Prem Gorkhi (15 June 1947 – 25 April 2021) wrote for the socially excluded and lowest of the low, those who often remained outside the canvas of the mainstream writers.
Born Prem Nimana, into a humble Dalit home in a village called Ladhowali in Punjab’s Kapurthala district, he was one of the six children of Arjun Das and Rakhi. Gorkhi fought against all odds to acquire an education and excel in the Punjabi literary world.
Ronki Ram is Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Development & Communication, Chandigarh. He was formerly Shaheed Bhagat Singh Chair Professor & Dean (Faculty of Arts), Panjab University, Chandigarh. Ram has been a professor of Contemporary India Studies at Leiden University in Leiden, the Netherlands, and a visiting professor at the Centre of Sikh and Panjabi Studies in the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He holds a PhD in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a post-doctoral fellowship in Peace and Conflict Resolution from Uppsala University, Sweden. Among the books he has authored or edited are ‘Dalit Pachhan, Mukti atey Shaktikaran’ (Dalit Identity, Emancipation and Empowerment. Patiala: Punjabi University Publication Bureau, 2012), ‘Dalit Chetna: Sarot te Saruup (Dalit Consciousness: Sources and Form; Chandigarh: Lokgeet Prakashan, 2010) and ‘Globalization and the Politics of Identity in India’, Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2008 (edited with Bhupinder Brar and Ashutosh Kumar).
