Bhai Vir Singh's Achievements

BHAI VIR SINGH’S tried to mould his own creative inspiration by writers only slightly ACHIEVEMENTS efforts on lines suggested in these. less celebrated though Others before him had tried the distinguished each in his own way, A BRIEF INTRODUCTION Gurbachan Singh Talib same process in Urdu, the language such as Deputy Nazir Ahmed, with whose literature most well- Maulvi Zakaullah, Sir Syed Ahmed From the book : Bhai Vir SIngh - Life Times & educated people in the Panjab, Khan, Babu Piare Lal Ashob and Work, Published by Bal Krishna M.A., Muslims as well as others, had several others. Drawing his Sectretary ,Publications Bureau, Punjab acquired acquaintance in varying inspiration from such writcrs, who University Chandigarh, 1973. degrees. What had been had opened a nee mine of realism accomplished in this direction in and a wide sense of social Influences and Profile languages of regions situated far responsibility in their comipositions away from the Panjab, or even in in prose and verse, he too would Bhai Vir Singh’s long creative Hindi did not make that impact on have directed his creative powers to career of over sixty years (he lived the mind and thought of the achievements in the same field. to be eighty-five) was a many- Panjabis as the mass of new creative Both through the vast mass of his splendoured fulifiment. He was the work in Urdu, the Ianguage of work, through its artistic quality pioneer who caught through the education and official work current and vast influence exerted in antennae of a keen sensibility and then. The work of Maulana ushering a great new era, he an imagination strongly responsive Muhammad Hussain Azad in remains without doubt the greatest to new urges, the novel tones which history-writing, in belles-lettres man of letters in Panjabi of the new were to be heard in English modelled on certain imaginative creative urges and the new literature, particularly of the pieces from Addison and other experiments, after the traditional, Romantic and the Victorian writers, his new didactic poetry as neo-classical age in which Panjabi periods. also the poetry of Maulana Hali in had been either merely a folk Braj With whatever opportunities he the same vein and his Critical literature or was literature with writings would be known to Bhai Panjabi overtones in the Gurmukhi. had at that time eighty years ago, to acquaint himself with certain pieces Vir Singh. So also the pieces Apart, of course, from what Bhai or texts from English literature, he composed under the same strain of Vir Singh learnt of the new influences from English for his own writers, whose sensibility was be a subject for an ample discussion creative efforts, he would naturally seeking new values of the in a book or a thesis, which have studied also patches of democratic age for expression and obviously cannot be attempted English literature in the original. inculcation in place of the limited here. Only a few of the directions Most of our Indian writers went for themes of the traditional ages with which his creative powers took in imitation and adaptation to English their feudal background of this respect can be indicated in brief writing of the nineteenth century, reference. In style too, the attempt hints. Nor can a proper appraisal of particularly the romanticism would be at a realistic delineation the quality and value of his tempered with the moral sensibility of a factual or emotional situation achievement be made at this of the Wordsworth variety, the mild rather than the embroideries of neo- juncture, for towards Bhai Vir humanism and tender classical artifice with all its moulds Singh the attitude of large sections sentimentalism of ‘pre-romantics’ and devices. All these influences of influential and fairly well- like Cowper and Collins, the are visible and traceable in the informed people is one of wistfulness and surface moralizing Indian writers of this period, veneration only ‘this side of Gray and the general didacticism though their acquaintance with idolatory.’ So in this respect too, of the writers from the middle class, English literature was restricted by while a great laudation is called from Addison on. Further, after the their circumstances only to a few forth by his truly great surfeit with pseudo-romanticism spots in it. The situation changes achievements in scholarship and his and conceits of Indian writing they when we come to a Tagore or an interpretation of the principles of caught with great avidity on the lqbal or latterly an Aurobindo with his faith through several media of peculiar Victorian inculcation of the their vast background of Western literary creation, the spirit of domestic virutes of a Smiles or learning and their transmutation of criticism must discipline itself into occasionally a Tennyson, though its deepest secrets and more an attitude of reverential silence. the supreme art of Tennyson would intimate nuances both of theme and Maybe that at a time not far (for a naturally elude them. The heroic art. widely studied writer like Bhai Vir and epic treatment of history by Singli cannot long be kept in an Scott and the nineteenth century To enquire into the totality of the insulated and sealed temple of balladists again appealed to our influence of Western literature in adoration and adulation alone) he Bhai Vir Sing’s creative work would will be objectively discussed as a Moreover, this latter kind of A Synoposis of his Work writer rather than merely placed on criticism is allergic and even hostile a pedestal as a teacher. Moreover, to the particular social orientation Bhai Vir Sing’s creative work falls in a volume like the present, which Bhai Vir Singh attempted into three main genres-Poetry, intended to present the various through his writings, and which Biographical and Disquisitional aspects of his achievement on the was part of a vast process of Prose and Fiction. He also tried his occasion of the centenary of his regeneration of the Sikh people. hand at Drama, but this attempt birth, any exhaustive critical About such regeneration more than suffered from the handicap which examination of him would be one writer in the essays that follow in Bhai Vir Singh’s fictional efforts clearly out of place. With all this, it has made reference , hence its one perceives in general—the lack might be said that so far hardly any points need to be reiterated here. Be of a capacity to create full, rounded serious attempt has been made to it said however that no characters. His characters fall into find out and to phrase forth the true unsympathetic attempts at ‘types’ and are made in accordance quality of his total achievement as a devaluing Bhai Vir Singh can strip with certain formulae. So his fiction writer and to define the principle of this colossus of his fine drapery does not rise into the realm where it his intellectual being. which he would continue to wear might be valued as such, and not as with grace and distinction, though part of a larger scheme for the Art attempt of this nature is a few frills here and there of writing propagation of religious ideals. obviously c forth. partly to temper reprsenting his moments of weak Despite his shortcomings however, the purely laudatory and often inspiration may be snipped off in his novels became extremely vapid rhetoric poured forth about the process. Such a process may be popular with the Sikh reading him by encomiasts whose literary appl ied with parallel results to any public, and one particularly culture is not appreciably above the popular writer. Bhai Vir Singh Sundari, still remains a best-seller. elementary level and equally to remain s vastly popular and his This is because to the average Sikh meet the somewhat unkind attacks achievement is solid and ha s its reader, unqualified to judge of the of certain contemporary ideological roots in real inspiration and power. technical features of fiction, these groups who hold a narrow, novels bring in a highly appealing utilitarian view of literature in form the history of the grim repudiation of its aesthetic values. struggle of their forefathers. The small Sikh people had by then their struggle of liberation over biographies of Guru Nanak, Guru passed though their ordeal of fire several generations—that it calls for Gobind Singh and the remaining for nearly half a century, and a great epic to catch something of Gurus of the Sikh faith. Then there through sheer faith and unswerving its scale and power. Such an effort is the second portion of the work of heroism of spirit were able to has so hr not been made. Except in fiction Baba Naudh Sing This second overthrow their well-entrenched fragments such as Bhai Vir Singh’s portion is disquisitional with only oppressors. In these novels there is novels and that portion of Giani the thinnest connective thread of idealization of the Sikh character of Gyan Singh’s Panth Prkash dealing certain narrators and their listeners, course, but then the reality was with it, there is very little literature giving to it just a faint pretence of itself so noble and heroic, partaking in existence on it. While Bhai Vir fiction. But interspersed in it are so much of the superhuman Singh’s work is in the form only of powerful and splendid passages character. that the idealization not three small-sized novels, Giani and episodes. only is convincing, but led the Gyan Singh’s work suffers from writer on to itself by a process of being unequal in execution. But Bhai Vir Singh’s prose is poetic in inevitability.

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