Hazari Prasad Dwivedi & Prof Bhabananda Deka

Hazari Prasad Dwivedi

Born: 19 August 1907

Died: 19 May 1979

• He was a Hindi novelist, literary historian, essayist, critic and scholar.
• He penned numerous novels, collections of essays, historical research on medieval religious movements of India especially Kabir and Natha Sampradaya, and historical outlines of Hindi literature.
• Besides Hindi, he was master of many languages including Sanskrit, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati as well as Pali, Prakrit, and Apabhramsa.
• Steeped in traditional knowledge of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit, and modern Indian languages, he was destined to be the great bridge maker between the past and the present.
• As a student of Sanskrit, steeped in the Sastras, he gave a new evaluation to Sahitya-Sastra and he can rightly be considered as a great commentator on the textual tradition of the Indian literature.
• He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1957 for his contribution to Hindi literature, and the 1973 Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection of essays, ‘Alok Parva’.

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Prof Bhabananda Deka

Born: 19 August 1929

Died: 4 December 2006

• He has been acknowledged as the pioneer Assam economist and author, who conducted path-breaking research for the very first time on the economy of the far eastern part of India.
• He was also a leading Indian-Assamese litterateur of the famed ‘Awahon-Ramdhenu Era’ of Assamese literature during the mid-20th century.
• He was the author of a total of 115 English and Assamese books including textbooks on a range of fifteen subjects including economics, ancient Assamese literature, philosophy, education, religion, mythology, archaeology, tribal study, poetry, drama, memoirs, civics, political science, biographies; he also edited books and journals.
• He also authored a variety of research papers and articles about the state of Assam, a state in the north-eastern part of India.
• He pioneered the writing of books on Economics in Assamese.
• His Assamese book Axomor Arthaneeti was the first-ever research-based comprehensive book on Assam Economics, which was published for the first time in 1963.
• Until this book on Assam Economics was published, there was hardly any comprehensive research-based material available on this crucial topic.
• Because of his monumental social and intellectual contributions to Assam, he had been conferred with the honorary title of ‘Asom Ratna’ — ‘Jewel of Assam’ by the intellectuals of Assam on 19 August 2007 at a public meet held under the presidency of Prof. (Dr) Satyendra Narayan Goswami.

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