📘 ओमप्रकाश वाल्मीकि, घुसपैठिये

26 Jan, 2026

इस फैसले से किसन और मंगलू अवाक रह गए थे। किसन ने विरोध किया। लेकिन उसे बोलने से रोका गया। पंचों का फैसला परमेश्वर का फैसला कहकर बात खत्म करने की कोशिश की गई। किसन लगातार बोलने की कोशिश करता रहा। लेकिन कुछ लोगों ने उसे धकिया कर बाहर निकाल दिया। तेजभान के लोग उठकर खड़े हो गए थे। लाठियाँ फिर से लंबी होने लगी थीं। किसन हताश होकर लौटा था। पीछे-पीछे मंगलू भी आ गई थी। बिरमा ने उनके उतरे चेहरे देखे तो सब कुछ समझ गई। घर में मातम-सा छा गया था।

घुसपैठिये can be translated into English as Infiltrators and it was written by Omprakash Valmiki, one of the best known writers of Dalit literature in Hindi. This is perhaps the first Hindi book i've read through in half a decade, and I think it may have single-handedly reignited my interest in Hindi literature.

You see, in the excerpt quoted above, which has been drawn from the second story in the collection यह अंत नहीं (This is Not the End) there is a line that refers directly to पंच परमेश्वर, a short story by Munshi Premchand, which every child that studies Hindi in school is tortured with at least twice over the course of their education. That line is a direct jibe at Premchand, and upon reading it, my ears have perked up, for Valmiki's story, calls into question the Gandhian idealism of Premchand's realist storytelling.

I won't go into too much detail, but Premchand's story is one that seeks to inspire Hindu-Muslim unity, in it, two old friends who differ in their faith and have had a falling out, are reunited in the justice meted out by the village panchayat. The reality of village panchayats is very different; Valmiki explicates this in This is Not the End where a young girl from a lower caste is attacked by an upper-caste man on her way home from working in the fields. The man's intent was unsurprisingly, sexual assault, but Manglu, the girl, fights Sachinder off and runs home to tell her parents.

On hearing Manglu's story, her parents wish to suppress the issue, they are aware of the violence that a fight for justice will bring upon them, and the lower caste community at large. Manglu's older brother Kisan on the other hand is home at the moment, on holiday from university, and his education has instilled a strong sense of justice, and he stands by his sister. Kisan fights to bring the case before the village panchayat.

This is where it all goes south; unsurprisingly, the panchayat, in its trenchant casteism, sides with the dominant caste Sachinder, indicting him, but letting him off with no more than a slap on the wrist. Kisan is nonplussed, the values he has learned in the city seem inoperable in his own village (they're also inoperable in the city, but that's a different story, in this collection, in fact), but Manglu remains resolute, "This is not the end," she says, as the story concludes.

#book review #literature