Munshi: Self-Sculptor (An Old and Rare Book)

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K. M. Munshi, a known nationalist, statesman and educator, was also a leading litterateur of India who synthesized Eastern and Western literary influences, and became a typical Renaissance figure.

The paradoxes of Munshi's personality, harmonized by his realization of his Svadharma personal duty to himself and his fellowmen, governed Munshi's life and activities. His literary works and nationalistic creative programs manifested a process that may be termed self sculpture.

Aptly entitled, MUNSHI : SELF SCULPTOR envelops Munshi's life, ideology and art, and establishes his art as a projection of the other two. The study is extensive as it links different pheses of Munshi's life, and intensive as it concentrates on the central force of his art - the dramatic art.

The translation and critical analysis of Munshi's historical play Dhruvasvaminidevi illustrates the kernel of Munshi's art. This book becomes the first comprehensive critical study in English on Munshi.

Born in a well-known family of lawyers, Dr. Jayana Sheth has degrees in English literature from the University of London (U. K.) and Gujarat University (India). She earned her Ph. D. from Columbia University (U.S.A.). While working on the doctoral degree at Columbia for six semesters, Dr. Sheth also earned the Certificate of South Asian Institute and the M. Phil. degree.

Dr. Sheth is Assistant Professor of English at Baruch College of the City University of New York. Before going to the U.S.A., she taught English at the colleges of Gujarat and Bombay Universities in India.

Dr. K. M. MUNSHI (1887-1971) represented the spirit of India's national awakening, often known as the Indian Renaissance. Munshi's activities had several dimensions as was typical of many a nationalist of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century India. He emerged as a politician, statesman, lawyer, journalist, historian, and educator, but he manifested his total self in his literary writings. His individualism and untraditionalism were combined with his urge for revitalization of Indian culture. And he tried to establish the regenerating process within the context of India's ancient heritage. His contribution to the advancement of Indian culture made him a 'man of the era.

The unremitting toil of the dynamic representative of the Indian Renaissance and nationalism, the creative art of revolutionary litterateur, and his consequent contribution to the general heritage of India demand a critically judicious evaluation.

A host of scholars in Gujarati have made innumerable comments on Munshi. Some have called him a 'genius,' others, an 'iconoclast,' or a 'perpetual adolescent.' Some have described him as an 'embodiment of Indian culture,' and others have admitted that it is 'impossible to evaluate Munshi.' To project the total image of Munshi's complex personality may be considered a 'stupendous task, it is said.

The Indian Renaissance in the nineteenth century molded Munshi's personality, reflecting the inherent paradoxes of the time. The intellectual stalwarts of this age endeavored to search for similarities in diverse patterns of thought and effected a synthesis of these forces without obliterating their separate identities. The process required elimination or dilution of worthless traits and reinterpretation of valuable ones from both Eastern and Western cultures. As a result, in this age, the apparent dichotomy between national and regional loyalties, Eastern and Western education, past and present values, ancient and modern traditions seemed resolved in the psyche of the Indian intellectuals.