Jayant Parmar (born 11 October 1954) is an Indian Urdu language poet known for raising Dalit issues in his poetry. [1] Parmar was born in a poor family. At a young age, he began to paint miniature paintings for a frame maker. Parmar realized that the frame maker had a separate pot for him because he was Dalit. This saddened Parmar and he quit. [2] [3]
Parmar taught himself Urdu from a language learning guide at age 30 after he developed an appreciation for Urdu poetry while living in a Muslim-dominated area in the walled city area of Ahmedabad. [3] He has published a number of poetry collections: Aur in 1998, Pencil Aur Doosri Nazmein in 2006, Manind in 2008, Antaral in 2010 and Giacometti ke sapne in 2016. [4] Parmar won the 2008 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for Pencil Aur Doosri Nazmein. His work has been translated into Kashmiri, Punjabi, Hindi, Marathi, Bangla, Kannada, Gujarati, Oriya and Slovenian. [5] [6] [7]
Kaifi Azmi was an Indian Urdu poet. He is remembered as the one who brought Urdu literature to Indian motion pictures. Together with Pirzada Qasim, Jaun Elia and others he participated in many memorable Mushaira gatherings of the twentieth century. He was also a communist who wanted to see India one day become a socialist state. His wife was theatre and film actress Shaukat Kaifi.
Jan Nisar Akhtar was an Indian poet of Urdu ghazals and nazms, and a part of the Progressive Writers' Movement, who was also a lyricist for Bollywood.
Muqtida Hasan Nida Fazli, known as Nida Fazli, was a prominent Indian Urdu and Hindi poet, lyricist and dialogue writer. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2013 by the government of India for his contribution to literature.
Makhdoom Mohiuddin, or Abu Sayed Muhammad Makhdoom Mohiuddin Khudri, was an Urdu poet and Marxist political activist of India who founded the Progressive Writers Union in Hyderabad and was active with the Comrades Association and the Communist Party of India, and at the forefront of the 1946–1947 Telangana Rebellion against the Nizam of the erstwhile Hyderabad state.
Gopi Chand Narang was an Indian theorist, literary critic, and scholar who wrote in Urdu and English. His Urdu literary criticism incorporated a range of modern theoretical frameworks including stylistics, structuralism, post-structuralism, and Eastern poetics.
Syed Ali Jawad Zaidi was an Indian Urdu poet, scholar, and author of over 80 books in several languages. He was also an Indian independence activist, lawyer and later, a civil servant, but is best known for his work in Urdu literature.
Akhtar ul Iman was a noted Urdu poet and screenwriter in Hindi cinema, who had a major influence on modern Urdu nazm.
Rajesh Joshi is a Hindi writer, poet, journalist and a playwright, who was the recipient of 2002 Sahitya Akademi Award in Hindi for his anthology of poems - 'Do Panktiyon Ke Beech', given by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. He presently resides in Bhopal and continues to work as a freelance writer. His poems have been translated into English, German, Russian, Urdu and into many other Indian languages. Recipient of Muktibodh Puraskar, Makhan Lal Chaturvedi Puraskar, Srikant Verma Smriti Samman, Shikhar Samman and others.
Akhlaq Mohammad Khan, better known by his takhallusShahryar, was an Indian academic, and a doyen of Urdu poetry in India. As a Hindi film lyricist, he is best known for his lyrics in Gaman (1978) and Umrao Jaan (1981) directed by Muzaffar Ali. He retired as the head of the Urdu Department at the Aligarh Muslim University, and thereafter he remained sought after name in mushairas or poetic gatherings, and also co-edited the literary magazine Sher-o-Hikmat.
Uday Prakash is a Hindi poet, scholar, journalist, translator and short story writer from India. He has worked as administrator, editor, researcher, and TV director. He writes for major dailies and periodicals as a freelancer. He has also received several awards for his collection of short stories and poems. With Mohan Das he received Sahitya Academi Awards in 2011. He is the first author to return his Sahitya Akademi award on September 3, 2015 against the killing of M. M. Kalburgi that initiated a storm of national protests by writers, artists,scholars and intellectuals.
Ashok Vajpeyi is an Indian Hindi-language poet, essayist, literary-cultural critic, apart from being a noted cultural and arts administrator, and a former civil servant. He was chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi India's National Academy of Arts, Ministry of Culture, Govt of India, 2008–2011. He has published over 23 books of poetry, criticism and art, and was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award given by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, in 1994 for his poetry collection, Kahin Nahin Wahin. His notable poetry collections include, Shaher Ab Bhi Sambhavana Hai (1966), Tatpurush (1986), Bahuri Akela (1992), Ibarat Se Giri Matrayen, Ummeed ka Doosra Naam (2004) and Vivaksha (2006), besides this he has also published works on literary and art criticism: Filhal, Kuchh Poorvagrah, Samay se Bahar, Kavita ka Galp and Sidhiyan Shuru ho Gayi Hain. He is generally seen as part of the old Delhi-centric literary-cultural establishment consisting of bureaucrat-poets and academicians like Sitakanta Mahapatra, Keki Daruwalla, J.P.Das, Gopi Chand Narang, Indra Nath Choudhari and K.Satchidanandan.
Khaleel ur Rehman (1948-2024) from the Indian state of Karnataka, is better known by his pen name Khaleel Mamoon was a noted Urdu poet whose poetry collection Aafaaq ki Taraf won the 2011 Sahitya Akademi Award for works in Urdu.
Ram Sarup Ankhi was an Indian writer, poet, and novelist who wrote in Punjabi. He started as a poet but ended up as a fiction writer. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters in 1987 for his novel Kothe Kharak Singh.
Makhmoor Saeedi was an Urdu poet, writer, translator and journalist from Tonk, Rajasthan, India.
Sheen Kaaf Nizam, born in the year 1945 or 1946 in Jodhpur, India, is an Urdu poet and literary scholar. His birth name is Shiv Kishan Bissa. Sheen Kaaf Nizam is his pen name. He has edited many volumes of poets in Devanagari including Deewan-e-Ghalib and Deewan-e-Mir.
Nasir Abbas Nayyar is a Pakistani Urdu language writer, critic, columnist, and essayist. He has written books on poetry, literary theory and post colonial study of Urdu literature. He has produced some important books on structuralism and postmodernism and their influence on Urdu literature. A book on life and poetics of Majid Amjid is another his significant contribution. His most famous work is on Postcolonial Study of Urdu Literature published by Oxford University Press, Karachi, Pakistan titled Mabad Nau Abadiat and Urdu Adab ki Tashkeel e Jadid. His books on post colonialism proved ground breaking works in Urdu.
Ale Ahmad Suroor (1911-2002) was an Urdu poet, critic and professor from India. He is best known for his literary criticism. In 1974 he was honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award by the Government of India for his literary critic work, Nazar aur Nazariya. In 1991 he was also awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award. He was awarded a special gold medal by the President of Pakistan on the centenary of the birth of Muhammad Iqbal.
Leeladhar Jagudi is an Indian teacher, journalist and poet of Hindi literature. He is the author of several poetry anthologies including Natak Jari Hai and Shankha Mukhi Shikharon Par and is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, for his 1997 anthology, Anubhav Ke Aakash Mein Chand. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2004, for his contributions to Hindi literature.
Shafey Kidwai is an Indian academic, bilingual critic, translator, columnist, and author. He is the professor in the Department of Mass Communications at Aligarh Muslim University. He has written twelve books in English and Urdu. His seminal study, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Reason, Religion and Nation (Routledge,2020) has been reviewed many times. He writes for The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Frontline, The Outlook, Indian Literature, The Book Review, The Statesman, and Siyasat.com. Many reputed literary journals of the subcontinent carry his articles regularly and he is often regarded as one of the best modern academic critics in Urdu.