Legendary Urdu litterateur Gian Chand Jain died at Porterville (California) in America on Saturday night. He was 85.
An authority on Ghalib and a linguist par excellence, Jain was born in Seohara town in Bijnore district in 1923. He had written his first ghazal under the pen name ‘Ghaafil’ in 1937.
Jain’s latest book ‘Ek Bhasha, Do Likhawat’ had invited the collective ire of Urdu world. Urdu writers and readers were hurt with Jain’s sudden outburst and especially the charges of bias againt non-Muslim writers in Urdu. All his life he got tremendous respect from across the Urud world.
Another Urdu legend Shamsur Rahman Farooqi had written a scholarly piece, exposing the frivolous nature of charges. However, many scholars felt that Jain, who was ailing, had been used by vested elements, in his old age to create the unsavoury literary controversy. Such errors (found in the book) were not expected of an erudite person like him.
Gyan Chand Jain was a recepient of umpteen Urdu awards. He was Head of Department, Urdu, at Hamidia College. Later he taught at Jammu, Allahabad and Hyderabad. He shifted to Lucknow and later to USA.
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Everbody knows who was behind it. Jain was used. Narang and Satyapal Anand….etc
Fellows!despite his last controversial book, his all prior work is enough to make him stand conspicuous in the history of urdu literary research and criticism!!!!
[…] to the late Dr. Gyan Chand (in his invaluable, Ibtida’i Kalam-i-Iqbal), Lala Hardayal, the founder of the Ghadar Party, […]
That last book written by Gian Chand Jain “Ek Bhasah, Two scripts, Two litrature is indeed, in my opinion is the sign of old age. He did not stay with the subject (that is Urdu, Hindi)but brought out the history of hatred, as so many books written by
so many hindus against Muslim Era, and about the Muslim leaders of just pre partition time. It is unfortunate that he wrote nothing but old politics, hate and this book is nothing but a hate book and full of garbage.
i want to study the gyan chand’s research and criticism on the alf laila
is it true that he is dead
In reply to Gyan Chand Jain`s book, I wrote the book, “Ek Bhasha Jo Mustarad Kardi Gai”. This book was published by Educational Book House, University Market, ALIGARH-202002 and was largely acclaimed.
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