Book Review: Nirmala by Munshi Premchand

The lack of social security can devastate a woman’s life. When Nirmala’s father is murdered by an old enemy, her fate takes a drastic and gloomy turn. Instead of getting married to Bhuvanmohan, a young man from a well-to-do family, she is forced to tie a knot with the widowed Totaram, a man her father’s age. Nirmala holds veneration towards that man and feels a sense of duty for him. On the other hand, Totaram expects her intimacy and seduces her, but Nirmala fails to resurface. She is Totaram’s second wife; moreover he has three grown-up sons. Of them, the eldest one - Mansaram - is a year older than 15-year-old Nirmala.

Totaram suspects that Nirmala and Mansaram are meddling into an affair. Thus, he sends his eldest son, Mansaram, to a hostel. This move brings clouds of gloominess into Mansaram’s life; as a result, he soon dies of sheer depression. Totaram’s second son blames him for his brother’s death, and he commits suicide in sheer frustration. His third son is lured away by a fake saint and he runs away from home. Totaram distraught by his fate’s circumstances moves out to find his only alive son. After many days, Totaram returns home only to find that his second wife Nirmala has passed away. Behind her, Nirmala leaves her daughter and a legacy of suffering.

The novel has a strong social relevance as it sheds light on the consequences of child marriages, younger girls getting married off to better off old men only to unburden their parents’ responsibilities towards them, and the plight of women in a society that treats a woman as a mere object. Through ‘Nirmala’ Premchand tried to establish a social reform in the favour of women. Even today social evils like dowry and mismatched marriages persist in the Indian society, so the appeal of this novel is not futile today. Undoubtedly, through a woman’s life Nirmala is the best work of Munshi Premchand, but definitely not a piece of feminism.

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