Gurdial Singh was a writer of realism. Far away from romance, myth and mere wordplay. Simple. Sensitive. Conversational. Laying emphasis on thought. No beating around the bush. The topics he spoke about in his writing about were critically important, but there was an innate simplicity to Gurdial’s language, logic, and flow, to the way he portrayed his subjects.

Gurdial is no longer with us and when I think about his work, I’m reminded of three things. First, Gurdial’s literature is powerful enough to reflect the past of Punjab and gives a perspective of changing equations of its future. Second, his works have created a rupture in contemporary literature in the way he used language and form. Third, his literature is deeply rooted in Punjab’s cultural consciousness.

Flashback: it’s the 1960s, and Punjab is changing very rapidly. This is the period when feudalism is mutating into capitalism in Punjab. Social structures are changing, the economy is changing, the Punjabi mindset is changing; change is evident everywhere.

In Punjabi literature, this change was first presented in Gurdial’s literature. His novel Marhi Da Deeva is published. If you read the first chapter, chances are that you will be surprised and feel that Gurdial Singh has a feudal mentality. You might feel that Gurdial is watching this changing society, but his outlook is that of a feudalist. It’s as though he is feeling bad that his tie with feudalism is breaking, though we’re told that when feudal relations break down, a man is freed from slavery.

So why is a writer like Gurdial hurt when these chains are broken?

Because we know that in a feudal, agrarian system, the labour who works in field is ‘Siri’ (or a contract labourer), a slave for 24 hours, for generations. In the capitalist society, his fortune changed, his working hours were fixed. He was no more a slave.  Yet Gurdial has his doubts about this new world order and so he feels sad when this tie with feudalism breaks.

You can oppose him, accuse him, but read on and you realise why Gurdial despairs as he does. There isn’t any scope in this Punjab, no road ahead, no hope. That is what troubled him and that was why he spoke so emphatically. In his debut novel itself, Gurdial could see Punjab moving towards capitalism and how this would change everything. He was also changing. The relations between different parts of society were changing. Even language was changing. Getting neither excited nor depressed, as a writer and a bard of Punjab, he pondered upon the impact of this change on the future and felt an uneasiness that was almost visionary.

How can we not talk about Gurdial Singh’s language as we remember his literature? He used to say that his characters wear khadi, so how could their language be sophisticated? And because of this unsophistication, we can feel as we read his language, soak in the influence of Punjab’s Malwa region. His language, using the Malwa dialect, was simple and lyrical, carrying in words the culture and rituals of that part of Punjab.

Despite the farmer’s primacy in an agrarian economy, Gurdial Singh chose a farm hand to explain the change taking place in Punjab. He chose the voice of the marginalized, because there was a critical change taking place in the relationship between the farmhand and the famer. Punjabi literature witnessed this kind of sensitivity for the first time in Gurdial’s work. Dalits, for the first time as farmhands and as the marginalised, as those from the village, surfaced thanks to Gurdial Singh’s words. Punjab appears in a state of panic as a new economic order establishes itself. What happens to the Dalit in Punjab’s new economy is reflected in Gurdial’s two other works — Anhoe and Anhe Ghorey Da Daan. Slipping into the lives in these novels, we realise Gurdial’s anxieties are not glorifying feudalism. Instead, they are expressions of fear – fear that has proved itself valid with passing time.

In these two novels, you can deeply feel what capitalism has done to Dalits, to the marginalised. You can feel that reality in these works. Punjabi thinker Dr Surjit said about him— Marhi Da Deeva and Anhe Ghorey Da Daan challenge the established myths that say the capitalist process of development frees a Dalit from the feudalist system of villages, frees them from the evils of caste discrimination and gives the Dalit a fair and free chance of development. Especially in Punjab, capitalism changed the status of Dalits from contract labour to daily wage labour Siri to a daily wage labour who don’t have a sustainable source of income. In contrast, the days of feudalism and being a farm hand actually meant small earnings – which in turn meant they got freedom; a pathetic, humiliating version of freedom.

Gurdial’s novels show how closely he watched Punjab, how closely he heard the rhythms that oppressed Dalits and others. And for that, for his ability to understand their pain and tell their story in a way that remains relevant to us, I pay my obeisance to him.