The Theft of Honour for Gold- On Premchand’s Gaban

Munshi Premchand is that gem in the magnum corpus of Hindi Literature who presented the realist image of society with characters so nuancedly presented that their sorrow and suffering glow from the seam of the pages. In Gaban, a novel which was published in 1931, Premchand represents the unaware and hypocritical Indian in the chokehold of economic and social conundrum, who refused to bend down to the test of times but believed in keeping appearances.

A Chandrahar, Source: Pinterest

In 1931, Munshi Premchand, the great gem of a writer in Hindi and Urdu literature created the dynamic character of Jalpa. She is the titular protagonist of Premchand’s 1931 novel ‘Gaban’. Gaban is a Hindi word that means loss or in the context of the novel, embezzlement. In Hinduism, women are considered a form of Lakshmi, a figure of good luck and wellness enriches in a house where a woman resides.

Jalpa was married off with the same concept that her presence would make goddess Lakshmi shower her blessings in her marital home. She was a woman who got married with a meager dowry but her eyes were full of hope for acquiring the most scintillating jewels a girl could even imagine. At that time, as in the case of the present time as well, jewels, specifically gold held a great value and those who possessed a handsome amount of it were considered rich in a truly luxurious sense.

But Jalpa was married to a man who was too sure of himself but didn’t have the means to fulfill his wife’s overwhelming and overbearing ambitions of processing a chandrahar. Ramnath was an obnoxious young fellow who was so enamoured with the charming eyes of his new wife that he sought to fulfill every one of her wishes even though he was not capable financially. Like most men of a modest patriarchal community, he believed in maintaining a status of well-being and when he got married to a girl who thought of her husband as some splendid man of means, she asked from him the most enamouring piece of jewellery which was owned by only the richest of rich household in India.

In 1931, India was brimming with an extreme of everything. While freedom fighters shielded India’s glory through protests and marches, the orthodox Indian society was going through another kind of challenge. Surviving in the moment of foreign hegemony while trying to maintain their cultural identity was a challenge that required both resilience and strategy. The people of the country were made to work for the British crown while they were compensated for their work meagrely as a large part of the workforce went to fight for the British during the world wars.

The cover of the book, Source: Oxford India

Ramnath represents the egoistic side of Indian society and believed in keeping appearances. The socio-political unrest in the country made his business churn money very sheepishly but his prideful ambition to complete every one of his wife’s expensive and fanciful wishes made him turn to unfair means of acquiring wealth to afford a chandrahar. A chandrahar is a necklace that is made exclusively of gold and some priciest gems to decorate the inlaid surface. It's considered a very heavy piece of Indian jewellery one which is worn only on special and auspicious occasions.

It's true that to own gold is to build an asset but Jalpa’s demands were overreaching and had no limits. She represents the unaware Indian women of the country when women didn’t have any knowledge about the conditions outside of the four walls of the household. A typical Indian woman is still expected to keep the house while the man works and brings money to support the wife and the children. Hence Jalpa didn’t even care to find Ramanath’s financial position before making one demand after another. It shows how estranged women were about the practical aspects of living, how stereotyped men and women were molded to be even though it cost them everything, and most of all, their respect.

If Ramanth wouldn’t have been so gullible to bend to every one of Jalpa’s fascinations, he would never have indulged in unfair means such as embezzlement which depraved him down to mortal danger. Premchand very serenely and minutely critiques the stereotyped mindset of typical gender roles in the Indian society of the 1900s, when things were already strained nationally, the stereotyped male and female made their conditions worse because of their inability to understand the other’s weakness and forcedness.