On February 17, 2024, the Jnanpith Selection Board announced that the renowned Urdu poet, Gulzar, and Sanskrit scholar, Jagadguru Ramabhadracharya, would be honoured with the 58th Jnanpith Award for 2023. Since its inception in 1961, it is the second time the award has been given for Sanskrit, and the fifth time for Urdu.
The Jnanpith award was instituted in 1961, and was first awarded in 1965 to G. Sankara Kurup for his contributions to the Malayalam language.
The Jnanpith Award is the oldest and the highest Indian literary award presented every year by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to authors for their ‘outstanding contribution towards literature’. Jnanapith Award is conferred only to Indian writers writing in Indian languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The first Jnanpith award was given to Amitav Ghosh for an English writer. It was the 54th Jnanpith award. This award is not conferred posthumously. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Awards, it is the foremost prize for Indian literature.
The Jananpith Award was sponsored by Bhartiya Jnanpith, a cultural organisation and since its inception till 2022, the award has been conferred to 62 scholars including eight women authors. The award carries a prize money of Rs 11 lakhs, a bronze replica of Goddess ‘Vagdevi’ (Saraswati), and a citation. The nominations for the award are received from various literary experts, teachers, critics, universities, and numerous literary and language associations. The recipients for the award are decided by a Selection Board, consisting of not less than seven and not more than eleven members of ‘high repute and integrity’.
The current selection board is headed by a former Jnanpith awardee, Smt. Pratibha Ray. The other members of the board include Shri Madhav Kaushik, Professor Shamim Hanfi, Professor Suranjan Das, Professor Purushothama Billimale, Dr S. Mani Valan, Shri Chandrakant Patil, Dr Harish Trivedi, Shri Prabha Varma, Dr Syed Asghar Wajahat, and Shri Madhusudan Anand (Ex Officio).
Gulzar
Sampooran Singh Kalra is the real name of the legendary lyricist and Urdu poet, Gulzar. Apart from being a poet and lyricist, he is an author, screenwriter, and film director who is well acclaimed for his works in Hindi cinema. He has written several popular and phenomenal songs in Hindi cinema. Further, he is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu in 2002, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2013, Padma Bhushan in 2004, Academy Award in 2008, Grammy Award in 2010, five National Film Awards, and 22 Filmfare Awards for his works.
Gulzar was born on August 18, 1934, in Punjab, present-day Pakistan. Due to the partition, his family shifted to Mumbai. He did odd jobs in Mumbai to eke out a living, and that is when he started writing under the pen name ‘Gulzar’. Gulzar started his career in 1963 with music director S.D. Burman for the film ‘Bandini’. He has further worked with many music directors including R.D. Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Vishal Bhardwaj, A.R. Rehman, to name a few.
The ‘Jai Ho’ song, written by Gulzar, for the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, received an Oscar Award for ‘Best Original Song’ in 2009, and Grammy Award in the category of ‘Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media’ in 2010. His finest works further include songs for critically acclaimed films like ‘Maachis’, ‘Omkara’, ‘Kaminey’, ‘Dil Se’, ‘Guru’, ‘Bunty aur Babli’, etc.
Additionally, he has written dialogues and screenplay for films such as ‘Aashirwad’, ‘Anand’ and ‘Khamoshi’. Furthermore, he has directed hit movies, like ‘Koshish’, ‘Achanak’, ‘Aandhi’, ‘Mausam’, and many more. His movies tell stories of human relationships entangled in social issues. To make the story telling more effective, Gulzar skilfully employed ‘flashback’ in the narration of his stories.
Gulzar’s writings are mainly in Urdu and Punjabi. However, he has also written in Braj Bhasha, Khariboli, Haryanvi, and Marwari. He has invented a new genre in poetry, named ‘Triveni’. ‘Triveni’ is a non-muqaffa poem of three lines. Gulzar has always been innovative about his poetry. He has now been involved in children’s poetry.
Jagadguru Ramabhadracharya
Jagadguru Ramabhadracharya is one of the present four Jagadguru Ramanandacharyas of the Ramananda sect. He has been holding this position since 1982. Ramabhadracharya was born as Giridhar Mishra on January 14, 1950. He is an Indian Hindu spiritual leader, educator, Sanskrit scholar, poet, author, textual commentator, philosopher, and Katha artist based in Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh.
He is a polyglot who could speak 22 languages. Ramabhadracharya has written in several Indian languages including Sanskrit, Hindi, Awadhi, and Maithili. Ramabhadracharya holds a doctoral ‘Vidyavaridhi’ (Ph.D.) degree from the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. In 1997, he was awarded the post-doctorate ‘Vachaspati’ (D.Litt.) degree by the same university. He has authored more than 240 books and 50 papers.
Ramabhadracharya was awarded Padma Vibhushan, India’s second largest civilian award in 2015. He has been honoured by several leaders and politicians including A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Somnath Chatterjee, Indira Gandhi, etc. He has been conferred honours by several state governments, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh. In 2021, he was honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship.
Ramabhadracharya has been blind since the age of two months and has had no formal education until the age of 17 years. He was home tutored during his initial years by his grandfather. By the age of eight, he had memorised the entire Bhagavad Gita and the Sri Ramcharitmanas. He has never used Braille or any other aid to learn and compose. He has done all his learning by listening and does the composing by dictating to scribes.
He is the founder and head of Tulsi Peeth, a religious and social service institution in Chitrakoot named after Saint Tulsidas. Furthermore, he is the founder and lifelong chancellor of Jagadguru Ramabhadracharya Divyanga University in Chitrakoot. This University offers graduate and postgraduate courses exclusively to differently-abled students.
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