Contemporary Indian Middle-Class And The Novels Of Premchand: A Brief Survey

Abstract

The contemporary political and the administrative needs of the British Empire in India seem to have been the reason for the emergence and the rise of the middle class in India during the second half of the nineteenth century. The British governors and administrators in India drafted an education policy with a purpose to produce educated and well informed people to help them run their offices and making their administration working smoothly. On the other hand education and knowledge began to awaken the minds of the emerging class. Now the conflict between the old and the new was inevitable. Premchand, belonging to the same emerging class, was very well aware of the sense and the sensibilities of the contemporary Indian class. In almost all his novels he seems to represent the issues, rites, rituals and above all the conflicts of the then Indian middle class very vividly and flawlessly.

Keywords: - Conflicts, Social issues, Emerging middle class, The British Empire, Reformist         institutions, Injustice, Untouchables.