Malik Ram

Malik Ram Biography

Malik Ram Baveja, popularly known by his pen name Malik Ram was a renowned Urdu, Persian and Arabic scholar from India. For his monumental work Tazkirah-e-Muasireen, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983. He has been an internationally acclaimed authority on Mirza Ghalib. He has published about 80 books in his literary career. His works include Urdu, Persian and Arabic, though he wrote predominantly in Urdu language. He has also written about 200 articles published in several journals. His columns were published both in India as well as Pakistan. He edited the complete works of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He also edited and annotated Ghalib’s major works - “Sabd-e-Chin”, “Diwan-e-Ghalib”, “Gul-e-Raana” and “Khutoot-e-Ghalib”.

Malik Ram was born on December 22, 1906 in Phalia, a place in present Pakistan. His schooling was completed at Wazirabad. Later he attended Government College, Lahore. From 1931 onwards he worked as a journalist for 6 years. He became joint-editor of the Lahore monthly literary journal Nairang-i-Khayal and later became its editor. He was an assistant editor of the Lahore daily newspaper Bharat Mata for 6 months in 1936. From 1939 to 1965, he was in the Indian Foreign Service and during this time he travelled abroad. His assignment was to study oriental texts and manuscripts lodged in their archives, libraries and museums. In 1965 he retired from government service.

After retirement he joined Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi and took charge of Urdu section. It was during this time when he edited the complete works of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. In January 1967, he launched his own quarterly literary review Tahreer and was active in writing till he died in 1993, aged 86. Shortly before he died, he donated his entire library of books and manuscripts to the Jamia Hamdard University Library in Delhi. Now his collection of books is placed in ‘Malik Ram Collection’.

Published: N/A

Updated: March 27, 2014