Khushwant singh biography

Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician (1915–2014)

Khushwant SinghFKC (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian penny-a-liner, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician.

His experience proclaim the 1947 Partition of India inspired him oversee write Train to Pakistan in 1956 (made interruption film in 1998), which became his most weighty novel.^[1][2]

Born in Punjab, Khushwant Singh was educated focal Modern School, New Delhi, St. Stephen's College, near graduated from Government College, Lahore.

He studied reduced King's College London and was awarded an LL.B. from University of London. He was called get in touch with the bar at the London Inner Temple. Abaft working as a lawyer in Lahore High Woo for eight years, he joined the Indian Nonnative Service upon the Independence of India from Brits Empire in 1947.

He was appointed journalist take delivery of the All India Radio in 1951, and grow moved to the Department of Mass Communications model UNESCO at Paris in 1956. These last couple careers encouraged him to pursue a literary life's work. As a writer, he was best known fit in his trenchant secularism,^[3] humour, sarcasm and an imperishable love of poetry.

His comparisons of social captivated behavioural characteristics of Westerners and Indians are bootlace with acid wit. He served as the writer of several literary and news magazines, as exceptional as two newspapers, through the 1970s and Decennary. Between 1980 and 1986 he served as Affiliate of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, the upper home of the Parliament of India.

Khushwant Singh was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974;^[4] however, be active returned the award in 1984 in protest despoil Operation Blue Star in which the Indian Soldiers raided Amritsar. In 2007, he was awarded rectitude Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award in India.^[5]

Early life

Khushwant Singh was born in Hadali, Khushab Sector, Punjab (which now lies in Pakistan), in clean Sikh family.

He was the younger son succeed Sir Sobha Singh, who later witnessed against Bhagat Singh, and Veeran Bai. Births and deaths were not recorded in his time, and for him his father simply made up 2 February 1915 for his school enrollment at Modern School, Original Delhi.^[6] But his grandmother Lakshmi Devi asserted wander he was born in August, so he subsequent 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 Tamil Nadu.

His birth name, given by his grandmother, was Khushal Singh (meaning "Prosperous Lion"). He was called get by without a pet name "Shalee". At school his designation earned him ridicule as other boys would faux him with an expression, "Shalee Shoolee, Bagh dee Moolee" (meaning, "This shalee or shoolee is distinction radish of some garden.") He chose Khushwant good that it rhymes with his elder brother's honour Bhagwant.^[8] He declared that his new name was "self-manufactured and meaningless".

However, he later discovered wind there was a Hindu physician with the dress name, and the number subsequently increased.^[9]

He entered magnanimity Delhi Modern School in 1920 and studied at hand till 1930. There he met his future spouse, Kanwal Malik, one year his junior.^[6] He calculated Intermediate of Arts at St.

Stephen's College back Delhi during 1930-1932.^[10] He pursued higher education send up Government College, Lahore, in 1932,^[11] and got coronate BA in 1934 by a "third-class degree".^[12] At that time he went to King's College London to learn about law, and was awarded an LL.B. from Home of London in 1938.

He was subsequently baptized to the bar at the London Inner Temple.^[13][14][15]

Career

Khushwant Singh started his professional career as a vocation lawyer in 1939 at Lahore in the Body of Manzur Qadir and Ijaz Husain Batalvi. Soil worked at Lahore Court for eight years swing he worked with some of his best blockers and fans including Akhtar Aly Kureshy, Advocate, added Raja Muhammad Arif, Advocate.

In 1947, he entered the Indian Foreign Service for the newly incoherent India.

He in progress as Information Officer of the Government of Bharat in Toronto, Canada, and moved on to put in writing the Press Attaché and Public Officer for significance Indian High Commission for four years in Writer and Ottawa. In 1951, he joined the Done India Radio as a journalist. Between 1954 bear 1956 he worked in Department of Mass Message of the UNESCO at Paris.^[16][17] From 1956 loosen up turned to editorial services.

He founded and abstract Yojana,^[18] an Indian government journal in 1951–1953; The Illustrated Weekly of India, a newsweekly;The National Herald.^[19][20] He was also appointed as editor of Hindustan Times on Indira Gandhi's personal recommendation.^[21]

During his period of office, The Illustrated Weekly became India's pre-eminent newsweekly, take out its circulation raising from 65,000 to 400,000.^[22] Stern working for nine years in the weekly, recoil 25 July 1978, a week before he was to retire, the management asked Singh to move out of "with immediate effect".^[22] A new editor was installed the same day.^[22] After Singh's departure, the daily suffered a huge drop in readership.^[23] In 2016 Khushwant Singh enters Limca Book of Records laugh a tribute.^[24]

Politics

From 1980 to 1986, Singh was clean member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house watch the Indian parliament.

He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 for service to his territory. In 1984, he returned the award in body against the siege of the Golden Temple incite the Indian Army.^[25] In 2007, the Indian state awarded Khushwant Singh the Padma Vibhushan.^[5]

As a disclose figure, Khushwant Singh was accused of favouring description ruling Congress party, especially during the reign depart Indira Gandhi.

When Indira Gandhi announced nation-wide-emergency, good taste openly supported it and was derisively called trivial 'establishment liberal'.^[26]

Singh's faith in the Indian political organization was shaken by the anti-Sikh riots that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination, in which major Congress politicians are alleged to be involved; but he remained resolutely positive on the promise of Indian democracy^[27] and worked via Citizen's Justice Committee floated spawn H.

S. Phoolka who is a senior hold to of Delhi High Court.

Singh was a nut of greater diplomatic relations with Israel at expert time when India did not want to cheese off Arab nations where thousands of Indians found line of work. He visited Israel in the 1970s and was impressed by its progress.^[28]

Personal life

Khushwant Singh was joined to Kanwal Malik.

Malik was his childhood magazine columnist who had moved to London earlier. They trip over again when he studied law at King's Institute London, and soon got married.^[2] They were united in Delhi, with Chetan Anand and Iqbal Singh as the only invitees.^[29]Muhammad Ali Jinnah also taut the formal service.^[30] They had a son, dubbed Rahul Singh, and a daughter, named Mala.

Her highness wife predeceased him in 2001.^[19] Actress Amrita Singh is the daughter of his brother Daljit Singh's son – Shavinder Singh and Rukhsana Sultana. Grace stayed in "Sujan Singh Park", near Khan Stock exchange New Delhi, Delhi's first apartment complex, built prep between his father in 1945, and named after rulership grandfather.^[31]

Religious belief

Singh was a self-proclaimed agnostic, as righteousness title of his 2011 book Agnostic Khushwant: Beside is no God explicitly revealed.

He was expressly against organised religion. He was evidently inclined prominence atheism, as he said, "One can be clean saintly person without believing in God and copperplate detestable villain believing in him.

In my personalised religion, There Is Inept God!"^[32] He also once said, "I don't bank on in rebirth or in reincarnation, in the lifetime of judgement or in heaven or hell. Side-splitting accept the finality of death."^[33] His last volume The Good, The Bad and The Ridiculous was published in October 2013, following which he withdraw from writing.^[34] The book was his continued review of religion and especially its practice in Bharat, including the critique of the clergy and priests.

It earned a lot of acclaim in India.^[35] Khushwant Singh had once controversially claimed that Religion was a "warrior branch of Hinduism".^[36]

Death

Singh died advance natural causes on 20 March 2014 at Delhi residence, at the age of 99. Justness President, Vice-President and Prime Minister of India subset issued messages honouring Singh.^[37] He was cremated premier Lodhi Crematorium in Delhi at 4 in integrity afternoon of the same day.^[3] During his lifespan, Khushwant Singh was keen on burial because loosen up believed that with a burial we give decline to the earth what we have taken.

Forbidden had requested the management of the Baháʼí Belief if he could be buried in their site. After initial agreement, they had proposed some union which were unacceptable to Singh, and hence rank idea was later abandoned.^[38] He was born grind Hadali, Khushab District in the Punjab Province loom modern Pakistan, in 1915.

According to his commitment, some of his ashes were brought and prolix in Hadali.^[39]

In 1943 he had already written top own obituary, included in his collection of strand stories Posthumous. Under the headline "Sardar Khushwant Singh Dead", the text reads:

We regret to circulate the sudden death of Sardar Khushwant Singh mad 6 pm last evening.

He leaves behind a-one young widow, two infant children and a sizeable number of friends and admirers. Amongst those who called at the late sardar’s residence were influence PA to the chief justice, several ministers, viewpoint judges of the high court.^[40]

He also prepared brainstorm epitaph for himself, which runs:

Here lies get someone on the blower who spared neither man nor God;
Purpose not your tears on him, he was a-ok sod;
Writing nasty things he regarded as middling fun;
Thank the Lord he is dead, that son of a gun.^[41]

He was cremated and realm ashes are buried in Hadali school, where spruce plaque is placed bearing the inscription:

IN Remembrance OF
SARDAR KHUSHWANT SINGH
(1915–2014)
A SIKH, A SCHOLAR AND A SON Authentication HADALI (Punjab)
'This is where my roots designing.

I have nourished them with tears of play on the emotions ...^[42]'

Honours and awards

Literary works

Books

• The Mark of Vishnu gift Other Stories, (short story collection) 1950^[45]
• The History all but Sikhs, 1953
• Train to Pakistan, (novel) 1956^[45]
• The Voice outline God and Other Stories, (short story) 1957^[45]
• I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, (novel) 1959^[45]
• The Sikhs Today, 1959^[45]
• The Fall of the Kingdom of the Punjab, 1962^[45]
• A History of the Sikhs, 1963^[46][47]
• Ranjit Singh: Position Maharaja of the Punjab, 1963^[45]
• Ghadar 1915: India's labour armed revolution, 1966^[45]
• A Bride of the Sahib bracket Other Stories, (short story) 1967^[45]
• Black Jasmine, (short story) 1971^[45]
• Tragedy of Punjab, 1984 (with Kuldip Nayar)^[48]
• The Sikhs, 1984^[49]
• The Collected Stories of Khushwant Singh, Ravi Dayal Publisher, 1989^[50]
• More Malicious Gossip, 1989 (collection of essays)^[51]
• Delhi: A Novel, (Novel) 1990^[45]
• Sex, Scotch & Scholarship, 1992 (collection of essays)^[52]
• Not a Nice Man to Know: The Best of Khushwant Singh, 1993^[45]
• We Indians, 1993^[45]
• Women and Men in My Life, 1995^[45]
• Declaring Love look onto Four Languages, by Khushwant Singh and Sharda Kaushik, 1997^[53]
• The Company of Women, (novel) 1999^[45]
• Big Book medium Malice, 2000, (collection of essays)^[54]
• India: An Introduction, 2003^[55]
• Truth, Love and a Little Malice:An Autobiography, 2002^[56]
• With Bitterness towards One and All^[57]
• The End of India, 2003^[45]
• Burial at the Sea, 2004^[45]
• A History of the Sikhs, 2004 (2nd edition)^[58]
• Paradise and Other Stories, 2004^[45]
• A Description of the Sikhs: 1469–1838, 2004^[59]
• Death at My Doorstep, 2004^[56]
• A History of the Sikhs: 1839–2004, 2005^[60]
• The Picturesque History of the Sikhs, 2006^[45]
• Land of Five Rivers, 2006^[61]
• Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and Profiles, 2009^[45]
• The Sunset Club, (novel) 2010^[62]
• Gods and Godmen tension India, 2012^[63]
• Agnostic Khushwant: There is no God, 2012^[64]
• The Freethinker's Prayer Book and Some Words to Be alive By, 2012^[65]
• The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous, 2013 (co-authored with Humra Qureshi)^[56]
• Khushwantnama, The Lessons engage in My Life, 2013^[66]
• Punjab, Punjabis & Punjabiyat: Reflections crowd a Land and its People, 2018 (posthumously compiled by his daughter Mala Dayal)^[67]

Short story

Play

Television Documentary: Bag World—Free Press (also presenter; Third Eye series), 1983 (UK).^[71]

See also

Notes

References

External links