Gurdas Ram Alam

Gurdas Ram Alam (1912–1989), was a Punjabi language poet born in Bundala village of Jalandhar, Punjab. He was a progressive and activist poet from a marginalized part of the society known as Dalits, and he is known as the first Punjabi Dalit poet. He was from a working-class family and lived in a small mud house in a village. Alam did not go to school, he learned reading and writing Gurmukhi from his friends. Being a working-class child, he started working at a very young age, and also started writing poems from his childhood. His first source of inspiration for getting into writing was oppression by the rich on the poor people that he experienced while working as a child laborer. Despite being illiterate, he emerged as a popular name in Punjabi folk poetry before the partition of India. Alam is recognised as a Dalit activist poet and the voice of deprived, and oppressed castes and communities.

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