Khushwant Singh
Sign in to saveAlso known as Singh Khushwant
Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician (1914–2014)
Key facts
- Born
- Khushal Singh , ( 1915-02-02 ) 2 February 1915, Hadali , Punjab Province , British India , (now in Punjab , Pakistan)
- Died
- 20 March 2014 (2014-03-20) (aged 99), New Delhi , India
- Occupation
- Lawyer, journalist, diplomat, writer, politician
- Nationality
- Indian
- Alma mater
- Government College, Lahore (B.A.) , University of London (LL.B.)
- Notable awards
- Rockefeller Grant, Padma Bhushan , Honest Man of the Year, Punjab Rattan Award, Padma Vibhushan , Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, All-India Minorities Forum Annual Fellowship Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, Fellow of King's College , The Grove Press Award
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Family name
- Singh
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Dominion of India
- Place of birth
- Hadali
- Place of death
- Delhi
- Occupation
- columnist
- Position held
- member of Rajya Sabha
- Employer
- Hindustan Times
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Native language
- Punjabi
- Notable work
- Delhi: A Novel
- Genre
- poetry
- Image
- Khushwantsingh.jpg
Show 6 more facts
- date of death
- 2014-03-20
- Commons category
- Khushwant Singh
- date of birth
- 1915-08-15
- name in native language
- خشونت سنگھ
- start of work period
- 1950-00-00
- end of work period
- 2014-00-00
Sources (6)
via Wikidata · CC0
~15 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Khushwant Singh FKC (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write Train to Pakistan in 1956 (made into film in 1998), which became his most well-known novel.
Born in Punjab, Khushwant Singh was educated in Modern School, New Delhi, St. Stephen's College, and graduated from Government College, Lahore. He studied at King's College London and was awarded an LL.B. from University of London. He was called to the bar at the London Inner Temple. After working as a lawyer in Lahore High Court for eight years, he joined the Indian Foreign Service upon the Independence of India from British Empire in 1947. He was appointed journalist in the All India Radio in 1951, and then moved to the Department of Mass Communications of UNESCO at Paris in 1956. These last two careers encouraged him to pursue a literary career. As a writer, he was best known for his trenchant secularism, humour, sarcasm and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioural characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit. He served as the editor of several literary and news magazines, as well as two newspapers, through the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1980 and 1986 he served as Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Khushwant Singh” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.