Ramashankar Yadav

Ramashankar Yadav 'Vidrohi'
Native name	रमाशंकर यादव 'विद्रोही'
Born	(1957-12-03)3 December 1957 Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Died	8 December 2015(2015-12-08) (aged 58) New Delhi, India
Pen name	Vidrohi
Occupation	Poet, Social Activist
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Jawaharlal Nehru University

Ramashankar Yadav (3 December 1957 – 8 December 2015), popularly known as Vidrohi among his friends and admirers, was an Indian poet and social activist who came to Jawaharlal Nehru University as a student but continued to live on or around its campus well beyond his student life, in the process becoming a part of the campus landscape for many generations of students.

Always present during student protests, him reciting his revolutionary poetry at such occasions, and otherwise at Ganga Dhaba, was a common sight. He died doing what he perhaps liked doing most, participating in a student protest.

Biography

Vidrohi was born in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India, to Ramnarayan Yadav and Karma Devi. He was studying for his LLB in a college in U.P. where he was rusticated due to his involvement in student politics. He came to New Delhi and got enrolled as a Phd candidate in the Hindi department of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, where once again, he was rusticated for similar reasons.

The special place that he holds in the hearts of so many, and not all of them JNU regulars, owes much to his poetry, people's poetry, but also a lot to the lifestyle he had chosen - a life devoid of almost any material possession, his clothes, that too in most cases bought by others, being the only exception - the trees of JNU, the corners of its hostels, the benches of its dhabas and the office of its student union his only abode.

No running after money, fame, power for him. He did not even write down his poems. He just recited them. Whatever work of his we see in written form is result of the efforts of his admirers.

External links

Biographical material

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