Sumitranandan Pant (1900 – 1977) was an Indian poet and writer. He was a Hindi language poet of the 20th century. His poems were based on romanticism, mainly inspired by the inner beauty of people and nature.
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Wiki/Biography
Sumitranandan Pant was born Gusain Dutt in Kausani-Almora, North-Western Provinces, British India on Sunday, 20 May 1900 (age 77 years at death). His zodiac sign was Taurus. He belonged to a financially stable family. Soon after completing his schooling in Kausani Vernacular in 1905, he joined Almora Government School for his high school education. After this he took admission in Queens College, Banaras in 1918. During his college days, he read the works of Sarojini Naidu, Rabindranath Tagore and some English Romantic poets, which inspired him to take up Hindi literature. Sumitranandan Pant moved from Banaras to Allahabad in 1919 and joined Muir College; However, he attended college for only two years in protest against colonial rule in India.
A picture of Pant’s ancestral house in Almora
Family
parents and siblings
His father, Ganga Dutt Pant, was the manager of a local tea plantation and also a landowner in Kausani-Almora in the North-Western Province.
Ganga Dutt Pant
His mother’s name is Saraswati Devi, who died shortly after his birth. He had four brothers named Raghubar Dutt Pant, Devidutt Pant, Hari Nandan Pant and Hari Dutt Pant and three sisters.
Raghuvar Dutt Pant
Hari Nandan Pant
A family photo of Sumitranandan Pant
wife and children
Sumitranandan Pant was not married. He has an adopted daughter named Sumita Pant.
Sumita Pant, foster daughter of Sumitranandan Pant
livelihood
In 1955, Sumitranandan Pant started working as the Chief Program Producer and Consultant of All India Radio Center in Prayag and served in this position till 1962. Soon after leaving college, he focused primarily on writing poetry and published his first collection titled Pallava in 1926. Soon after the release of this poetic work, he became so popular that it earned him the title of ‘Literary Giant of the Hindi Renaissance’, coined by the famous Hindi poet Jaishankar Prasad. In the preface of this book, Sumitranandan Pant expressed his dissatisfaction towards Hindi speakers. they wrote,
Think in one language and express yourself in another.”
Sumitranandan Pant said that Braj language is outdated and he wants to express his views in some other national language. In 1931, he moved to Kalakankar and lived there for nine years and led a secluded life, which attracted him towards nature. During this time, he studied the works of Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi and gradually got inclined towards their thinking. Later he composed many poems and verses and dedicated them to Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi. In 1941, Sumitranandan Pant moved to Almora where he joined the Uday Shankar Cultural Center and attended some drama classes. He was greatly influenced by the writings of Aurobindo, especially The Life Divine. In 1944, he moved to Madras and then to Pondicherry, where he visited Aurobindo’s ashram. Two years later, Sumitranandan Pant returned to Allahabad and resumed his career in Hindi literature.
Amitabh Bachchan has shared a picture of Sumitranandan Pant on social media.
literary work
Sumitranandan Pant was one of the four pillars of the Chhayavadi sect of Hindi literature. He used to write in Sanskritised Hindi language. Throughout his career, he wrote twenty-eight books, including poetry, verse plays, and essays. He was a Chhayavadi poet, who was also versed in progressive, socialist and humanist poems. He was a philosophical poet, influenced by the works of Sri Aurobindo. Eventually Pant moved on from this style. David Rubin, an American scholar and translator, writes in one of his works that in the early forties, Pant and Nirala approached new areas of experimentation. David wrote,
In the early forties new psychological and experimental “schools” were emerging. It was characteristic of both Nirala and Pant that they themselves anticipated these trends and by the time new approaches came into vogue, they had moved on to new areas of experimentation.
Sumitranandan Pant attending a public function
Suryakant Tripathi Nirala had once praised Pant’s writing in one of his works. Nirala wrote,
The most powerful thing about Pant ji is that like Shelley, he makes his work sweet and tender by enriching it with many similes and metaphors.”
Sumitranandan Pant during Kavi Sammelan
Sumitranandan Pant’s major works include Pallava, Granthi, Gramya, Swarna Kiran, Swarna Dhuli, Kala Aur Budha Chand, Satyakam, Gunjan, Chidambara, Uchchavas, Lokayatan and Veena, which he composed at the age of seven.
controversies
convicted of copying poetry
As soon as he released his poetry collection titled Pallava, a controversy broke out between Sumitranandan Pant and Suryakan Tripathi Nirala. Nirala accused Pant of copying Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry in Pant’s poetic work ‘Pallava’. However, Pant objected to such allegations. Reportedly, it was considered one of the most unpleasant controversies in the history of literature. Dr. Ram Vilas Sharma, a highly acclaimed Hindi critic, wrote in detail on this dispute between the two.
Defamation case by Harivansh Rai Bachchan
Bachchan had once accused Pant and filed a defamation case against him in the Allahabad High Court. When Bachchan was serving as a Rajya Sabha member, he blamed Pant for hiding facts in letters which they exchanged with each other. During court proceedings, both of them traveled to the High Court in the same rickshaw; He would present his views before the judge and then return to his home in the same rickshaw.
A letter to Pant by Harivansh Rai Bachchan
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- In 1960, Sumitranandan Pant received the Sahitya Akademi Award, presented by the Sahitya Akademi of India, for his poetic work Art and Buddha Chand.
Sumitranandan Pant’s Doctor of Letters degree
- In 1969, he received the Jnanpith Award, which is considered India’s highest honor in the field of literature. By winning this award, he became the first Hindi poet to receive this award. He was awarded the Jnanpith Award for his popular poetry collection titled Chidambara.
- Sumitranandan Pant was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1961.
Sumitranandan Pant receiving the Padma Bhushan award
Death
Sumitranandan Pant died on 28 December 1977 in Allahabad (Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, India. He suffered a heart attack. His last poem was ‘Sindhumathan’.
Facts/General Knowledge
- During her school days, due to her slim and beautiful personality, she used to get female roles in school plays. In 1916, during his winter holidays from school, when he was staying in Kausani, he wrote a 200-page toy novel titled ‘Haar’.
Sumitranandan Pant disguised as a female character
- The national broadcaster ‘Doordarshan’ was named by Sumitranandan Pant.
- Sumitranandan Pant grew up in a small village in the North-Western Province of British India. He was so impressed and cherished by the beauty, love and flavor of rural India that he incorporated the same essence in most of his poetic works. Reportedly, he was deprived of his mother’s love in his childhood and that was the reason why he loved Mother Nature. She advocated women’s rights and equality in India and wrote most of her works based on feminism. Sumitranandan Pant wrote in one of his articles,
The complete upliftment of Indian civilization and culture is possible only when women are living in a free environment.”
Sumitranandan Pant during Kavi Sammelan
- His birth name was Gosain Dutt. While he was studying in school, he changed his name to Sumitranandan Pant to pay homage to Lakshmana from the Indian epic book Ramayana, in which Lakshmana’s mother was named Sumitra. When he was a child, Sumitranandan Pant was greatly influenced by the hairstyle of French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte. After seeing a picture of Napoleon in his childhood, he decided to have long hair like Napoleon.
Childhood picture of Sumitranandan Pant
- Sumitranandan Pant was one of the close friends of Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Reportedly, it was he who had named Amitabh Bachchan in place of Inquilab. In a media interview, Amitabh had once revealed that Pant was like a father to him. Amitabh said,
I read every line of Pant’s poetry and sometimes I find him a greater poet than my father (Bachchan ji).
Sumitranandan Pant (third from right) posing with the Bachchan family
- Sumitranandan Pant actively participated in the Gandhian non-cooperation movement in 1921 to end colonial rule in India.
- Several years after his death, the Government of India converted his childhood home in Kausani into a museum, which displays some of the articles he used daily, some drafts of his poems and stories, letters, awards and books .
Some things of Sumitranandan Pant in Kausani Museum
- According to Jayati Vidya Sansthan, the author of Kulgeet of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee was Sumitra Nandan Pant.
- In 2015, the Government of India issued a postage stamp in his honour.
Sumitranandan Pant’s photo on a 2015 Indian postage stamp
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn