Bal Krishna Sharma Naveen

Bal Krishna Sharma (8 December 1897 – 29 April 1960), known under the pen name Naveen, was an Indian freedom activist, journalist, politician and a poet of Hindi literature. He was a member of the 1st Lok Sabha, representing Kanpur constituency and served the Rajya Sabha as a member from 1957 till his death. He succeeded Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi as the editor of Pratap daily and also served as a member of the Official Languages Commission. His poetry anthologies include Kumkum, Rashmirekha, Apalak, Kwasi, Vinoba Stavan, Urmila and Hum Vishpaee Janam Ke, the last one published posthumously. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1960, for his contributions to literature. India Post issued a commemorative stamp on Sharma in 1989.

Biography Bal Krishna Sharma was born on 8 December 1897 at Bhyana, a small village in Shajapur district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, in a family of modest financial means to Jamanadas Sharma and Radhabai. The new personal connections helped him to shift his base to Kanpur and he joined Christ Church College, Kanpur to pursue his graduate studies (BA). A turning point in his life occurred during his Kanpur college days when he participated in the Non-cooperation movement and this prompted him to abandon his college studies in 1921 to take up politics as a full-time career. He pursued his journalistic career concurrently through his association with Pratap, a Hindi language daily, and when Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, the then editor of the newspaper died in March 1931, he was chosen as the editor. After the Indian independence of 1947, he took up party politics, continuing his alignment with the Indian National Congress (INC). He contested the first lok sabha elections of 1951–52, and won from the Kanpur District South cum Etawah district Lok Sabha constituency, defeating Chandrasekhar of the Congress Socialist Party with a margin of over 26,500 votes, securing almost 50 percent of the votes polled. and he was also a member of the Cultural delegation which visited a number of countries including Nepal, Mauritius and USA.

Sharma wrote several poems, under the pen name Naveen, since his college days which reflected patriotic fervor and published many anthologies such as Kumkum, Rashmirekha, Apalak, Kwasi, Vinoba Stavan and Urmila. He was the editor of the Hindi language literary magazine, Prabha. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan in 1960, a few months before his death on 29 April 1960; while he was serving as a member of the Rajya Sabha. The India Post honored him with a commemorative stamp in 1989 A college in Shajapur managed by the Government of Madhya Pradesh, Government Balkrishna Sharma Navin Post Graduate College, has been named after him. His life has been documented in a biography, Balkrishna Sharma Naveen, written by Vishnu Tripathi and published in 2013.