Ram Vilas Sharma

Indian academic and writer (1912–2000)

Not to be confused with Ram Bilas Sharma (politician).

Ram Vilas Sharma

Born| (1912-10-10)10 October 1912
Unchagaon Sani, Unnao district, Uttar Pradesh
Died| 30 May 2000(2000-05-30) (aged 87)
Occupation| Writer

Ram Vilas Sharma (10 October 1912 – 30 May 2000) was a progressive literary critic, linguist, poet and thinker.[1] He was born in Unchgaon Sani, Unnao District, Uttar Pradesh.[1] In a career spanning nearly five decades, Sharma authored over 50 books. He was the recipient of many awards including the Sahitya Academy award, Bharat Bharati, Shalaka Samman, Vyas Samman, and the Shatabdi Samman just last week.[2]

In 1939 he wrote a scholarly paper on Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala', presented at a session of Hindi Sahitya Sammelan.[1][3]

## Early life

[edit]

Sharma was born on 10 October 1912 at Unchagaon Sani of Unnao district, Uttar Pradesh.[4] He received his early education in his native village and at Jhansi.[1] He went to Lucknow and gained his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in English Literature.[1]

## Career

[edit]

He started his career as a lecturer at Lucknow University, and then moved to Balwant Rajput College, Agra, as head of the English department.[1] He retired finally as Director of KM Hindi Institute, Agra.[1] Basically a critic, he gave new dimension to biographical-historical criticism, and analysed linguistic and literary issues from a Marxist viewpoint.[1]

Sharma died on 30 May 2000.[4]

## Works

[edit]

His study of Nirala's Ram ki shakti puja, Tulsidas, Saroj-smriti and parimal is a model of creative criticism.[1] He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1970 for his Nirala ki Sahitya Sadhana (in 3 parts).[1] His massive work Bharat ke Pracheen bhasha parivar aur Hindi won him the first Vyas Samman (1991) instituted by the K. K. Birla Foundation.[1] He was Socialist both in thought and deed.[5]

Among the Hindi writers those who impressed him most, besides Nirala the poet, are Acharya Shukla the critic, Bhartendu the pioneer and Premchand the novelist.[1] He took them up for detailed study and wrote authentic literary criticism on them, though from the progressive angle.[1] He analysed their personality and brought out their contribution to Hindi literature.[1] According to him Bhartendu Harishchandra, Premchand and Nirala are outstanding not only as litterateurs but also as men endowed with magnanimity of soul.[1]

### Assessment of Acharya Shukla

[edit]

In his assessment of Acharya Shukla (Acharya Ramchandra Shukla aur Hindi Alochana) critic Sharma emphasises the fact that the writer opposed feudal and courtly literature as it did not give a true picture of the life of the common people and contemporary society.[1]

## List of works

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* Bharatiya Sahitya ki Bhumika
* Nirala ki Sahitya Sadhana (3 volumes)
* Premchand aur unka yug
* Acharya Ramchandra Shukla aur Hindi alochna
* Bhartendu Harishchandra aur Hindi navjagaran ki samasyayen
* Bhartendu Yug aur Hindi bhasha ki vikas parampara
* Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi aur Hindi navjagaran
* Nai kavita aur astitvavad
* Bharat ki bhasha samasya
* Astha aur saundarya
* Bhasha aur samaj
* Parampara ka mulyankan
* Bharat mein angrazi raj aur marxvad (2 volumes)
* Marx aur pichde huye samaj
* Ghar ki baat
* Bharat ke Pracheen bhasha parivar aur Hindi (3 volumes)
* Dhool
* aitihasik bhashavigyan aur hindi
* Pragati aur Parampara

## See also

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* List of Indian writers

## References

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1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Lal, Mohan (1992). Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature. Sahitya Akademi. p. 820\. ISBN 978-81-260-1221-3.
2. ^ "Died". India Today. 10 July 2012. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
3. ^ Das, Sisir Kumar (1995). A History of Indian literature. Sahitya Akademi. p. 908\. ISBN 978-81-7201-798-9.
4. ^ a b Saha, Ranjit Kumar (September–October 2000). "Ram Vilas Sharma (1912—2000)". Indian Literature. 44 (5). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi: 158–161\. JSTOR 23343450.158-161&rft.date=2000-09/2000-10&rft_id=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23343450#id-name=JSTOR&rft.aulast=Saha&rft.aufirst=Ranjit+Kumar&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Ram+Vilas+Sharma" class="Z3988">
5. ^ George, K.M., ed. (1992). Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 978-81-7201-324-0.

## External links

[edit]

* R V Sharma at Kavita Kosh Archived 23 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine (Hindi)

* v
* t
* e

Sahitya Akademi Award for Hindi

1955–1959|

* Makhanlal Chaturvedi (1955)
* Vasudeva Saran Agrawal (1956)
* Acharya Narendra Dev (1957)
* Rahul Sankrityayan (1958)
* Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' (1959)

1960–1979|

* Sumitranandan Pant (1960)
* Bhagwati Charan Verma (1961)
* Not awarded (1962)
* Amrit Rai (1963)
* S. H. V. Agyeya (1964)
* Nagendra (1965)
* Jainendra Kumar (1966)
* Amritlal Nagar (1967)
* Harivansh Rai Bachchan (1968)
* Shrilal Shukla (1969)
* Ram Vilas Sharma (1970)
* Namvar Singh (1971)
* Bhawani Prasad Mishra (1972)
* Hazari Prasad Dwivedi (1973)
* Shivmangal Singh Suman (1974)
* Bhisham Sahni (1975)
* Yashpal (1976)
* Shamsher Bahadur Singh (1977)
* Bharat Bhushan Agarwal (1978)
* Sudama Panday 'Dhoomil' (1979)

1980–1999|

* Krishna Sobti (1980)
* Trilochan (1981)
* Harishankar Parsai (1982)
* Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena (1983)
* Raghuvir Sahay (1984)
* Nirmal Verma (1985)
* Kedarnath Agarwal (1986)
* Shrikant Verma (1987)
* Naresh Mehta (1988)
* Kedarnath Singh (1989)
* Shiv Prasad Singh (1990)
* Girija Kumar Mathur (1991)
* Giriraj Kishore (1992)
* Vishnu Prabhakar (1993)
* Ashok Vajpeyi (1994)
* Kunwar Narayan (1995)
* Surendra Verma (1996)
* Leeladhar Jagudi (1997)
* Arun Kamal (1998)
* Vinod Kumar Shukla (1999)

2000–2019present|

* Manglesh Dabral (2000)
* Alka Saraogi (2001)
* Rajesh Joshi (2002)
* Kamleshwar (2003)
* Viren Dangwal (2004)
* Manohar Shyam Joshi (2005)
* Gyanendrapati (2006)
* Amarkant (2007)
* Govind Mishra (2008)
* Kailash Vajpeyi (2009)
* Uday Prakash (2010)
* Kashinath Singh (2011)
* Chandrakant Devtale (2012)
* Mridula Garg (2013)
* Ramesh Chandra Shah (2014)
* Ramdarash Mishra (2015)
* Nasira Sharma (2016)
* Ramesh Kuntal Megh (2017)
* Chitra Mudgal (2018)
* Nand Kishore Acharya (2019)

2020–present|

* Anamika (2020)
* Daya Prakash Sinha (2021)
* Badri Narayan (2022)
* Sanjeev (2023)
* Gagan Gill (2024)

* v
* t
* e

Sahitya Akademi Fellowship

1968–1980|

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1968)
D. R. Bendre, Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, Sumitranandan Pant, C. Rajagopalachari (1969)
Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar, Viswanatha Satyanarayana (1970)
Kaka Kalelkar, Gopinath Kaviraj, Gurbaksh Singh, Kalindi Charan Panigrahi (1971)
Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, Mangharam Udharam Malkani, Nilmoni Phukan, Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi, Sukumar Sen, V. R. Trivedi (1973)
T. P. Meenakshisundaram (1975)
Atmaram Ravaji Deshpande, Jainendra Kumar, Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa 'Kuvempu', V. Raghavan, Mahadevi Varma (1979)

1981–2000|

Umashankar Joshi, K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, K. Shivaram Karanth (1985)
Mulk Raj Anand, Vinayaka Krishna Gokak, Laxmanshastri Balaji Joshi, Amritlal Nagar, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, Annada Shankar Ray (1989)
Nagarjun, Balamani Amma, Ashapurna Devi, Qurratulain Hyder, Vishnu Bhikaji Kolte, Kanhu Charan Mohanty, P. T. Narasimhachar, R. K. Narayan, Harbhajan Singh (1994)
Jayakanthan, Vinda Karandikar, Vidya Niwas Mishra, Subhash Mukhopadhyay, Raja Rao, Sachidananda Routray, Krishna Sobti (1996)
Syed Abdul Malik, K. S. Narasimhaswamy, Gunturu Seshendra Sarma, Rajendra Shah, Ram Vilas Sharma, N. Khelchandra Singh (1999)
Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar, Rehman Rahi (2000)

2001–present|

Ram Nath Shastri (2001)
Kaifi Azmi, Govind Chandra Pande, Nilamani Phookan, Bhisham Sahni (2002)
Kovilan, U. R. Ananthamurthy, Vijaydan Detha, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Amrita Pritam, Shankha Ghosh, Nirmal Verma (2004)
Manoj Das, Vishnu Prabhakar (2006)
Anita Desai, Kartar Singh Duggal, Ravindra Kelekar (2007)
Gopi Chand Narang, Ramakanta Rath (2009)
Chandranath Mishra Amar, Kunwar Narayan, Bholabhai Patel, Kedarnath Singh, Khushwant Singh (2010)
Raghuveer Chaudhari, Arjan Hasid, Sitakant Mahapatra, M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Asit Rai, Satya Vrat Shastri (2013)
Santeshivara Lingannaiah Bhyrappa, C. Narayana Reddy (2014)
Nirendranath Chakravarty, Gurdial Singh (2016)

Honorary Fellows|

Léopold Sédar Senghor (1974)
Edward C. Dimock, Jr., Daniel H. H. Ingalls Sr., Kamil Zvelebil, Ji Xianlin (1996)
Vassilis Vitsaxis, Eugene Chelyshev (2002)
Ronald E. Asher (2007)
Abhimanyu Unnuth (2013)

Premchand Fellowship|

Intizar Hussain (2005), Kishwar Naheed (2016)

Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship|

Senake Bandaranayake, Chie Nakane, Azad N. Shamatov (1996)

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