Yashpal (3 December 1903 – 26 December 1976) was a
Hindi-language
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
writer who is sometimes considered to be the most gifted writer since
Premchand
Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known by his pen name Premchand (), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. He was one of ...
. A political commentator and a
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
, he wrote in a range of genres, including essays, novels and short stories, as well as a play, two travel books and an autobiography. He won the Hindi-language
Sahitya Akademi Award
The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...
for his novel, ''
Meri Teri Uski Baat'' in 1976 and was also a recipient of the
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...
. Yashpal's writings form an extension to his earlier life as a revolutionary in the cause of the
Indian independence movement
The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947.
The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...
.
Early life and activism
Yashpal was born on 1903 in the village of Bhumpal, (present-day
Hamirpur district) situated within the
Kangra Hills in
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
. His mother was poor and had sole responsibility for raising her two sons. He grew up in an era when the popularity of the
Indian independence movement
The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947.
The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...
was steadily increasing and with a mother who was a keen supporter of
Arya Samaj
Arya Samaj ( hi, आर्य समाज, lit=Noble Society, ) is a monotheistic Indian Hindu reform movement that promotes values and practices based on the belief in the infallible authority of the Vedas. The samaj was founded by the sanny ...
. He attended an Arya Samaj
gurukul
Education in India is primarily managed by state-run public education system, which fall under the command of the government at three levels: central, state and local. Under various articles of the Indian Constitution and the Right of Childre ...
in
Haridwar
Haridwar (; ) is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. With a population of 228,832 in 2011, it is the second-largest city in the state and the largest in the district.
The city is situated on the righ ...
on a "freeship" basis, due to the family's poverty. Such gurukuls were considered by the colonial administration to be "hotbeds of sedition" because they fostered pride in Hindu culture and Indian achievements, encouraging the notion that British rule was a "temporary setback or punishment for having permitted laxity in the Aryan religion." Yashpal later said that during his schooldays he had daydreamed of a time when Indians would reverse the current situation to the point of ruling the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
in England. He was bullied by his fellow pupils at the gurukul on account of his poverty, and he left the school when he suffered a prolonged attack of
dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
.
Reunited with his mother in
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...
, Yashpal attended middle school there before progressing to high school in
Ferozepur Cantonment, where the family had subsequently moved. He found the urban environment and schooling to be more to his taste and he finished first in class in his matriculation exam.
Yashpal had been a follower of
Mahatma Gandhi's Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
organisation from the age of 17, while still in high school. He toured villages to promote Gandhi's message of
non-cooperation among peasant people but they appeared disinterested and he realised that there was nothing in the Congress programme that addressed issues that affected them. It was after one such tour that he received his matriculation results, the success in which entitled him to a scholarship at a government college. He declined that award in favour of having to fund himself through studies at
National College, Lahore, an institution that had been established by the Arya Samajist and Congress activist
Lala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai (28 January 1865 - 17 November 1928) was an Indian author, freedom fighter, and politician. He played a vital role in the Indian Independence movement. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari. He was one of the three members of ...
with the aim of promoting social service and providing a quality education to Indians who did not want to be taught in British-administered colleges.
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
It was at National College that Yashpal met people such as
Bhagat Singh
Bhagat Singh (27 September 1907 – 23 March 1931) was a charismatic Indian revolutionary*
* who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer
*
* in what was to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationa ...
and
Sukhdev Thapar
Sukhdev Thapar (15 May 1907 – 23 March 1931) was an Indian revolutionary who worked to make India independent from the British Raj along with his best friends and partners Bhagat Singh and Shivaram Rajguru. A senior member of the Hindustan S ...
who were later to become the nucleus of the
Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
i armed revolution movement. Encouraged by the tutelage of
Jaichandra Vidyalankar
Jaya-chandra (IAST: Jayacandra, r. c. 1170–1194 CE) was a king from the Gahadavala dynasty, Gahadavala dynasty of northern India. He is also known as Jayachchandra (IAST: Jayaccandra) in inscriptions, and Jaichand in vernacular legends. He ru ...
, a historian and associate of
Ghadarites, this group of students read widely of political theory and past revolutionaries from Europe and India. The Hindustan Republican Association became known as the
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), previously known as the Hindustan Republican Army and Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), was an Indian revolutionary organisation founded by Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Sachindra ...
(HSRA) in 1928, with the change of name probably being largely due to the influence of Bhagat Singh, who was a prominent figure in it. Sharing Singh's disillusionment with the impact of Gandhi's non-cooperation strategy, Yashpal joined with it. His work for the HSRA was generally behind the scenes and he had a lower public profile than people who physically engaged in acts of revolution, such as Singh,
Rajguru Rajguru, also spelled as Rajyaguru, is an ancient title and surname of the Indian subcontinent which means ''royal priest''.
Notable people
*Rajguru Aggavamsa Mahathera, Bangladeshi Buddhist
*Rajguru Priyo Ratana Mahathera, Buddhist guru
*Basava ...
and
Chandrashekar Azad
Chandra Shekhar Tiwari ( (23 July 1906 – 27 February 1931), popularly known as Chandra Shekhar Azad, was an Indian revolutionary who reorganised the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) under its new name of Hindustan Socialist Republica ...
. While continuing his activism, he was employed as a clerk by the Lakshmi Insurance Company, a role that he deeply disliked and described
Yashpal became a fugitive in April 1929, hiding for a few weeks with a relative (Pandit Shyama) in the Kangra area (village Samhoon near Rail in Hamirpur) after a recently established HSRA bomb factory in Lahore was raided by police. Realizing that the HSRA cause could not be furthered unless its members were organised, he was back in Lahore before June. Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev Thapar had both been arrested and he did not have contact details for any members who were free. Sukhdev Thapar was able to give him details of another member after Yashpal visited him in prison, posing as a lawyer, but the information was voided soon after due to a police raid on the HSRA's other bomb factory, in
Saharanpur
Saharanpur is a city and a municipal corporation in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is also the administrative headquarters of Saharanpur district.
Saharanpur city's name was given after the Saint Shah Haroon Chishti.
Saharanpur is declared as on ...
. Some of those arrested at both factories became informants.
Yashpal then held discussions with leaders of the
Hindu Mahasabha
The Hindu Mahasabha (officially Akhil Bhārat Hindū Mahāsabhā, ) is a Hindu nationalist political party in India.
Founded in 1915, the Mahasabha functioned mainly as a pressure group advocating the interests of orthodox Hindus before the B ...
. However, he differed from them ideologically. Their offer to pay the HSRA 50,000 rupees to assassinate
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah (, ; born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) was a barrister, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the ...
was the final straw: the organisation of which he was a member were not to be guns for hire.
The last significant armed act of the HSRA was the attempt on 23 December 1929 to blow up a train carrying the then
viceroy
A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning "k ...
,
Lord Irwin
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a senior Conservative Party (UK), British Conservat ...
. Yashpal detonated that bomb, which destroyed the
dining car
A dining car (American English) or a restaurant car (British English), also a diner, is a railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant.
It is distinct from other railroad food service cars that ...
but only inconvenienced Irwin. With several of its leaders imprisoned, some of whom were subsequently executed, Chandrashekar Azad reorganised the HSRA in 1930. Yashpal was appointed to the central committee and became organiser in Punjab. It was around this time that he met his future wife, Prakashvati Kapur, through his HSRA work. That relationship caused much jealousy and also concern among other HSRA members: the 17-year-old Prakashvati was considered too young to be involved with the group, although already paying a subscription, and was perceived as being vulnerable. There were also concerns about his commitment to the cause, since people thought that the life of a revolutionary was not compatible with marriage and HSRA members had taken a vow of celibacy. The outcome was dramatic: Yashpal found out that some of his colleagues were plotting to kill him for being a double agent of the British under orders from Azad, and the HSRA was beset with internal divisions regarding those concerns and also accusations that Yashpal might turn informant, His information came from the would-be assassin, a member of the HSRA who was acting as an informer for the British authorities. In September 1930, despite his personal acceptance of Yashpal's false integrity and honour, Azad felt it necessary to disband the fractured movement, distributing its weapons among the membership and telling them to go fight for the revolutionary cause on a decentralised, provincial basis rather than under direction from the committee.
While making various abortive attempts to visit Russia in order to investigate the outcomes of the
revolution there, Yashpal continued to work with Azad until the latter died in February 1931 during a shoot-out with police in
Allahabad
Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
. He tried then to reunite the HSRA and was eventually successful, being elected commander-in-chief in January 1932 and putting his name to a seditious handbill that was distributed. He was arrested by the British in Allahabad on 22 January 1932.
Defended by a member of the
Nehru family
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India du ...
,
Shyam Kumari Nehru
Shyam Kumari Khan née Nehru (20 October 1904 – 9 June 1980) was an Indian lawyer, freedom fighter, politician and social worker. She was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1963 to 1968.
Career
Khan studied at Allahabad University and was the ...
, Yashpal tried to claim the status of a
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
, which might improve the conditions of his confinement. He received a 14-year sentence of
rigorous imprisonment, seven of those being on the charge of attempted murder in
Cawnpore
Kanpur or Cawnpore ( /kɑːnˈpʊər/ pronunciation (help·info)) is an industrial city in the central-western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1207, Kanpur became one of the most important commercial and military stations o ...
and a further seven for attempting to kill a police officer in a shoot-out that had occurred a day after his arrival in Allahabad. Nehru told him that the judge had originally intended these sentences to run concurrently but had changed his decision to consecutive during a delay in finalising the paperwork. The change could have been significant because a fourteen-year sentence was ''de facto'' equivalent to one of life imprisonment: government review and permission for release was required once the sentence was complete. As events turned out, and after facing further charges in May 1932, resulting from the deliberations of the
Delhi Conspiracy Commission
The Delhi Conspiracy Commission was created dated 9 April 1930 by an order of the Chief Commissioner of Delhi, exercising his special powers under section 3(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The commission was directed that certain persons ...
and later abandoned, Yashpal served six years before being among those released under an amnesty agreement for political prisoners that was brokered by the newly formed Congress government in the
United Provinces. As far as Congress were concerned, there was no difference in status between people who had been imprisoned for non-cooperation (the ''
satyagrahi
Satyagraha ( sa, सत्याग्रह; ''satya'': "truth", ''āgraha'': "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth",' or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone wh ...
s'') and those serving sentences for revolutionary activities. His release came on 2 March 1938, without any requirement for him to renounce his past activities.
Despite his own misgivings concerning his future prospects, given his criminal history and increasingly poor health while in jail, Prakashvati had determined to marry him and did so at her insistence. The ceremony took place at
Bareilly Central Jail
Bareilly Central Jail was built in 1848 at Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, India, at a time when the authorities of the British East India Company were introducing a policy of constructing central prisons to house those convicted for long terms. The pr ...
on 7 August 1936 and was the first marriage to be conducted in an Indian jail. It caused a furore, being considered an unwarranted humanisation of the strictures of imprisonment. Prison manuals were amended to prevent a recurrence.
Writing
It was after Yashpal's release from prison that he began to write, seeing literature as a vehicle for righting the wrongs that he perceived to exist in Indian society.
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
became his preferred ideology; he saw the
Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925.
H ...
as the successor to the HSRA, although he joined neither that nor any other political party.
Yashpal had been banned from entering Punjab following his release from prison and so settled with his wife in
Lucknow
Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...
. His first work, ''Pinjre ki Uran (Flight from the Cage)'' (1939), was a notable success. He worked briefly for ''Karmayogi'', a Hindi-language magazine, before establishing his own magazine, ''Viplav (Cataclysm)'', which was published in Hindi and Urdu until its closure in 1941. The closure became necessary because the government, which considered ''Viplav'' to be seditious, demanded a 13,000
rupee
Rupee is the common name for the currencies of
India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...
security; the magazine was restarted after
India gained independence in 1947. In 1941, he established a publishing house called ''Viplava Karyalaya'' and, in 1944, a printing press called Sathi Press.
Yashpal's next books – ''
Dada Kamred
''Dada Kamred'' ( hi, दादा कॉमरेड) is a novel written by Yashpal. ''Dada Kamred'' was Yashpal's first novel.
References
1941 debut novels
20th-century Indian novels
Hindi-language novels
Rajkamal Prakashan books
...
(Comrade, The Big Brother)'' (1941) and ''Deshdrohi (Traitor)'' (1943) – were both fictional works that had the Communist Party as a central theme. Other essays, novels, and short stories were published between that time and Indian independence, and these added to the impression that he was an agitator. That impression caused his arrest in 1949 and jailing by order of the
Government of Uttar Pradesh
The Government of Uttar Pradesh (ISO: Uttar Pradesh Sarkār; often abbreviated as GoUP) is the subnational government of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh with the governor as its appointed constitutional head of the state by the President of I ...
, which was at that time arresting people with communist sympathies due to an illegal railway strike that had Communist Party support. A public outcry at his arrest ensued and the government had to back down in a humiliating manner, although they did succeed in banning him from Lucknow for a period of six months and thus caused the final closure of ''Viplav''.
His autobiography, ''Sinhavalokan (A Lion's Eye-View'' or ''A Backward Glance)'', was published in three volumes between 1951–55 and is recognized for its detailed account of the armed struggle for independence in India as well as for information on his own early life. He was writing a fourth volume of this autobiography at the time of his death on 26 December 1976.
Yashpal was awarded the
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...
in 1970.
Literary criticism
Yogendra Malik notes that as a Marxist novelist, Yashpal formed a part of
''Meri Teri Uski Baat (My, Your and Her Story)'' (1974), a novel, won the Hindi-language Sahitya Akademi Award in 1976, shortly before his death. Writing on behalf of the same institution, Bhisham Sahni described Yashpal's short stories as carrying on the tradition of Premchand, although focussed more on urban society than that of the rural and lower-middle class. Corinne Friend says that "he has been characterised by many as the most gifted writer of Hindi literature since Prem Chand".
The two volumes of ''
Jhutha Sach'' (1958 and 1960), Yashpal's voluminous novel based on events surrounding the
Partition of India
The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...
, have been compared to
Tolstoy's ''
War and Peace
''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...
'' by many writers and critics. Harish Trivedi, a professor of English, says that these comparisons were sufficiently numerous that "with his eyesight failing, Yashpal arranged for someone to read Tolstoy's great work to him — perhaps to figure out what the fuss was all about".
There are three themes that run throughout Yashpal's writings, being those of gender equality, revolution and romance. While much of his work concerns contemporary or near-contemporary situations, he explored the distant past in novels such as ''Divya'' (1945), ''Amita'' (1954) and ''Apsara ka Shap'' (1965).
Centenary celebrations
In 2003–2004, there were centenary celebrations of his birth and a commemorative postage stamp was issued by
India Post
India Post is a government-operated postal system in India, part of the Department of Post under the Ministry of Communications. Generally known as the Post Office, it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. Warren Hastings ha ...
on 3 December 2003.
Works
Yashpal produced more than 50 works in Hindi, many of which have been translated into other languages. Among his publications are:
Novels
*''
Dada Kamred
''Dada Kamred'' ( hi, दादा कॉमरेड) is a novel written by Yashpal. ''Dada Kamred'' was Yashpal's first novel.
References
1941 debut novels
20th-century Indian novels
Hindi-language novels
Rajkamal Prakashan books
...
'' (1941)
*''Deshdrohi'' (1943)
*''Divya'' (1945)
*''Party Comrade'' (1946, reprinted as ''Gita'')
*''Manushya Ke Roop'' (1949)
*''Amita'' (1956)
*''
Jhutha Sach'' (two volumes,
Vatan Aur Desh : 1958 and
Desh Ka Bhavishya : 1960)
*''Barah Ghante'' (1963)
*''Apsara Ka Shaap'' (1965)
*''
Meri Teri Uski Baat'' (1974)
*''Ve Tufani Din''
*''Kyon Fanse''
Collections
*''Pinjre ki Uran'' (1939)
*''Tark ka Toofan'' (1943)
*''Phulo ka Kurta''
*''Dharmayudha''
*''Sach''
Travel
He also wrote two works based on his travels in Eastern Europe, ''Rah Beeti'' ("the story of the journey") and ''Dekha Socha Samjha'' ("Saw Thought Understood").
Television adaptations
Sunil Batta
Sunil Batta (born 12 June 1961) is an Indian film director, producer, scriptwriter and cameraman.
He was the director-producer of '' Amma'', a Hindi-Awadhi feature film based on a real-life story. It was recalled in the National Film Festival ...
has directed two television series adapting Yashpal's works: ''Guldasta'' in 1995 and ''Jeevan Ke Rang'' in 2005.
See also
*
List of Indian writers
This is a list of notable writers who come from India or have Indian nationality. Names are sorted according to surname.
A
B
C
D
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
...
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* English translation by Anand of Yashpal's ''Jhutha Sach'')
Further reading
*
*
{{portal bar, Biography, India, Literature
1903 births
1976 deaths
Indian editors
Indian Marxists
Indian male novelists
Indian Marxist writers
Hindi-language writers
Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Hindi
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education
20th-century Indian novelists
Indian travel writers
Indian political writers
20th-century Indian essayists
People from Kangra district
Writers from Himachal Pradesh
Revolutionary movement for Indian independence