LAMHI: Poised roughly 10km from Varanasi,
Lamhi
could have been another faceless village of east Uttar Pradesh. But as the birthplace of Hindi-Urdu litterateur Munshi
Premchand
, it is both celebrated and privileged. Only, it is no longer a village, either by looks or designation.
Over the years, especially in the last decade, north India’s premier temple town has swelled and swallowed nearby areas.
Lamhi is now part of Varanasi’s Nagar Nigam (municipal corporation). “We wanted the ward to be named after Premchand. But it didn’t happen,” says former pradhan Santosh Singh.
Little surprise, real estate prices have soared. “From roughly Rs 10-12 lakh about a decade ago, a biswa (1,360 sq ft) costs anywhere between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 80 lakh now, depending on the locality. You could rent a single room for as little as Rs 300 per month. Now it is Rs 2,500,” he says.
Lamhi has a panchayat bhavan, a post office, a primary school and a primary health centre. Small entrepreneurs are active. Beauty parlours, dry-cleaners, hardware stores, cosmetics and jewellery shops have also sprung up. Fresh advertisements of cement, private hospitals and coaching classes garnish the village walls. Premchand’s realistic novels and stories captured the song and suffering of rural India like few before or after. One wonders how the writer would have reacted to the change.
Nearly 90 years after his death, Premchand too is all over Lamhi. The gateway to the village bears his memory. A memorial with a marble bust, a dormant research and study centre affiliated to Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and a pond are named after the ex-village’s illustrious son.
Lamhi is part of Chandauli Lok Sabha constituency. Patels (OBCs by caste) form roughly half the village’s population. The Patel percentage was higher but with other castes such as Brahmins building homes here in recent years, the larger caste demographic has altered. Kayasthas roughly form 10%. Premchand was a Kayastha; his real name being Dhanpat Rai Srivastav. Muslims, Dalits, Kumhars, Rajbhars and Thakurs make up the rest. The village has about 2,600 votes.
Chandauli has been fickle in choosing political sides: Samajwadi Party (1999), Bahujan Samaj Party (2004), and SP again in (2009). But the last two terms (2014 and 2019) were claimed by BJP’s Mahendra Nath Pandey, the 62-year-old former Union minister who holds a doctorate in Hindi from BHU.
By all accounts, Pandey was on an unsure wicket in the previous elections, till Pulwama happened. The Feb 2019 terror strike left 40 CRPF soldiers dead. One of them, Awadesh Kumar Yadav, was from Chandauli district. Some others were born in nearby east Uttar Pradesh areas of Deoria and Maharajganj. The dastardly attack changed the public mood. Several demonstrations were staged. Pandey prevailed by 14,000 votes; in 2014, he had romped home by 1.6 lakh votes.
In the recent past, most Patels have preferred BJP, which is in alliance with Anupriya Patel’s Apna Dal (S). Surendra Patel, who runs a hardware store, says a majority of Patels are still with BJP but, this time, quite a few will vote for others. “Not many like the BJP candidate. SP’s Birender Singh is more accessible and people-oriented,” he says. Birendra, a 65-year-old science graduate, is a former MLA.
Ajay Gupta, who runs a small grocery store, says his family will vote for Modi. “Mehngai hai par vikas bhi hai (There’s price rise, but development too),” he reasons. Mohd Sabir, whose family has received free grains and benefited from a subsidy for toilet construction some time back, differs. The 23-year-old driver talks about mehngai (price rise) and how examination paper leaks are a major issue for students. “There are about 250 Muslim votes in the village. Most will vote for SP,” he says.
Aiedhe village is contiguous to Lamhi. A group of Dalits sitting near Sant Shiromani Guru Ravidas Mandir are playing cards on a charpoy. They are annoyed with the Union govt. “Govt schools are no good and private ones are too expensive. How do we compete in this unequal world?” asks Rajesh Kumar. The Dalits are not happy with Mayawati either, especially the way she has handled the ‘political successor’ issue. “She should have discussed the subject with more seniors,” says Manish Kumar, an ITI student. The disappointments aside, most Dalits will vote for the 50-yearold BSP candidate Satendra Kumar Maurya. Like Akansha, a girl filling water from a hand pump.
Suresh Chandra Dube, who looks after the Premchand memorial, says people want Modi to stay. “But unemployment and price rise worry them. Log mayoos hain (people are despondent),” he says.
In a small room in the memorial, the writer’s books, photos and memorabilia are on display. The items include his personal hookah (smoking pipe). One black and white photo shows him with fellow Hindi litterateur Jaishankar Prasad; in another he is sitting in a chair with his wife. Premchand, who spent his last years in deprivation, is seen wearing torn shoes which later prompted a much-discussed essay by noted writer Harishankar Parsai.
Godan and Nirmala are among Premchand’s finest novels. Shatranj Ke Khiladi, the subject of a 1978
Satyajit Ray
film, Kafan and Idgah are among his greatest stories. “All copies of his book, Soz-e-Watan, were burnt by the British. Premchand was a patriot and a reformer,” says Dube. What saddens him is that the research institute is now defunct. “There are no books, teachers, research scholars or sanitation workers. Only the security guards come and go,” he says.
