The Hindu : Front Page : Now a home for Munshi Premchand at Jamia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 13, 2005

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Front Page

Now a home for Munshi Premchand at Jamia

Lakshmi B. Ghosh

Illustration: Tony Smith

NEW DELHI: Decades after he penned one of his most memorable short stories from its sprawling campus, Munshi Premchand is finally going to find a permanent home at Jamia Millia Islamia here. Celebrating the eminent writer's 125th birth anniversary this year, Jamia is all set to open the country's first archival and literary centre in his memory.

Slated to open in the upcoming New Year, the Munshi Premchand Archives and Literary Centre will house the best of the writer's works under one roof.

While the archive will have everything from his books to letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, journals and photographs, the literary centre will take things further, organising discussions and sponsoring talks and lectures on literary matters.

To be built at an estimated cost of Rs. 69 lakhs, construction work for the proposed archive and literary centre has already begun and is likely to be completed by the end of next year. As of now, Jamia is collecting Munshi Premchand's writings in Indian and foreign languages, the various biographies written on him and critical works.

"Keeping in view Jamia's own legacy of liberalism and secularism we do feel that we can be the rightful custodians of such an invaluable collection. Premchand wrote his best known story, `Kafan', during the course of his stay at Jamia,'' points out Jamia Vice-Chancellor Mushirul Hasan.

While this coming February will see the university celebrate the life and times of Premchand with a weeklong festival, Prof. Hasan has sent out an appeal to the public to come forward and donate any work or memorabilia of the writer to the archive.

It is all part of an attempt by Jamia to preserve and honour the legacies of creative writers and poets by acquiring their personal collections. According to Prof. Hasan, any scrap of material on Premchand as well as other major Urdu and Hindi writers is welcome. And these contributions can be in the form of original papers, letters, photographs and mementos.

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