Gurdas Ram Alam (1912–1989), was a Punjabi language poet born in

Bundala Bundala, also spelt as Bandala, (Punjabi language, Punjabi: ਬੁੰਡਾਲਾ) is a large village in Jalandhar district, Jalandhar zillah situated in Tehsil Phillaur within the Indian state of Punjab (India), Punjab and is located in the ce ...

village of Jalandhar, Punjab. He was a progressive poet and an activist poet from a

marginalized Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...

part of the society known as Dalits, and he is known as the first Punjabi Dalit poet. He was from a working-class family and lived in small mud house in village. Alam did not go to school, he learned reading and writing Gurmukhi from his friends. Being a

working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

child he started working at a very young age, and he also started writing poems from his childhood. His first source of inspiration for getting into writing was oppression by the rich on the poor people that he experienced while working as child labor. Despite being illiterate, he emerged as a popular name in Punjabi folk poetry before the

partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

. Alam is recognised as a Dalit activist poet and the voice of deprived, oppressed

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

s and communities.

Life and work

Gurdas Ram Alam was born in Bundala village of Jalandhar, Punjab. His mother's name was Jioni and father's name, Shri Ram. Alam worked as bhatta majdoor and construction worker from a very young age. His work as a child labourer became his inspiration for writing poems which became his way of expression of how he felt being a working-class boy. He remained uneducated because his family could not support sending him to school.

Writing

Style and influence

He was contemporary of Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Avtar Singh Paash, Amrita Pritam and Prof. Mohan Singh. He had one friend from the village, the

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet, and became influenced by Marxism and Naxalite Movement. He had been jailed a few times. People called him a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

because his poetry was direct Punjabi expression of marxist philoshopy. Later

Sant Ram Udasi Sant Ram Udasi (20 April 1939 – 6 November 1986) was one of the major Punjabi poets emerging out of the Naxalite movement in the Indian Punjab towards the late 1960s, writing about revolutionary and Dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित ...

and

Lal Singh Dil Lal Singh Dil (11 April 1943 – 14 August 2007) was one of the major revolutionary Punjabi poets emerging out of the Naxalite (Marxist-Leninist) Movement in the Indian Punjab towards the late sixties of the 20th century. The Movement was a p ...

followed the same creed and emerged as descendants Alam, their work served as inspiration for Naxalite movement of Punjab in 1960's. He was very close to some old Punjabi poets like Nand Lal Noorpuri, Vidhata Singh Teer and Firoz Din Sharaf. As a poet of Dalit-consciousness he was also inspired by the thought and philosophy of B. R. Ambedkar. He wrote a poem "''Bada shor painda gareeban de vehre''" which recited in Ambedkar's presence during a public meeting in 1959 at Bootan Mandi Jalandhar, Punjab.

References

{{authority control 1912 births 1989 deaths Indian lyricists Punjabi Hindus Punjabi-language poets Punjabi-language writers 20th-century Indian poets Indian male poets People from Punjab Province (British India)