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In Karmabhumi, Premchand explores the complex world of human relationships while firmly grounding his characters in the social and political realities of his times. Through his protagonists and their yearnings, love, laughter, tears, trials and tribulations, the author subtly brings alive the India of the early decades of the twentieth century, at the same time delivering a powerful social and political message. So light is his touch that his protagonists seem at times almost inconsistent but, for that very reason, more human. Threads of Hindu-Muslim unity; shared goals of the welfare of these two communities; and the non-violent struggle of the untouchables, peasants, and the city’s poor for their rights are deftly interwoven in Premchand’s novel. It is startling to note how topical these issues are even in the India of our times and yet how divorced from our urban lives. Certainly the innocent idealism seems rather anachronistic today, but at the same time, very appealing.
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