Khushwant
Singh
Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. He was educated
at Government College, Lahore and at King's College and the Inner
Temple in London. He practised at the Lahore High Court for several
years before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in
1947. He was sent on diplomatic postings to Canada and London
and later went to Paris with UNESCO. He began a distinguished
career as a journalist with All India Radio in 1951. Since then
he has been founder-editor of Yojana, and editor of The Illustrated
Weekly of India, National Herald and Hindustan Times. Today he
is India's best-known columnist and journalist.
Khushwant
Singh has also had an extremely successful career as a writer.
Among his published works are the classic two-volume History of
the Sikhs, several works of fiction including the novels Train
to Pakistan (winner of the Grove Press Award for the best work
of fiction in 1954), I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi and
The Company of Women and a number of translated works and non-fiction
books on Delhi, nature and current affairs.
Khushwant
Singh was a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. Among other
honours, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 by the President
of India (he returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against
the Union Government's siege of the Golden Temple, Amritsar).
His autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, was published
in 2002.
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