Sumitranandan Pant

Sumitranandan Pant
Born	May 20, 1900 Kausani village, Uttarakhand, India.
Died	December 28, 1977 (aged 77) Rajahmundry, A.P, India.
Occupation	Writer, poet
Nationality	Indian
Education	Hindi Literature
Subject	Sanskrit
Notable awards	Padma Bhushan (1961) Jnanpith Award
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Sumitranandan Pant (May 20, 1900 - December 28, 1977) was an Indian poet. He was one of the most celebrated "Progressive" left-wing 20th century poets of the Hindi language, and enjoyed extensive government patronage under the Congress party.

Background

Pant was born in Kausani village, Bageshwar District in what is now the state of Uttarakhand, into an educated middle-class Brahmin family. He grew up in the same village and always cherished a love for the beauty and flavor of rural India, which is evident in all his major works.

Literary career

He is considered one of the major poets of the Chhayavaadi school of Hindi literature. Pant mostly wrote in Sanskritized Hindi. P ant authored twenty-eight published works including poetry, verse plays and essays.

Apart from Chhayavaadi poems, Pant also wrote progressive, socialist and humanist poems.^[1] philosophical (influenced by Sri Aurobindo),

Useful idiot

It is remarkable that Pant, who had reached the age of forty-seven when India became independent, had remained quite unmoved by the freedom struggle, which had developed and grown to maturity, stage by stage, at the same time as Pant himself. However, after independence, when it became clear that the Nehru government was going the Soviet way and would extend state patronage to leftist and "progressive" thinkers and writers, Pant threw in his hat with that clique. He received patronage and hospitality on a significant scale from the Soviet Union for nearly three decades, until his death in 1977. He made several visits to the USSR, all paid for by either the Soviet government or the Congress government of India. Pant's work during these decades was largely devoted to spreading communist influence in India. Pant was identified by Yuri Bezmenov, a former Soviet spy, as one of the "useful idiots" who he had recruited to collaborate with the Soviet Union with the aim of furthering Soviet interests and mindset in India, to "destabilize" his own country's political system and historic culture. Indeed, Pant felt moved enough by the Soviet system to pen a panegyric of astonishing toadyism entitled "Rhapsody to Lenin." For his pains, Pant was awarded the Nehru Peace Prize by the Soviet Union, ostensibly for his work Lokayatan.

Awards

In 1968, Pant became the first Hindi poet to receive the Jnanpith Award, considered to be India's highest accolade for literature. This was awarded to him for a collection of his most famous poems titled Chidambara.^[2] Pant received the "Sahitya Academy" award, given by India's Academy of Letters, for "Kala Aur Budhdha Chand".

The Indian Government honored him with Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.^[3]

Sumitra Nandan Pant composed the Kulgeet of IIT Roorkee, "Jayati Jayati Vidya Sansthan".

Pant died on December 28, 1977, at Rajamundry, Andhra Pradesh, India. His childhood house, in Kausani, has been converted into a museum. This museum displays his daily use articles, drafts of his poems, letters, his awards, etc.

References

1. "Chhayavaadi Poet Sumitranandan Pant".
2. "Jnanpith Laureates Official listings". Jnanpith Website.
3. "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Retrieved July 21, 2015.