70 SOCIAL SCIENTIST political development. He starts out, impressed with the Arya Samaj and other reform movements, goes on through the gamut of Gandhian politics and philosophy, Annie Besant's Theosophy, and finally, faced with the reality of the ^.amindari system and the struggles of the peasantry and landless labourers against it, as well as the increasing development of capitalist relations in the country, moves on to a position favourable to the establishment of a classless society. While the influence of the Arya Samaj's reformist activities is clear in Sava Sodan as well as a number of short stories, after the Non-cooperation Movement when the Arya Samaj started its shuddhi (reconversion) campaign in a big way, he opposed it openly as damaging to the national cause. He wrote to Munshi Dayanarayan, ec! have more or less stopped writing in Urdu as I am terribly short of time; but I am writing a short piece on the attempt at malkana shuddhi. I am bitterly opposed to this movement. I will send you this note in three or four days. The Arya Samajists will be agitated no doubt, but I hope you will give it space in ^amana^2 Crossroads of an Epoch The temporary influence of Theosophy is also evident in his novel Kaya Kalp but the central theme is the decay of the zamindari system and the struggle between the landlords and the landless. In contrast, the treatment of the reincarnations of Rani Kamala and her husband is extremely patchy and pales into insignificance, more in the nature of an intercession after about 300 pages, and has little to do with the basic structure of the novel. There is no doubt that Prem Chand pinned high hopes on Gandhi and his politics. As a member of the Congress, and responding to Gandhi's call he thought nothing of leaving a government job which he had held for 22 years. He was also deeply impressed by Gandhi's personality, but with the passage of time he began to lose faith in Gandhian politics. In fact, he never accepted the satyagraha as a weapon for the liberation of workers and peasants: "The belief that satyagraha can overcome injustice has been proved false beyond a doubt"8 was his position as far back as 1920. While he backed Gandhi in the quest for national independence, he could never get himself to agree on fundamentals: the typical Gandhian conceptions about God, religion, non-violence, class collaboration,, trusteeship and such peculiar relations which Gandhi envisaged between capitalists and workers. While at first Prem Chand definitely placed a little faith in the Gandhian concept of "change of heart", he later took it to mean nothing more than politics of class collaboration. Moreover, he openly stated. "I am not a Gandhian."4 Even at this time when his ideological development can still be said to be unclear, socialism already had a definite appeal. In 1919, in a letter to Dayanarayan Nigam, he declared: "I am now more or less