life ... Showing one's wrong-doings and simultaneously giving the instance
of good deed and making people follow the latter is necessary. But that
person has to be extremely vigilant in doing such experiments, who wants
to create good impression on his children for the purpose of their character-
but"ld"mg. 69

The intermix of high moralism and an air of superior knowledge by virtue of

institutional power and political aura, thus, always tended to control the literary
movements in particular and debates concerning the Hindi public sphere in general.
Interestingly, the kind of melodramatic language Ugra employed later got
completely reduced into the so-called pulp fiction still being mass-produced in Hindi
today. The possibility and the tensions, which Ugra generated through his novels,
traversing between the elite and the popular, thus, were not to be repeated for a long
time.

Part III
Nationalism as a Bestseller: The Case of Chand's 'Phansi Ank'*
The attempt in this section is to locate multiple brands of nationalism in Hindi public
sphere through a case study. The way in which literature, politics and print-

68
Nirala, 'Sahitya mein Propaganda', (editorial), Sudha, fortnightly, Lucknow, 1 Sept. 1933. Also
see, Nand Kishor Nawal ed., Nirala Rachnavali, vol. 6, Rajkamal Prakashan, N. Delhi, 1983.
69
Purushottam Das Tandon to Sri Manohar Malviya (editor, Satvik Jeewan), dated 10/11/1940,
no.1119, P.D. Tandon papers, Part II, File no. 32, Catalogue B.

193
journalism interacted with each other during the colonial period, led to the
transformation of all these spheres. In this situation, popular forms, aspirations to
high literary status and material needs for survival in a competitive world impinged
upon the prevalent definitions of nationalism and vice-versa. The idea is to
demonstrate the interplay of what Mikhail Bakhtin termed as heteroglossia.
According to him, 'The unity of a literary language is not a unity of a single, closed
language system, but is rather a highly specific unity of several "languages" that
have established contact and mutual recognition with each other'. 70 It is the intention
to explore these languages contained within 'one', represented through a single issue
of the monthly Chand, that becomes our point of departure.

Background
There haven't been too many instances in the history of Hindi journalism when the
so-called high socio-literary journals managed to gain a wide popularity. By
popularity I mean the extent to which these journals could even manage to recover
their cost of production. Running at a constant loss, they had to depend upon either
the constant support of big publishers to sustain them, or else upon their subsidiary
publications of books on various themes including cheap detective novels, popular
translations from English and Bengali, manuals on sex etc. This was despite the fact
that these very journals continuously ranted against such publications on high moral
and social grounds. This was also due to the very nature of the politics of the literary
field where anything successful in commercial terms was regarded with great
suspicion. 71 For example, Saraswati had the support of a big publisher like Indian
Press of Allahabad behind it, which made its money through publication of various
school and college level texts; journals like Madhuri (published by the famous
Nawal Kishar Press, Lucknow) and Sudha were brought out by Ganga Pustakmala,
Lucknow and Chand was published by Chand Karyalay, Allahabad that also
published other books including story collections, novels ofPremchand etc.
The situation was more troublesome for a journal like Chand which was mainly a
women's journal even though a major section of its contributors were men. Begun to

*Nov. 1928, Allahabad

70
Mikahil Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, (ed. and translated by Michael Holquist and Caryl
Emerson), University of Texas Press, Austin, 1981, p. 295.
71
Pierre Bourdieu has talked about the making of the literary field in great detail in his The Field of
Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, Polity Press, 1993.

194
be published from 1922, it was edited by Ramrakhsinh Sahgal and its proprietor was
his wife Vidyavati Sahgal. According to the government reports, it was listed among
the minor journals under the heading 'Unreported Papers' with an estimated
circulation of 1,500 with the label of 'social, moderate in tone' in 1925. 72 It was
imperative for a journal like Chand to increase its sales by other means. It was
important not only to attract a large number of advertisements but more importantly
to secure government approval so that it could be part of various libraries at the
government level along with schools, universities and colleges. Such approvals were
always displayed proudly by these periodicals. For example even the celebrated anti-
government issue like Chand's 'Phansi Ank' that was promptly proscribed by the
authorities, had on its cover in English, 'Highly appreciated and recommended for
use in schools and libraries by Directors of Public Instruction, Punjab, Central
Provinces & Berar, United Provinces and Kashmir State etc., etc.' 73 In an age of
competitive journalism with a very limited literacy, it was really a difficult and yet
natural act to take such a contradictory step by publishing anti-government material
while simultaneously quoting the same government's official approval for its
increased circulation. In fact a weekly periodical like Pratap had already carved a
niche for itself with a high patriotic and pro-labour aura behind it. It promptly
displayed all the news of persecution by the colonial state and its wide appeal was
based precisely on these grounds. Yet, continuing with this stance had its own
pitfalls and thus Pratap also could not survive for long, mainly due to constant fines
imposed by the government. The formula of success was to maintain a somewhat
balanced position.
It was in this context that Chand embarked on the idea of special issues. Acharya
Chatursen, a well-known Hindi storywriter and novelist and a regular contributor to
Chand of that time, was given the charge of bringing out six such issues. Chand's
'Ph ansi Ank' was the first in the series. 74 Not all issues eventually came out under
Chatursen' s editorship due to the differences between him and Sahgal. Even before
this, a series of special issues had been brought out with titles like 'Shishu Ank',
'Pravasi Ank' (based on the plight of migrant Indian labourers), 'Vidhawa Ank' etc.

72
Statement of Newspapers and Periodicals published in British India and Indian States for 1924,
United Provinces, Home (Political), File no. 204 (iv)/25.
73
Chand, 'Phansi Ank', Nov. 1928, p. 1.
Acharya Chatursen, Meri Atmakahani, Chatursen Sahitya Samiti, Delhi, 1963, p~ 153.
74

195
 But the 'Phansi Ank' was a qualitative leap in terms of aggressiveness and
sensitivity ofthe themes. It was followed by issues like 'Veshya Ank' (going as far
as to propose the reforming of prostitutes through their marriage within Hindu
households etc.), and 'Marwari Ank' (a controversial and castigating comment on
the Marwari society of that time, which was also a major fiul.ding source of these
journals). These issues gave it the status of the most popular periodical of its time.
According to Chatursen, only when he gave the counter-guarantee that in case of no
sale, he himself would buy all the unsold issues that Sahgal gave his assent for ten
thousand copies. Chand then had a modest sale of around 3000. 75 Popularity of the
issue broke all records and it became a collector's item. Despite the government's
orders to proscribe it, its copies were sold for as high as ten rupees each in the black
market. 76 Chatursen mentions that 'there was a shower of money on Sahgal' s table'.
Forty new clerks were appointed, new machines were bought and Chand became
famous 'all over the world'. By the time its 'Marwari Ank' came out in Nov. 1929,
its print-run had reached 15,000, unparalleled by any Hindi periodical of that time. 77
The policy of bringing out special issues on controversial and sensational issues
proved to be doubly beneficial so much so that despite its great popularity, Chand
was able to also retain its high literary and social aura mainly due to its rhetoric of
highly charged social and political nationalism. It is interesting that many other
journals tried to emulate the same tactics, but without success. Hindu Panch's
'Bali dan Ank' (January 1930) was another such issue that was hugely successful. 78
It is important to note that once the trend of such special numbers centred around
such 'marketable' issues declined, their circulation tended to drop considerably. It is
not without reason that when Chhayavadi poet Mahadevi Verma took over its
editorship in 1930s, Chand could not repeat the same success despite critical acclaim
for its seemingly radical stance on women's issues. By 1940, its circulation had

75
Ibid.
76
Ibid.
77
Copy of the statement issued by G.P. Jaiswal & Co., Government Auditors, dated 18 Oct. 1929,
Chand, Oct. 1929.
78
Even before this, another periodical, Maharathi, mainly famous for its extreme political views
(with issues like 'Khoone Lajpat Ank' etc.) had also planned a similar 'Phansi Ank' around the same
time, but had to abandon the project once Chand beat it. See, Banarsi Das Chaturvedi, 'Sampadkiya
Vichar', Vishal Bharat, Nov. 1928.

196
come down to a meagre 3000, meriting a mere two word note of 'literary and
influential' by the colonial authorities. 79

Story of the Publication

It is interesting to know that the story of the publication of the special issue was
equally sensational as the matter published in it. The idea behind such an issue was
threefold: 'to provide an effective critique against capital punishment' (mainly in the
backdrop of continuous ongoing hangings of the revolutionary terrorists), 'from the
point of view of entertainment of the readers, to tell the story of the death sentences
carried out throughout the world' and under this pretext, 'to give a detailed record of
all the political hangings oftwentieth century' (till then). 80
An elaborate scheme of advertising this issue was prepared and published in various
periodicals and newspapers of different languages all over India. In Chand itself, a
three page notice was given in advance giving a detailed draft of the proposed issue,
with specific topics, the proposed number of stories and poems and even an estimate
of photos to be published. It also asked writers, poets, painters and artists to inform
about their proposals to the guest editor (Chatursen) in advance in order to reserve
their respective areas of interest. It claimed that, ' ... we want to propose before the
whole world that the barbaric tradition of the killing of man in the name of justice
and peace be destroyed. No "government", no "sarkar", should be able to kill any
man in any condition'. 81 It further asked its family of 'fifty thousand' to raise their
voice in unison to make it reverberate through all over Europe, Asia and Africa. 82
The surreptitious manner in which the whole 'operation' of producing the issue took
place, became part of the folklore in its own time, giving the issue an aura of
adventurous nationalism. A person like Bhagat Singh was clandestinely associated
with it. Incidentally, Bhagat Singh wrote several articles around that time under his
pseudonym of Balwant Singh in various Hindi journals like Matwala. For 'Phansi
Ank', Chatursen recounted that Singh had collected over seventy biographies and
photos of revolutionary terrorists from different sources and they were published

79
Guide to Newspapers and Periodicals published in British India and Indian States (1941 edn.),
Home (Political), Confidential, File no. 33/2/41-Poll (I).
~ Chatursen, op. cit., p. 152. .
81
'Rang Bhumi', 'Chand ka Phansi Ank', Chand, July, 1928.
~ Ibid. This family of 'fifty thousand' increased to 'two lakh sisters and brothers' in the editorial note
2

of'Phansi Ank'. See 'Vinayanjali', Chand, Nov. 1928, p. 1.

197
 under the pseudonyms 'Vidrohi', 'Agyat', 'Sainik' etc. He got seven hundred rupees
83
for this.
Another part of the story which helped it create sensation about itself was the
'thriller' aspect of its distribution. Even while it was under production, it was
rumoured that the compositors while composing the matter would become so
emotional that they would begin to tear at their clothes and cry loudly. According to
Chatursen, after the announcement of the issue, the government had become alert
and was looking to proscribe it as soon as it came out. It is important to note that the
editor and the publisher almost willed the issue to be proscribed through their highly
attacking propaganda. In the special number itself, a regular column written as
'Dubeji ki Chitthi' (The Letter ofDubeji) after the regular criticism of 'Phansi' went
on to ask the editor sarcastically,
Now you are going to interfere in government activities. Is it wise? The
government is not Marwari or Khatri community that despite abusing you it
will appreciate you as well. It is authoritarian, so much so that it considers
its injustices as benevolence. I fear that it won't be able to tolerate your
candid and true comments. If for example, it 'hanged' your 'Phansi Ank'
('Phansi Ank' ko phansi par Iatka diya) then what would you do except
rubbing your hands? 84

It is said that even three-four days after the copies were read, Sahgal could not dare
to dispatch them and eventually called Chatursen to Allahabad from Delhi. He
explained that pressure from Chatursen made him take such a big gamble: 'The
paper has been bought on debt; the staff has not been paid their salary for the last
two months. If the V.Ps were not encashed, I will be bankrupt and then I will murder
you first, because you have put me in this trouble'. It was then that they came upon
this plan according to which they secretly went over to the local postmaster's house
and bribed him to come over directly to the press and stamp all the copies there
itself After this, all the copies were secretly sent over to the railway station and
thereby dispatched to different parts of the country overnight. In one day, thus,
copies were distributed to places like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Delhi and Lahore.
Even after all this they further delayed for two days in sending the mandatory copies
to the Deputy Commissioner for his approval. The government took further two
days' time to do the necessary paperwork in issuing the proscription orders. By then,

83
Ibid. Also see, Jagmohan Singh and Chamanlal (eds), Bhagat Singh aur Unke Sathiyon ke
Dastavej, Rajkamal Prakashan, N. Delhi, 1991, pp. 100-20.
~ Vijayanand Dubeji, 'Dubeji ki Chitthi', Chand, Nov. 1928, pp. 160-3.
4

198
 the copies were safely out of its reach. 85 These tactics only saved the publisher from
a sure financial ruin but also made him earn immense profit. More importantly, the
very act of defying the colonial government in the process and the thrill of
romanticised adventurism associated in this whole act possibly explains why and
how revolutionary romanticism, translation of a fictional adventurism into real life
and the more real and immediate material aspect of economic survival were
intricately intertwined.
In this context another instance from a consumer's point of view is also important.
Phanishwar Nath Renu, a well-known writer of Hindi in the immediate years after
independence, talked of the three celebrated and proscribed texts, Chand's 'Phansi
Ank', Hindu Panch's 'Balidan Ank' and Pt. Sundarlal's multi-volume Bharat mein
Angreji Ra/6 being kept by his father as collector's items in the interiors of north
Bihar in his native village. The whole village used to come there for a public reading
of these texts. Renu recounted of the time when there was a police raid in search of
'Phansi Ank' and his father admitted of having all the three. It was Renu's presence
of mind, which prompted him to sneak away with these texts on the pretext of going
to catch the train to get to his school at Pharbisganj. Upon his return in the evening,
he came to know that the Daroga was all the more disappointed not having found
the book due to his own desire to read 'Phansi Ank'. 87 Not only thus the editor and
the publisher had a romantic idea of adventure associated with the issue, but even
the consumers as well.
The thriller aspect of nationalism was a phenomenon that was widely prevalent and
also helped sustain the so-called mainstream Congress-led mass movement at a
popular level. Without this, it would have been difficult to bear the burden of dreary
routine of ideological diatribes and every-day politics from the local to national
level. In this sense, the two types of politics were not antagonistic or separate from
each other despite the occasional barbs from their respective protagonists (from
Gandhi on the one side to Bhagat Singh on the other) 88 at the popular level. Rather
they often went hand in hand, complementing each other.

85
Ibid.
86
See chapter two.
87
Phanishwar Nath Renu, Atma-parichay, Rajkamal Prakashan, N. Delhi, 1991 (1st edn. 1988), pp.
54-5.
88
For example, see Philosophy of Bomb written by Bhagwaticharan Vohrd in answer to Gandhi's
criticism of revolutionary terrorists. Also published as 'Bum ka Darshan' in Jagmohan Singh et al
eds., op. cit.

199
The Issue
The 'Phansi Ank' of Chand was a voluminous issue of roughly three hundred and
twenty five pages. It consisted mainly of a wide range of essays, four stories and
roughly about twenty poems. The themes ranged from the history of 'Phansi', its
various international versions (including that of the latest method of electrocution
used in U.S.A.), various 'bloody pages from history' (again ranging from French
revolution, Joan of Arc, Queen Mary to those near at home like Sikhs' persecution
in the Mughal times, Nandkumar's hanging, to the latest cases of persecution by the
British Raj) and critical essays and views on the capital punishment by various
scholars, jurists, traditional sources etc. (which was the main official reason behind
the special issue). There were hundred photographs (paintings and photographs
both), of which nine were tricolour, seven were colour photographs on the art paper
and rest of them were in black and white. The pictures described the themes like
various techniques of hanging, popular in different societies (to bring forth the
barbarity of the methods involved), hangings of different historical figures, and
photographs of various Indians convicted/hanged by the colonial government.
The cover page of the issue gave a detailed account of the costs involved with
separate headings like, 'the cost of papers of different types', 'the cost of composing
and printing', 'the cost of block-making and design', 'the cost of printing and
photos' etc. The total cost estimated was Rs 12,500 for ten thousand copies. It was
also mentioned that the given account did not include the salary of the staff,
electricity, office rent and the cost of printing of advertisements. The note added
forcefully that this last point should be remembered. 89 This very first page with the
detailed account of costing should be seen as setting a moral agenda where
everything had to be transparent, thereby sending the message to the public that the
cost incurred is for a selfless act without any interest in profit.
Definition of Crime and the Critique of Capital Punishment
The first-page address to the readers, 'Vinayanjali' outlined the same vtew m a
highly charged language:
Brothers and sisters, on this auspicious day, play with these solemnly heroic
arrows of death! Those with courage should practise; those who don't
should just watch. Upcoming communities (jatis) do not amuse themselves
on special occasions, instead they investigate the source of their sorrow.
89
'Phansi Ank', Chand, Nov.l928, p.l.

200
 These are not the days for Bharat to make merry; these are days for Bharat
to study the ideology of death (Mrityuvaad). In the near future, Bharat has
to pass the test in order to conquer death (Mrityunjay). As the first text for
passing that test, Chand presents this issue to its sisters and brothers. 90

It is important to note that the very usage of a highly charged, melodramatic

language was meant to call upon and motivate people into joining the revolutionary
movement. This incidentally was taken as the foremost duty of contemporary
literary aesthetics. Interestingly, in his second and detailed editorial, the editor
reflected upon questions, which outlined the inherent tension evident throughout this
issue, i.e., the tension between the glory of patriotic death and the ignominy and the
horror of death through capital punishment. The tension between the feudal
dispositions of honour as inherent in the glorification of hanging for the cause of the
nation and the enlightenment rationality via modern sciences of criminology
questioning the logical, moral foundations of hanging were evident in this editorial.
Calling for its abolition, Chatursen in this editorial went on to explore the questions
of crime, its psychological and social genesis, various categories of crime, idea of
revolution, i.e., Kranti, the state terror unleashed by the British government and the
rationale behind the legal punishment ofhanging. Calling for the abolition of this
form of punishment, he laid down four basic grounds on which it could be opposed:
I) human knowledge is never certain; 2) while committing crime, the criminal loses
his critical faculties; 3) a horrible act can_not be repaid with another horrible act and
4) a guilty man could not be judged at par with an innocent and rational one on the
basis of the same law. 91 The editor argued that it was the society which turned
innocent people into criminals, and faulty laws, customs, social conditions etc.,
further turned an accidental criminal into a hardened one. While there were many
categories of criminals including that of 'natural', 'daredevil', 'morally insensitive',
'forced by hunger', etc., the solution was neither to annihilate them nor to let them
have a free reign. But control over them was to be exercised in such a way that those
very forces, in society which bred criminality, were abolished.
More importantly, the editorial spoke of a separate category of criminals, that of
'political criminals', whom he not only defended strongly, but further eulogised
them by quoting various known international criminologists. According to him, their

90
'Vinayanja1i', ibid, p. 2.
91
Acharya Chatursen, 'Sampadkiya Vichar', Chand, Nov. 1928, pp. 3-15.

201
aims might be against the contemporary socio-political situation but they were never
anti-social as the 'heart' of the society always remained with them. It was proven by
the case of Socrates and Jesus who though killed in their times, were later
recognised to be the great revolutionaries. It was in this context that the editorial
related the political prisoners with 'revolutionarism' (Krantivaad). Calling the
political prisoners as the harbingers of revolution, the editor argued that it was for
the larger good of the society that they worked. Even as 'Truth' could not be sweet
and beautiful in all circumstances, Kranti was one such instance where it had to be
violent. In any case, it was meant for the recreation of the sanctity and peace of
'Truth'. It was in this context that despite their hangings, they remained 'religious'
(dharmatma) and innocent. It was more due to this violent nature of the revolution
that both the king and the subjects, i.e., common people remained afraid of it.
Castigating the peoples' keeping away from it despite bearing all kinds of atrocities,
the author attributed it to their lack of manly courage and the love of mundane things
in life. 92
In the context of India, the essay noted that ancient Indians founded their legal
system on moral responsibility as against the British which was meant 'to deceive
the "Truth"'. Due to this, most of the crimes were punished through atonement,
Prayshchitta. Comparative examples of one from the ancient India and the one of
Gandhi's conviction were cited, stressing the belief that in future Gandhi would be
held as a Mahapurush. Giving a detailed record of the innumerable hangings in the
British history, whose record according to the author was most gruesome, the
examples of Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Portugal etc. were cited where it had been
banned.
In the end, the essayist while once again giving a call to abolish it, averred, 'now the
barbaric tradition of killing of men in the name of justice and peace should be
destroyed .... We don't have the time to listen to what the law says. If it supported
such a sinful, such a horrendous act, we shall destroy it. We should be hell-bent for
this' .93

92
Interestingly Ram Prasad Bismil in the last message before his hanging also held the 'people'
responsible for his capture and death and asked the future revolutionaris to desist from such activities
arguing that the time for such acts had not come as yet. See, Jagmohan Singh and Charnanlal (eds),
op. cit., pp. 86-90.
93
Chatursen, 'Sampadkiya Vichar', op. cit.

202
 One can discern various themes emerging out of this long discussion summarising
the whole of the 'Phansi Ank' itself. The tension between glorifying the death of
political prisoners so much so that their glory was predicated upon their death itself
and simultaneously calling upon the abolition of their death was a tightrope walk,
which remained evident throughout the issue. In this, there were parallel strands of
the call for revolution, i.e., violent action to overthrow the British regime and the
attempt to separate such acts as political and thus not a crime of a common nature.
And yet the attempt was to delegitimise all the categories of crime as society-bred.
Another essay by the then well-known jurist Raisahab Harbilas Sharda also argued
along the same lines, questioning the death penalty on the grounds of the mental
balance ofthe criminal, the act as inspired from a 'national' cause and further, along
the grounds that what if the person thus hanged was to be found innocent later on? 94
Thus we see that the questioning as well as legitimation of a supposed criminal act
was something which was running simultaneous in most of the arguments. In this,
while the questioning happened in relation to the existing constitutional laws, the
legitimation ofthe 'political act' especially, required the extension ofthe boundaries
of the contemporary legal rules.
In another essay by another legal expert, the criticism of the death penalty was
sought to be justified within the constitutional framework of the British law. The
author problematised the existing laws from within by dividing the punishment on
the basis of criminal justice into four types: 1) 'Deterrent', 2) 'Preventive', 3)
'Reformative' and 4) 'Retributive' (the terms used in English along with the Hindi
versions). He privileged the third kind of punishment as the most effective one
quoting from the Indian Penal Code itself that, 'If the punishment of the crime which
(he) has already committed be exactly the same with the punishment of murder, he
(the criminal) will have no restraining motive'. 95 The article also quoted many
contemporary judges' view supporting its argument and pleaded for the right to
show mercy to be extended to the judges.
Interestingly, the article unlike some other ones glorifying the jurisprudence of
ancient India, 96 went on to contrast the horrifying systems of punishment provided

94
Raisahab Harbilasji Sharda, 'Phansi ki Saja', Chand, Nov. 1928, pp. 31-3.
95
Babu Manohar Sighjee, B.A. L.L.B., 'Bhartiya Dandvidhan aur Phansi', Chand, Nov. 1928, pp.
93-9.
96
Two more such articles can be cited in this regard. One, by Acharya Ramdev, M.A. calling upon
the old Hindu tradition still continuing in the form of Ishwar-prarthana, .Jaap with fasting, jagran

203
in Manu Smriti with the modern reforms in this regard. It further stated that it was
due to the progress of civilisation that the idea of punishment had been transformed
into a reformist one so that the future crimes could be completely stopped: 'This is
97
the view of the modern civilised "societies'".
The discussion in this section while focusing upon the moral, constitutional critique
of the system of 'Phansi', outlines the inherent tensions that intercut each other
continuously: the critique of the system of 'Phansi' as a whole; to define the
'political' crime away from the other types; whether to glorify the legal system of
the ancient India or to also accept the barbarity involved in many of its .methods;
whether to consider the notion of 'reform' as the product of ancient values or that of
the 'modern', 'civilised' society; whether to save the revolutionaries by calling for
the abolition of the act or to exhort the readers to further engage in such activities
which led them to act in such a manner that they get hanged and thus justify their
mettle. In this process not only different voices seem to be speaking differently, but
more importantly, the same voice seems to be speaking in different languages
simultaneous! y.

History as Description versus History as Fiction

A major portion of the issue was devoted to the different phases of history with
stories of conviction of various historical figures, the general description of such
punishments etc. These can be divided roughly into three categories: first, the
general description of killings of people. In this would come titles like 'France ki
99
Rajya-kranti ke kuchh Rakt-ranjit Prishth' ,98 'France mein Striyon ka Prandand'
and 'San Sattavan ke Kuchh Sansmaran' (describing the pitiable conditions in which
the rebel soldiers of 1857 were killed mercilessly by the British and even assisted by

etc. as forms of expiation of the crime while also crediting it to be at par with the views of the modem
criminologists, which had not been thought of by any other western thinker. See, 'Prandand: Prachin
Bhartiya Vicharakon ka Mat', pp. 28-31. Another, a rather circumspect article on the ancient Indian
penal system accepted the barbarity of many of the types of punishment including cutting of various
parts of the body mainly laid down in Manu Smriti and attributed it to the unjustified caste system
that led to such discriminatory laws. Yet it simultaneously stressed on the often-repeated argument by
now, of the provision of Prayshchitta in ancient India. See Pt. Jaidevji Sharma Vidyalankar,
Mimansatirth, 'Sanskrit Sallitya mein Pran-vadh', pp. 234-43.
97
Ibid.
98
Rajkumar Sri Raghubir Singhji B.A., ibid., pp. 58-75.
99
Sri Trilochan Pantji B.A., ibid, pp. 164-79.

204
the Sikhs) 100 etc. The first essay of this list is interesting also because it was written
by the son of the ruler of the princely state of Sitamau. The author was further
described as the only graduate among the Indian princely families. It was also
mentioned that his father had the right of the salute of fourteen canons and the
income of the throne was around Rs. four lakhs. While it was meant to show that
even the sections of the ruling classes were critical of the British government over
the issue and thus were contributing to it, yet by mentioning proudly the income and
the rank of the king in the hierarchy established by the British government in the
same breath, the editorial introduction displayed a contradictory attitude
disregarding the colonial rule and yet endorsing the ruling structures outlined by it.
In describing the execution of the king and the queen of revolutionary France along
with their earlier ostentatious lifestyle, the 'princely' author went on to castigate
those princes who by not paying heed to the woes of the people eventually paid with
their own lives. It is important to note here that the idea of democratic or peoples'
rule continuously asserted by the various contributors and the idea of enlightened
despotism seemed to get intermixed too often.
The other two categories from historical descriptions are of mixed type, that of
straight narratives of the heroic lives of historical figures like 'Devi Joan',
'Khudiram Bose', 'Banda Bahadur ka Balidan', 'Mrityunjay Sukrat' etc. and the
other being the fictionalised and dramatised versions of the killings of historical
figures like Abraham Lincoln (a play), King Charles, Mansoor, Maharaja Nand
Kumar etc. The narratives were written in the style of a thriller or a detective fiction.
For example, the killing of Charles described a conspiracy in which his close
confidants plotted to release him, but failed 101 . Similarly, the execution of the
famous sufi saint Mansoor written by the well-known writer-critic, Pandit Padm
Sinh Sharma (also the editor of Sudha), dramatised the narrative to exemplify his
courage to remain steadfast in his belief. 102 The description of the trial of Maharaja
Nand Kumar was meant to show the treachery of the colonial legal system. The
Chief Justice Impey along with other members of the jury were shown to be partial
to Warren Hastings in a travesty of all norms. This was expressed in a farcical

10
Collected Essays, ibid, pp. 149-59. Also see Khwaja Hasan Nizami, Dehlavi's 'Sattavan mein
Dilli ke Lal Din', ibid, pp. 106-12.
101
Rajendralal B.A., L.L.B, 'Charles ka Katl', ibid, pp. 209-15.
102
'Divya Premi Mansoor', ibid, pp.180-5.

205
 manner, as when the bribed witness admits to having conjured up his statements in a
dream, Lord Impey pronounces: 'In this hot country, rarely does a person get enough
sleep. Often, people remain in a state of semi-sleep. In this condition, if any man
perceives any matter through eyes, ears or the other sense organs, then Lord Morley
103
will have no objection in accepting his statement as evidence'.
This fictionalisation of historical incidents was an implicit acceptance of the power
of the more popular literary forms, which could bring forth the injustice of the
British rule in the most graphic manner possible. But this was just one aspect of the
use of a mix of documentary narrative and fiction. It was also effectively used to
give a heroic image to those revolutionaries killed by the British Government. This
is most evident in the 80-page section entitled 'Viplav-yagna ki Ahutiyan' which
was a collection of short biographical notes on various revolutionary figures
beginning with the Kuka rebels. However, most of them belonged to the 20th century
e.g. Kanhai Lal Dutt, Satyendra Kumar Bose, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaq-ulla Khan
etc. The section in the beginning stated-
Today people have forgotten these pious souls. They are called foolish,
impatient, directionless and idealists; but where is that zeal and courage,
where is that dare-devilry and commitment, today how many people can
surrender their lives laughing on the gallows? 104

This quote exemplifies what remained very clear through various examples calling
upon the people to give away their lives for the cause of the nation. This goes
against the grain of what the first section perceives as the demand for the abolition
of the capital punishment. Moreover, the romanticization of these figures was
extended through the narratives of their adventurous exploits. One such example is
the biography of Sufi Amba Prasad, written by Bhagat Singh under the pseudonym
Agyat. It is noteworthy that most of the biographical notes in this section were
contributed by him. While describing Amba Prasad's adventures in disguise, Bhagat
Singh cites an incident:
One disciple also came along. When the sage sat down, he touched Sufiji's
feet and greeted him. He looked a perfect 'gentleman' attired in proper
soot-boot. He began asking, "Babaji, where do you stay?" Sufiji answered
in a stem voice, "I stay in your head". "Sadhuji, why do you get angry?"
"Hey Idiot, you greeted me when there were so many sadhus around, why
didn't you greet them all?'' "I thought you were the greatest of them".
"Anyway, go and get some food". A little later he came back with a lot of
goodies. After eating, Sufiji summoned him and asked, "Kyon be, wont you
103
Shri Kalyan Singh Raj Vaidya, 'Maharaj Nand Kumar ko Phansi', ibid, pp.209-15.
104
Ibid, pp.244-323.

206
 stop following me?" "But what am I saying?' "Let go of your cleverness,
come here to spy on me ... go and tell your father that the Sufi is going to
the mountains to make revolution'. He fell on his feet, "Huzoor, one is
105
forced to do everything at the behest of one's stomach".

Another such incident from the life of Amba Prasad was narrated where he had
deceived the Resident of one State by staying as a menial in his house and producing
evidence against him in the Amrit Bazaar Patrika leading to his dismissal. There
was another incident narrated from the life of Kartar Singh Sarabha (again written
by Bhagat Singh), where during a dacoity, he threatened one of his own men who
tried to molest a girl of the house and forced him to apologise to her. Later, while
explaining his motives to the old woman in the house and listening to her misery in
return, he asked her to keep enough jewellery for her daughter's wedding and donate
the rest to them. The biography also described how on the date of the hanging,
Sarabha' s weight had increased by 10 pounds. 106 This is a motif that finds recurrent
mention in almost all the biographies.
The use of the stories of adventure, espionage, acts of moral courage during times of
crisis, the ever recurrent depictions of exultation of the convicted revolutionaries, all
of these tended to bestow a romantic halo around these figures. This is indeed
ironical that in the case ofBhagat Singh himself, similar stories were spread around,
as was his famous photo disguise wearing a hat as an English gentleman. At the
same time, the use of such popular fictionalised genres, addressing an extended
readership sought to find new recruits for the cause. Many of these figures like Ram
Prasad Bismil were shown to be singing Urdu couplets, poems while going to the
gallows, implicitly affirming the motivational role of such popular literary pieces.
One can discern here a dominance of such popular forms, with the practitioners of
high literary Hindi themselves emulating these forms. It is evident in many of such
pieces. These writers implicitly seemed to accept the limitations of the models
experimented upon for the cause of high literary Hindi at that time. This is especially
important in the light of the fact that the contemporary critics like Ramchandra
Shukla 107 grounded the aesthetics of literature in its capacity to motivate a person for
a noble cause. In the next section, the attempt is to explore some ofthese examples.

105
Ibid, p. 290.
106
Ibid.
107
See for example, Ramchandra Shukla, Hindi Sahitya ka ltihaas, Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Kashi,
1929.

207
The Literary Representations
A closer look at the so-called 'pure' literary forms reveals a similar pattern from the
other end. While in the case of biographical and historical essays, we see they
depended on the intermix of fantasy and melodrama to produce an effect that could
enhance their readability; in the case of genres like stories, plays or even poetry as
evident in 'Phansi Ank', they tended to get reduced into propaganda to drive home
the message. It is in this respect that the experimentation with various forms and
genres (going on at a time when Hindi was still grappling with its literary identity)
also pointed to the presence of multiple voices or what Bakhtin terms as
'polyphony'. These voices were not present simply as distinct voices in the issue,
rather, as in constant tension with each other within a single text.
Let's take up 'Phansi', one ofthe four original short stories published in the issue.
The story written by one of the foremost writers of that age, Vishambhar Nath
Sharma 'Kaushik' (known for his social-moralistic stories) was written in a perfect
style of 'whodunit'. It narrated the story of two friends, Kamtanath, a professional
doctor and Revtishankar, a zamindar: While the zamindar friend is a regular visitor
to the 'kothas' of the city, the doctor is not interested in these things, yet is forced by
his friend to accompany him sometimes. Around this time, a new singer called
Sundar attracts the attention of the zamindar, who instead falls in love with the
doctor because of his 'gentlemanly' behaviour. As Kamtanath, the doctor- already a
married man - he is not interested in low-class prostitutes and spurns her advances.
The zamindar in the meanwhile gets jealous of Kamtanath and begins to fight with
both Sundar and the doctor. One day Sundar is.found dead in her house and upon
investigation, it is revealed that Kamtanath was seen as the last person coming out of
her house that evening. Further, a bloodstained shirt, the two missing buttons of
which were found near the dead body is proved as belonging to Kamtanath as also
the surgical knife found near the dead body. It is then that he is convicted in the
court and sentenced to death. But almost in the same instant as the plot seems to
thicken, the thinness of it is simultaneously revealed to the reader through various
facts. The first being the fact that in the beginning itself Kamtanath is shown to have
gifted one such surgical knife to Revtishankar, the zamindar. More importantly, the
compulsions of producing ideal heroes as contrasting against the evil villains as part
of the prevalent literary aesthetics at that time, make it evident to the reader through
208
 the narrative style itself (e.g., depicting the inner feelings of the different characters,
dialogues specifying each character etc.) that it was Revatishankar who had
committed the murder and not Kamtanath who got framed accidentally.
From then on, the whole pretence of a 'mystery story' is abandoned and the
propagandist aims take over. After Kamtanath is hanged, his family consisting of his
wife and parents is ruined; Revatishankar also commits suicide leaving a confession
behind, arguing that had he been assured of not being hanged, he might have
confessed to his deed in the court. It is left to the old father ofKamtanath to put forth
the moral of the story that,
... this system of punishment is a system of murder. If my son was not
hanged and had got only life imprisonment, he would have been a free man
today .... If the justice now can not bring back his life, what right it had to
hang him? This is not justice, it is barbarity, it is murder! It is better that
such justice was destroyed at the earliest. 108

The combination of murder-mystery and moral propaganda in this story thus tried to
show the loopholes in the legal jurisprudence. Driving home a technical point
through a popular form was also a way to use such a 'decadent' (as regarded by the
high literary establishment) form for a moral and patriotic end and thus bringing of
the so-called high and low together.
In another instance, this time a short satirical play, 'Kanoonimal ki Bahas' by a
popular writer of that period G.P. Shrivastav, we witness unfolding of similar
themes. It also reveals the tensions within the text generated by the presence of
subversive satire and pedantic propaganda. The text narrated through dialogue
between a corrupt lawyer and a Yamdoot who has brought him to Yamlok remains
intensely gripping as long as the lawyer through his witty and subversive logic
confuses the Yamdoot about notions of sin, dharma, devotion etc. But the moment
they switch over to the propagandist, rhetorical critique of capital punishment, the
skit tends to become rather flat. Two instances would suffice.
Kanoonimal: Tell me, what is sin?
Yamdoot: Why, hasn't your religion told you?
Kanoonimal: Now, I've got it. Which religion are you referring to? There
are thousands of them in this world. If one approves of a certain work, the
other one terms it bad. In this situation, how can you judge good or bad
through religious categories?
Yamdoot: Why, don't you have faith in your religion?
Kanoonimal: None of your business. Tell me about yourself.
Yamdoot: I take them as God's words (Ishwar Vaakya).

108
Vishambhamath Sharma 'Kaushik', 'Phansi', ibid, pp. 16-27.

209
 Kanoonimal: Fool, why are you bent upon making a fraud out of God. If all
religions are words of God, then how come in every religion He utters,
''This alone is truth, rest is false". Why would he need to sow the seeds of
religious conflict, which have cost crores of lives and will cost some crores
more? 109

One can discern the way in which the lawyer overturns the charges of corruption
brought over him by questioning the very foundations of religious and moral laws.
Further; he goes on to make a larger point about religious strife prevalent in society.
From an agenda of self-defense to a critique of the ills of society, both seem to be
balanced by achieving a creative tension through the interplay of language. But the
same attempt to criticise the British laws on Capital punishment (which is the 'real'
agenda of the play) seem to fall flat in the second half of the play which is outright
propagandist. Another instance would highlight this. In the beginning when
Kanoonimal is accused of falsely implicating innocent people and getting them
hanged, the defense of the lawyer seems to flow out in a natural play:
Kanoonimal: But that's not my fault. As you claim yourself to obey the
divine commandments, I too am placed in a similar situation. I simply
followed the law and its methods of practice in our country. If some
innocent is hanged in the process, ,the responsibility lies with the law and
not with me. If you ask me really, I detest this system of hanging. In fact, if
I had my way, I'd have abolished it. 110

One can witness in the above quote the sudden transition evident in the last two
lines. While earlier, we come across a Kanoonimal who doesn't fit the generally
accepted moral world of the humans. In fact, through his adroit logic he shows up its
defects. From the last two lines of this passage onwards, he becomes a spokesperson
of the very world he is critiquing. He goes on to give statistical details along with
various IPC (Indian Penal code) articles related to Capital punishment showing a
continuos increase in the number of hangings, thus turning the play into a pamphlet.
The larger point he seems to be making is that the fear of hanging will not prevent
the incidence of crimes and suggests exile with hard labour and Kalapani as
alternatives, so that the criminal's self-dignity is destroyed. The existence of two
different Kanoonimals, one effective and the other weak, perhaps points to the

109
G.P.Srivastav, B.A., L.L.B., 'Kanoonimal ki Balms', ibid, pp. 79-90.
110 Ibid.

210
experimentation going on with such genres. The oscillation between creative writing
111
and propaganda was a natural outcome of this process.
A similar trend can be seen in the poems published on Phansi. While attempting to
imitate the more popular forms of Urdu couplets (it is also evident in the various
revolutionaries' penchant for reciting such couplets in the biographies published in
the issue), the Hindi poems seem to falter in performing a similar function to
motivate the masses into action. The poems also betray the same contradictions of
criticising Phansi on the one hand and daring people to participate in revolutionary
politics. A poem like 'Dyer' written under a pseudonym, calls him a living barbarian
and asks people to take revenge. 112 Another poem written by Makhanlal Chaturvedi
under the popular pseudonym Ek Rashtriya Atma ('A National Soul') wailed over
the fact that the true patriots were getting hanged in the name of rebellion against the
state (rajdroh). The poet while pointing out the irony of such a situation seems to
outline that it were the patriotic revolutionaries who had the right to control the
affairs of the state. 113
What seems to emerge through a general survey of these poems is that the
propaganda inherent in them was not only specific to the nature of this issue, but the
very acceptance of literature and its aesthetics was predicated upon the political-
social role of literature. Although another powerful strand existing in contemporary
high Hindi literature projected itself as a quest of larger themes of civilizational
aspirations (no less evident through the use of a complex syntax and vocabulary
modelled on Sanskrit), it seemed to be diminished by the very nature of the Phansi
special. But this was only at the level of the thematic and not of the form.

Comparisons with Hindu Panch

The multi-layered tension apparent in 'Phansi Ank' became all the more sharp by
the time Hindu Panch's 'Balidan Ank' was published in 1930. While it was
dedicated to the public on the 'eve of Lahore Congress; nowhere did it discuss the
Congress led movement. The whole issue was divided into four sections, i.e. 1.

111
It will be again imperative to quote Bakhtin here, " ... many words stubbornly resist, others remain
alien, sound foreign in the mouth of the one who appropriated them and who now speaks them; they
can not be assimilated into his context and fall out of it; it is as if they put themselves in quotation
marks against the will of the speaker". Bakhtin, op. cit., p. 294.
112
Sri 'Rasikesh', 'Dyer', ibid; p.123.
113
'Ek Rashtriya Atma', 'Phansi', ibid, p.226.

211
'Prachin Bharat ke Balidan'; 2. 'Madhyakalin Bharat ke Balidan' (including the
period up to 1857); 3. 'Adhunik Bharat ke Bali dan' (giving details of the hanged
revolutionaries or those who were serving the sentence) and 4. 'Videshon ke
Balidan' (stories ranging from Irish nationalism to Bolshevik movement).
The first category talked of only Hindu mythological characters like Prahlad and
Dhruv. The second category of 'balidanis' was clearly concerned with those Hindu
warriors who had given up their lives fighting against the supposed oppression of
the Muslims during the medieval period. The third category of 'Adhunik Bharat ke
Balidan' was very much on the lines of Chand detailing the lives of revolutionary
terrorists including those who were not hanged but were serving other kinds of
sentences. The section on the world history interestingly gave prominent space to
Communist movement with many articles on the lives of Lenin and Marx (calling
them with the epithets like Acharya, Mahatma and Maharshi) as well as the
dramatised versions of the extreme sacrifices made by the ordinary Bolsheviks. 114
Along with this, the story of the American persecution of the Communists also got
prominent coverage. It is again interesting to note that the story on the two
Communist leaders' trial and hanging under false charges in America was presented
as a heady mix of thriller, propaganda and hagiography of the two leaders. The story
began on a movie-like description of a dacoity near a shoe factory, going further
with the investigation process and finally leading to the capture of the two prominent
labour leaders Sacco and Venjeti. It further showed the falsity of the charges and
ended with the last speeches of the two leaders before their hanging and finally the
author's own comments .on the duplicity of the capitalist dominated democracy of
America. 115

114
There were fourteen photographs on Bolshevik movement out of which five were of Lenin, one of
Karl Marx, and rest on different people associated with the movement.
115
'Sacco aur Venjeti', Sri K.M. Bhardwaj, Hindu Panch, Calcutta, Jan. 1930, pp. 239-45. It is
necessary to quote a couple of instances. The first one begins on the day of 15 April 1920 in a small
town of U.S.A.:
"The cashier of the factory Parmentor was hurriedly walking towards the factory crossing the main
road of South Bentry from the head office accompanied by a guard. The time was about 3 or quarter
past 3 in the noon. Each of them had a bag full of currency. Suddenly somebody shot both of them
with a gun. Both fell down. Almost at the same time a car came along from behind at the scene of the
incident. Two or three men got out of it, grabbed the bags and quickly got back inside the car. The car
sped off and disappeared in a few moments after crossing the nearby railway line". Ibid.
The other quote is from the speech of one of the convicted leaders, Sacco, "This inequality is
poisonous. Why should the labourers spend their lives like animals despite being humans? Even they
have a right over the good things bestowed by the nature. Because of these things and prevalent
behaviour, I have changed my mind. That's why I love those people who toil hard and want to better

212
The less clear extremities of Chand become quite apparent particularly in its contra-
dictory stance quite a general feature of those times. This contradiction is that of a
portrayal of hard-boiled propaganda of a Hindu India on one hand and a
simultaneous propaganda against capitalism in the name of Communism on the
other hand. Of course even in the discussion of the Bolsheviks' sacrifices, the stress
was more on their heroic deeds rather than their ideology, yet a very admirable tone
was apparent throughout these essays for their beliefs and contribution to the idea of
equality. Incidentally, this is something, which seems to be visible across the
spectrum. Even Nirala is said to professed an amalgam of Vedantism and
Communism as his belief This indeed was based more on the philosophical analysis
of the two ideologies rather than a straight-jacketed mixture of the superficial
features of Hinduism and Communism. 116 In fact it was not even a mixture, rather
very often the Hinduistic narratives appear with the socialist or communist
ideologies in so far as the belief in equality goes. At the same time, the Communist
negation of religion is either sidelined or not even mentioned.
There are quite a few instances where the complex and flexible relationship between
high and supposedly low literary forms becomes apparent. Two such examples can
be cited. One is that of 'Veer Murli Manohar' 117 who was killed by the 'deceitful
and fanatic' pathans in Kabul supposedly because he had objected to their sarcasm
against his religion, i.e., Hinduism. The story was peppered with melodrama, and it
had highly emotional exchanges between different characters, replete with extremely
flowery Urdu language characteristic of popular Parsi theatre of those days. In fact
when Murli went to the gallows, he again sang a ghazal, the last two lines of which
were, 'Taiyar hoon main khak mein phir se milne ke liye, Beej bota hoon jahan mein
phir se khilne ke liye' and ending with the last statement: 'Bhagwan! Tumhari

their lives instead of shedding their blood in the war. We don't want to fight with a gun or redden this
holy earth with the blood of the youth of this country". Ibid.
116
See for example, Ramvilas Sharma, Nirala ki Sahitya Sadhana, Rajkamal Prakashan, N. Delhi.
117
Rajnarayan Chaturvedi 'Ajad', 'Veer Murli Manohar', Hindu Panch, pp. 95-101. Interestingly,
the story was put under the 'medieval' section despite the author's own admission that it had
happened only nineteen-twenty years ago. On the other hand, many earlier incidents narrated in the
issue had been kept under the 'modern' section. This was done ostensibly because in this case, the
heroism displayed by the protagonist was against Muslim fundamentalism, which was supposedly a
medieval menace so to say as against the English who had ushered India in the modem era. Hence
not temporally but theoretically the topic still fell under 'medieval India'. This perhaps also indicates
the extent to which the James Mills' categorisation of Indian history in terms of religious categories,
had taken roots in the public mind.

213
 sharan mein ata hoon'. 118 One can clearly discern the stark difference between the
two quotes. While, the last two lines of the ghazal are naturally laden with popular
Urdu words, the single sentence in the end remembering God, is in Sanskrit diction
and vocabulary automatically betraying the specific religious input that got
associated with the two forms of the language used. Yet it is important to outline
that even after many years had passed since the inception of the Hindi movement
and after many attempts to explore and establish its own literary forms, even as late
as 1930, the popular forms were still not only existent but even those proposing to
purge Hindi of 'evil influences' had to keep falling back to it in order to find a wider
appeal for their propaganda.
In the second example, while there were many poems written in the popular forms
borrowed from Urdu, there were also instances where the attempt was to do a kind
of reverse act. A poem written and inspired from the life of Kartar Singh Sarabha
(inspired from the biographical note written by Bhagat Singh in Chand's 'Phansi
Ank') showed Sarabha deciding to turn back while on the run by suddenly
understanding the implications of the song he was singing. Interestingly while in
Bhagat Singh's version the song was originally in its popular Punjabi form: 'Bani sir
sheran de, ki jana bhajj ke' (The lions are in danger, will they run away?), the Hindu
Panch version converted it into the 'modern' Sanskritised version of Hindi:
"'Sheron ke sir aa bani hai, Ve bhag na jayenge"; Ruke hathat, Vichar-dhara bah
chali yon:- Kya yah pankti doosron ke liye thi?' 119 Thus in one instance, we have a
Hindu hero ghazal in a theatrical style attempting to inspire its readers; in the other
instance we have the poet's attempt to transform a popular Punjabi song into a
poetic version of contemporary literary Hindi, ostensible to pull off the same effect.
This indeed was in continuation of the same tension as reflected in 'Phansi Ank',
when the choice of forms or their combination tended to get decided through the
type of message being projected. Despite its otherwise distaste for such popular
forms, the elite literary aesthetics had to succumb many times to these forms to
convey its messages. Thus both the popular and high literary forms were impinging
and thereby transforming each other in the process, particularly in the context of
highly charged nationalism.

118
Ibid, p. 101.
119
Anon., ibid, p. 20 1.

214
Another of the poems using the motto of Hindu Panch in between as its base
(sthayi), also accommodated a criticism of zamindari system, the plight of peasants
along with the popular motif of Hindu women in danger against the lustful Muslim
goons. The motto was: 'Lajja rakhne ko Hindu ki, Hindu-naam bachane ko; Aya
Hindu-Panch Hind mein, Hindu jati jagane ko!' 120 This motto proudly displayed on
the cover page of all the issues of the periodical clearly identified its target audience
along with its ostensible task to reinvigorate the Hindu masses against British as
well as all other 'hostile' communities, primarily Muslims. In this respect Chand
definitely had no such public display of its 'Hinduness' inspite of the fact that many
of such underlying tensions so clear in Hindu Panch were subtly working in the
former as well. It is not coincidental that despite working with a person like Bhagat
Singh for the special issue Chatursen became rabid in his anti-Muslim stance over
the years and made his name through writing historical novels glorifying ancient
India and launching a tirade against the Muslims in medieval India. In fact his
propagandist work Islam ka Vish-vriksh (The Poison Tree of Islam) was so rabid
against Muslims that Premchand was provoked to write a rebuttal and also forced
him to ask fellow writers like Jainendra to reply to it.

Reception
We have already mentioned the immense popularity that 'Phansi Ank' enjoyed and
yet it seems imperative here to discuss a few things about the nature of this
popularity. In an editorial note of his journal Vishal Bharat, the noted Gandhian
leader and editor Banarsidas Chaturvedi, while receiving this number with great
warmth and appreciating the essays by well-known writers like Pt. Padm Sinh
Sharma, Pt. Sundarlal, Khwaja Hasan Nizami, Acharya Ramdev etc., noted that 'the
most important part ofthis number' was its eighty page section titled 'Viplav Yagna
ki Ahutiyan'. Further, quoting one of his friends terming the number as 'extremely
dangerous' (atyant bhayankar) he saw it as the 'certificate' of its excellence. 121 It is
once again important to outline something, which has been evident throughout the
discussion, i.e., the glorifying and romantic exposition of revolutionary terrorism.
This is not only visible through a general neglect of the mass-movements being led
by Gandhi (who himselfgot a minor mention) in the issue, but also through the fact

120
Madhusudan Ojha 'Swatanra', 'Hindu Panch', ibid, p. 211-2.
121
Banarsidas Chaturvedi, 'Sampadkiya Vichar', Visha/ Bharat, Nov. 1928, pp. 765-6.

215
that the leaders like Chaturvedi also acknowledged the popular perceptions
associated with this kind of movement. This is all the more important because
Bhagat Singh, who achieved a cult status with his martyrdom, was little known in
public around this time and was in hiding. The popularity around him came only
with his trial and media attention given to it. While this number was an attempt to
bring focus on this strand of patriotism, the spontaneous mass appeal that it
generated also underlined the fact that there was already a 'figure of revolutionary
romantic' quite firmly established in the minds of the people. And even those people
like Chaturvedi who were firmly opposed to it 122, did not only acknowledge its
popularity but also saw such publicity as in 'Phansi Ank', as a welcome step.
It is interesting to note in this context that Chaturvedi around this time was engaged
in a running battle against writers like Ugra (whose story was published in the
'Phansi Ank') and publishers and editors of Chand and Hindu Panch on the charges
of publishing vulgar literature in the name of realism labelling it ghasleti sahitya.
Chand around this time had published a serialised novel Ablaon ka Insaf and Hindu
Panch had published Vyabhichar Mandir in a serial form on the grounds of bringing
ugly hidden facets of Hindu society before public. It is not coincidental that these
very periodicals also brought out sensational issues of 'Phansi Ank' and 'Balidan
Ank'. Revolutionary nationalistic propaganda in a sensational form was something
which even people like Chaturvedi could not denigrate. He on the other hand was
himself engaged in establishing his leadership over the Hindi public leadership using
these movements by performing the self-appointed role ot mediator between
bigwigs like Gandhi and Tagore and Hindi world. Chaturvedi in fact went on to drop
his wish to 'hang' Sahgal who had published a supposedly vulgar novel like Ablaon
ka Insaj after the publication of 'Phansi Ank' . 123
It was left to Premchand to resume the attack against the sensational journalism of
Chand. Premchand had earlier guest-edited the 'literary special' of Chand praising
its commitment towards serious issues and hence its top position among the
periodicals of that time. 124 By the time its 'Marwari Ank' came in Nov. 1929,

122
In an earlier editorial Chaturvedi while criticising the politics of violence in the context of the
hangings of Kakori convicts, had also lauded their patriotic feelings. See, 'Sampadkiya Vi char', ibid,
samvat 1984, no. I. Part I.
123
Ibid.
124
Premchand, 'Galpank ka Prastav', Chand, Dec. 1926 (also see, Amrit Rai ed., Vividh Prasang,
vol. 3, Hans Prakashan, Allahabad, pp. 39-48, 1962 and Jabir Husain and Ram Anand ed.,
Premchand Rachnavali, vol. 8, Janwani Prakashan, N. Delhi, 1996).

216
Premchand was irritated enough to launch a personal tirade against Sahgal and the
periodical, terming it an example of crass opportunism. Favourably quoting fellow
writer Sudarshan criticising the issue he further added: 'Like true businessmen
Chand has given primacy to the theory of profit by selling. The commodity should
sell; don't give a damn if it harms anybody!' 125 Further asking the readers to boycott
Chand in order to save the women (stree-samaj) from its crass vulgarism, he went
on to argue that it was unfortunate that a man of 'such mentality' (i.e. Sahgal)
controlled a social-reform organisation like 'Matri-mandir' (an organisation for the
upliftment of destitute women). 126 Incidentally this was not a solitary example.
Chatursen himself admitted later the adverse publicity it brought to Chand, but laid
the blame squarely on Sahgal who had ostensibly put in some material without his
knowledge with ulterior motive to blackmail certain people. 127 Chatursen apparently
left the journal over the issue. The uproar was so much that Marwaris of Calcutta led
by Khaitan brothers brought a legal suit against it. Though it was not new to
Sahgal, 128 he was publicly derided and yet the issue sold fifteen thousand copies.
This also in fact was the beginning of decline of Sahgal who had to lose the control
over Chand later on.

Conclusion
The interplay of various motivations involved in the publication of such issues and
particularly 'Phansi Ank' outlined certain factors. For one, even as the issue with its
wide variety of rich material displayed a kind of heteroglossia, the multiple play of
themes and the language at its creative best eventually seemed to succumb to get
circumscribed and defined by a moral, social order imposed from above. An order,
which stood outside so to speak, defining and shaping its form as well as content.
This led to overall change in the form of the journal itself and the type of journalism
m vogue.
The subsequent responses around the issue and varying responses to its other special
numbers also displayed the kind of politics that was taking place in the Hindi public

125
Premchand, 'Chand kaManvari Ank', Madhuri, Lucknow, Dec. 1929. Also see, ibid.
126
Ibid.
127
Chatursen, op. cit., p. 154.
128
Earlier Sahgal had got engaged in a legal battle against Pratap, which had made some adverse
comment on its 'Shishu Ank'. The matter was eventually handed over to Hindi Sahitya Sammelan
exemplifying the kind of public authority this institution had begun to wield by then. See, Shivpujan
Sahay's letter to Ugra, dated 19/8/1925, File aur Profile (A Collection of Letters to 'Ugra'),
Radhakrishna Prakashan, N. Delhi, undated, p. 362.

217
sphere of that time. While the debate around 'what is worth public consumption and
what is not' took controversial turns different kinds of people and institutions came
to play and assert their role in this. Thus people like Premchand representing the
'literary block' were also in it as well as political propagandists like Chaturvedi
trying to assert their authority over this field by seeking to give it specific direction.
Also involved were institutions like Hindi Sahitya Sammelan engaged in sanctifying
writers, specific literary practices etc. and so were influential sections of the Hindi
society like Marwaris (who were not even the 'true' sections of Hindi world so to
say and yet patronised it for various reasons). The debate around popular and high
literature was an integral part of such a scenario. Yet nationalism was a 'sacred cow'
which could cross all barriers and hence contribution to 'Phansi Ank' by even those
'old school' writers like Padm Sinh Sharma who ,otherwise were engaged in
criticising Chand for its supposedly vulgar publications. Nationalism of different
types in this respect existed not only side by side but also in close interaction with
each other.

218