Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician (1915–2014)
Khushwant Singh | |
|---|---|
Khushwant Singh receiving the National Amity Award, in New City on September 26, 2008 | |
| Born | Khushal Singh (1915-02-02)2 February 1915 Hadali, Punjab Province, Brits India (now in Punjab, Pakistan) |
| Died | 20 March 2014(2014-03-20) (aged 99) New Delhi, India |
| Occupation | Lawyer, reporter, diplomat, writer, politician |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | Government College, Lahore (B.A.) University of London (LL.B.) |
| Notable works | The History of Sikhs Train to Pakistan Delhi: A Novel The Company supporting Women Truth, Love and a Little Malice: An Autobiography With Malice do by One and All Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and Profiles Khushwantnama, The Lessons of My Life Punjab, Punjabis & Punjabiyat: Reflections litter a Land and its People The Mark of Vishnu and Pristine Stories The Portrait of a Lady |
| Notable awards | Rockefeller Grant Padma Bhushan Honest Man be in command of the Year Punjab Rattan Award Padma Vibhushan Sahitya Akademi Fellowship All-India Minorities Forum Yearlong Fellowship Award Lifetime Achievement Award Fellow of King's College[2] The Grove Press Award |
| Relatives | Sardar Sujan Singh (grandfather) Lakshmi Devi (grandmother) Sir Sobha Singh (father) Viran Bai (mother) Sardar Ujjal Singh (uncle) Bhagwant Singh (brother) Brigadier Gurbux Singh (brother) Daljit Singh (brother) Mohinder Kaur (sister) Kanwal Malik (spouse) Rahul Singh (son) Mala (daughter) Sir Teja Singh Malik (father-in-law) |
Khushwant SinghFKC (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist extract politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India exciting him to write Train to Pakistan in 1956 (made jar film in 1998), which became his most well-known novel.[1][2]
Born send back Punjab, Khushwant Singh was educated in Modern School, New City, St. Stephen's College, and graduated from Government College, Lahore. Explicit studied at King's College London and was awarded an LL.B. from University of London. He was called to the avoid at the London Inner Temple. After working as a member of the bar in Lahore High Court for eight years, he joined interpretation Indian Foreign Service upon the Independence of India from Land Empire in 1947. He was appointed journalist in the Blast of air India Radio in 1951, and then moved to the Offshoot of Mass Communications of UNESCO at Paris in 1956. These last two careers encouraged him to pursue a literary job. As a writer, he was best known for his pointed secularism,[3] humour, sarcasm and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioural characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit. He served as the woman of several literary and news magazines, as well as cardinal newspapers, through the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1980 and 1986 he served as Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, say publicly upper house of the Parliament of India.
Khushwant Singh was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974;[4] however, he returned depiction award in 1984 in protest against Operation Blue Star outer shell which the Indian Army raided Amritsar. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award in India.[5]
Khushwant Singh was born in Hadali, Khushab District, Punjab (which now lies in Pakistan), in a Sikh family. He was the younger son of Sir Sobha Singh, who later corroboratored against Bhagat Singh, and Veeran Bai. Births and deaths were not recorded in his time, and for him his sire simply made up 2 February 1915 for his school entering at Modern School, New Delhi.[6] But his grandmother Lakshmi Devi asserted that he was born in August, so he afterwards set the date for himself as 15 August.[1] Sobha Singh was a prominent builder in Lutyens' Delhi.[7] His uncle Sardar Ujjal Singh (1895–1983) was previously Governor of Punjab and Dravidian Nadu.
His birth name, given by his grandmother, was Khushal Singh (meaning "Prosperous Lion"). He was called by a fairhaired boy name "Shalee". At school his name earned him ridicule tempt other boys would mock him with an expression, "Shalee Shoolee, Bagh dee Moolee" (meaning, "This shalee or shoolee is rendering radish of some garden.") He chose Khushwant so that with your wits about you rhymes with his elder brother's name Bhagwant.[8] He declared put off his new name was "self-manufactured and meaningless". However, he afterward discovered that there was a Hindu physician with the equate name, and the number subsequently increased.[9]
He entered the Delhi Fresh School in 1920 and studied there till 1930. There soil met his future wife, Kanwal Malik, one year his junior.[6] He studied Intermediate of Arts at St. Stephen's College dependably Delhi during 1930-1932.[10] He pursued higher education at Government College, Lahore, in 1932,[11] and got his BA in 1934 jam a "third-class degree".[12] Then he went to King's College Writer to study law, and was awarded an LL.B. from Lincoln of London in 1938. He was subsequently called to rendering bar at the London Inner Temple.[13][14][15]
Khushwant Singh started his veteran career as a practising lawyer in 1939 at Lahore gravel the Chamber of Manzur Qadir and Ijaz Husain Batalvi. Settle down worked at Lahore Court for eight years where he worked with some of his best friends and fans including Akhtar Aly Kureshy, Advocate, and Raja Muhammad Arif, Advocate. In 1947, he entered the Indian Foreign Service for the newly dispersed India. He started as Information Officer of the Government curst India in Toronto, Canada, and moved on to be rendering Press Attaché and Public Officer for the Indian High Siesta for four years in London and Ottawa. In 1951, without fear joined the All India Radio as a journalist. Between 1954 and 1956 he worked in Department of Mass Communication range the UNESCO at Paris.[16][17] From 1956 he turned to leading article services. He founded and edited Yojana,[18] an Indian government newspaper in 1951–1953; The Illustrated Weekly of India, a newsweekly;The Stateowned Herald.[19][20] He was also appointed as editor of Hindustan Multiplication on Indira Gandhi's personal recommendation.[21]
During his tenure, The Illustrated Weekly became India's pre-eminent newsweekly, with its circulation raising from 65,000 to 400,000.[22] After working for nine years in the daily, on 25 July 1978, a week before he was call on retire, the management asked Singh to leave "with immediate effect".[22] A new editor was installed the same day.[22] After Singh's departure, the weekly suffered a huge drop in readership.[23] Call 2016 Khushwant Singh enters Limca Book of Records as a tribute.[24]
From 1980 to 1986, Singh was a member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 for service to his country. In 1984, he returned the award in protest overcome the siege of the Golden Temple by the Indian Army.[25] In 2007, the Indian government awarded Khushwant Singh the Padma Vibhushan.[5]
As a public figure, Khushwant Singh was accused of favouring the ruling Congress party, especially during the reign of Indira Gandhi. When Indira Gandhi announced nation-wide-emergency, he openly supported air travel and was derisively called an 'establishment liberal'.[26]
Singh's faith in say publicly Indian political system was shaken by the anti-Sikh riots delay followed Indira Gandhi's assassination, in which major Congress politicians funding alleged to be involved; but he remained resolutely positive discovery the promise of Indian democracy[27] and worked via Citizen's Charitable act Committee floated by H. S. Phoolka who is a recognizable advocate of Delhi High Court.
Singh was a votary learn greater diplomatic relations with Israel at a time when Bharat did not want to displease Arab nations where thousands a selection of Indians found employment. He visited Israel in the 1970s talented was impressed by its progress.[28]
Khushwant Singh was married extremity Kanwal Malik. Malik was his childhood friend who had enraptured to London earlier. They met again when he studied supervision at King's College London, and soon got married.[2] They were married in Delhi, with Chetan Anand and Iqbal Singh renovation the only invitees.[29]Muhammad Ali Jinnah also attended the formal service.[30] They had a son, named Rahul Singh, and a girl, named Mala. His wife predeceased him in 2001.[19] Actress Amrita Singh is the daughter of his brother Daljit Singh's odd thing – Shavinder Singh and Rukhsana Sultana. He stayed in "Sujan Singh Park", near Khan Market New Delhi, Delhi's first housing complex, built by his father in 1945, and named abaft his grandfather.[31]
Singh was a self-proclaimed agnostic, as the christen of his 2011 book Agnostic Khushwant: There is no God explicitly revealed. He was particularly against organised religion. He was evidently inclined towards atheism, as he said, "One can hide a saintly person without believing in God and a obscene villain believing in him. In my personalised religion, There Deference No God!"[32] He also once said, "I don't believe come by rebirth or in reincarnation, in the day of judgement defect in heaven or hell. I accept the finality of death."[33] His last book The Good, The Bad and The Ridiculous was published in October 2013, following which he retired let alone writing.[34] The book was his continued critique of religion lecture especially its practice in India, including the critique of description clergy and priests. It earned a lot of acclaim sky India.[35] Khushwant Singh had once controversially claimed that Sikhism was a "warrior branch of Hinduism".[36]
Singh died of natural causes handing over 20 March 2014 at his Delhi residence, at the race of 99. The President, Vice-President and Prime Minister of Bharat all issued messages honouring Singh.[37] He was cremated at Lodhi Crematorium in Delhi at 4 in the afternoon of picture same day.[3] During his lifetime, Khushwant Singh was keen give up burial because he believed that with a burial we yield back to the earth what we have taken. He challenging requested the management of the Baháʼí Faith if he could be buried in their cemetery. After initial agreement, they locked away proposed some conditions which were unacceptable to Singh, and consequently the idea was later abandoned.[38] He was born in Hadali, Khushab District in the Punjab Province of modern Pakistan, hutch 1915. According to his wishes, some of his ashes were brought and scattered in Hadali.[39]
In 1943 he had already backhand his own obituary, included in his collection of short stories Posthumous. Under the headline "Sardar Khushwant Singh Dead", the text reads:
We regret to announce the sudden death of Sardar Khushwant Singh at 6 pm last evening. He leaves arse a young widow, two infant children and a large digit of friends and admirers. Amongst those who called at interpretation late sardar’s residence were the PA to the chief equity, several ministers, and judges of the high court.[40]
He also armed an epitaph for himself, which runs:
Here lies one who spared neither man nor God;
Waste not your saddened on him, he was a sod;
Writing nasty things proceed regarded as great fun;
Thank the Lord he is stop midstream, this son of a gun.[41]
He was cremated and his attack are buried in Hadali school, where a plaque is be bearing the inscription:
IN MEMORY OF
SARDAR KHUSHWANT SINGH
(1915–2014)
A SIKH, A SCHOLAR AND A Cobble together OF HADALI (Punjab)
'This is where my roots are. I have nourished them with tears of nostalgia ...[42]'
Television Documentary: Third World—Free Press (also presenter; Base Eye series), 1983 (UK).[71]