Ramdhari Singh Dinkar

On 22 May 2015 Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated golden jubilee celebrations of Dinkar's notable works Sanskriti ke Chaar Adhyaye and Parshuram ki Pratiksha at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.

In 1999, Dinkar was one of the Hindi writers featured on a set of commemorative postal stamps released by Government of India to celebrate the linguistic harmony of India, marking the 50th anniversary since India adopted Hindi as its official language.

On 30 September 1987, to mark his 79th birth anniversary, tributes were paid to him by the then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma.

Dinkar was in Tirupati ,Andhra Pradesh for his poetry meeting .He did his last poetry reading at Tirupati Temple on third Canto of his famous Book Rashmirathi on great form of Lord Krishna. After his famous poetry, at night on 24 April 1974 ,Dinkar got cardiac arrest and died.

He received awards from Kashi Nagri Pracharini Sabha, Uttar Pradesh Government and also an award by the Government of India for his epic poem Kurukshetra. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1959 for his work Sanskriti ke char adhyay. He was also a recipient of Padma Bhushan in 1959 by the Government of India. He was awarded the LLD degree by Bhagalpur University. He was felicitated as Vidyavachaspati by Gurukul Mahavidyalaya. He was felicitated as Sahitya-Chudaman by Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Udaipur on 8 November 1968. Dinkar was awarded the Jnanpith Award in 1972 for Urvashi. He also became a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, in 1952. Dinkar's fans widely believe that he truly deserved the honour of RashtraKavi (poet of India).

One of the notable modern Hindi poets, Dinkar was born in a poor family in Simaria village of Bengal Presidency, British India, now part of Begusarai district in Bihar state. The government had honored him with the Padma Bhushan Award in the year 1959 and had also nominated him thrice to the Rajya Sabha. Dinkar's poetry was greatly influenced by Rabindranath Tagore. Similarly, his political thought was greatly shaped by both Mahatma Gandhi and Karl Marx. Dinkar gained popularity in the pre-independence period through his nationalist poetry.

Dinkar was elected three times to the Rajya Sabha, and he was the member of this house from 3 April 1952 to 26 January 1964, and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1959. He was also the Vice-Chancellor of Bhagalpur University (Bhagalpur, Bihar) in the early 1960s.

The famous historian Dr. Kashi Prasad Jaiswal is said to have loved him like a son. During the early days of Dinkar's poetic career, Jaiswal helped him in every way. Jaiswal died on 4 August 1937, which was a great blow to the young poet. Much later, he wrote in Kalpna, a magazine published from Hyderabad, "It was a good thing that Jaiswalji was my first admirer. Now when I have savoured the love and encouragement of the Sun, Moon, Varun, Kuber, Indra, Brihaspati, Shachi and Brahmani, it is clear that none of them was like Jaiswalji. As I heard the news of his death, the world became a dark place for me. I did not know what to do." Jaiswalji was the first person to appreciate the historical sense in the poetry of Dinkar.

Dinkar's first collection of poems, Renuka, was published in November 1935. Banarsi Das Chaturvedi, the editor of Vishal Bharat, wrote that Hindi-speaking people should celebrate the publication of Renuka. Around this time, Chaturvediji went to Sevagram. He took with him a copy of Renuka. The copy was given to Mahatma Gandhi.

When Dinkar stepped into his adolescence, the Indian freedom movement had already begun under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1929, when after matriculation, he entered Patna College to study intermediate; this movement started becoming aggressive. In 1928, the Simon Commission, against which nationwide demonstrations were being held, arrived. Demonstrations were held in Patna too led by Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi and Dinkar too signed the oath-paper. Thousands came to the rally at Gandhi Maidan in which Dinkar also participated. During the protest against Simon Commission, the police of the British government mercilessly lathi charged the Lion of Punjab, Lala Lajpat Rai, who succumbed to the injuries. The whole country was in turmoil. The youthful mind of Dinkar became increasingly radical due to these agitations. His emotional nature was charged with poetic energy.

Dinkar's first poem was published in 1924 in a paper called Chhatra Sahodar ('Brother of Students'). Chhatra Sahodar was a local newspaper established under the editorship of Narsingh Das. In 1928, the peasant's satyagraha under the leadership of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel proved successful in Bardoli of Gujarat. He wrote ten poems based on this Satyagraha which was published in a book form under the title Vijay-Sandesh ('Message of Victory'). This composition is now available. Right in front of Patna College, the office of Yuvak functioned. To escape the wrath of the government, Dinkar's poems were published under the pseudonym "Amitabh". On 14 September 1928, a poem of his, on the martyrdom of Jatin Das, was published. Around this time he wrote two small works of poetry called Birbala and Meghnad-Vadh, but neither of them are traceable now. In 1930, he composed a poem called Pran-Bhang ('The Breach of Vow'), which was mentioned by Ramchandra Shukla in his history. So the journey of his poetic career should be deemed to have begun with Vijay-Sandesh. Before this his poems had become a frequent feature of the magazine Desh, published from Patna and of Pratibha, which was published from Kannauj.

Dinkar's first published work of poetry was Vijay Sandesh (1928). His other works are:

As a student, Dinkar had to battle day to day issues, some related to their family's economic circumstances. When he was a student of Mokama High School, it was not possible for him to stay on until school closed at four p.m. as he had to leave the class after the lunch break to catch the steamer back home. He could not afford to be in the hostel which would have enabled him to attend all periods. How could a student who had no shoes on his feet manage the hostel fees? His poetry later showed the impact of poverty. This was the environment in which Dinkar grew up and became a nationalist poet of radical views. In 1920, Dinkar saw Mahatma Gandhi for the first time. About this time, he founded Manoranjan Library at Simariya. He also edited a handwritten pamphlet.

Ramdhari Singh (23 September 1908 – 24 April 1974), known by his pen name Dinkar, was an Indian Hindi and Maithili language poet, essayist, freedom fighter, patriot and academic. He emerged as a poet of rebellion as a consequence of his nationalist poetry written in the days before Indian independence. His poetry exuded Veer Rasa (heroic sentiment), and he has been hailed as a Rashtrakavi ('national poet') and Yuga-Chāraṇa (Charan of the Era) on account of his inspiring patriotic compositions. He was a regular poet of Hindi Kavi Sammelan and is hailed to be as popular and connected to poetry lovers for Hindi speakers as Pushkin for Russians.

Dinkar was born on 23 September 1908, in Simaria village, Bengal Presidency, British India, (now in Begusarai district in Bihar) in a Bhumihar Brahman family to Babu Ravi Singh and Manroop Devi. He was married in Tabhka village of Samastipur district in Bihar. As a student, his favourite subjects were history, politics and philosophy. At school and later in college, he studied Hindi, Sanskrit, Maithili, Bengali, Urdu and English literature. Dinkar was greatly influenced by Rabindranath Tagore, Keats and Milton and translated works of Rabindranath Tagore from Bengali to Hindi. The poetic persona of the poet Dinkar was shaped by the pressures and counter-pressures of life during the Indian freedom movement. A tall man, 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) in height, with a shining white complexion, long high nose, large ears and broad forehead, he tended to have a noticeable appearance.