Gurdas Ram Alam

Gurdas Ram Alam (1912–1989), was a Punjabi language poet born in Bundala village of Jalandhar, Punjab. He was a progressive poet and an activist poet from a marginalized 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 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. Alam is recognised as a Dalit activist poet and the voice of deprived, oppressed castes and communities.

Gurdas Ram Alam
Alam at Derby England 1972
Born	1912 (1912) Bundala, Jalandhar, Punjab, British India
Died	1989 (aged 76–77)
Occupation	Poet, Bhatta Mazdoor
Nationality	Indian Punjabi
Period	1937–1973
Subject	Inequality, revolution, social change
Literary movement	Progressive poetry
Notable works	Alam Kav (1965)

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 leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet, and became influenced by Marxism and Naxalite Movement. He had been jailed a few times. People called him a communist because his poetry was direct Punjabi expression of marxist philoshopy. Later Sant Ram Udasi and Lal Singh Dil 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.