Akhone Asgar Ali Basharat

Akhone Asgar Ali Basharat is a poet and scholar of the Balti language, which is spoken in Ladakh and in Gilgit-Baltistan. He has worked steadily to revive and popularise Balti language and culture. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of literature and education, from Ladakh ^[1].

Learning at home

Basharat was born on 3 July 1957 in Karkitchoo, a small village in Kargil district that had no school ^[2]. His father, a teacher at an Islamic seminary in Kargil, taught him Arabic and Persian, and he later studied for six years at the Madrasa Ithna Asharia in Kargil ^[2].

A voice for Balti

In 1999 he began presenting programmes on Balti language and literature on All India Radio, Kargil ^[2]. He has contributed widely to the cultural academies in Kargil and Leh and to Doordarshan in Leh and Srinagar ^[2].

He compiled three books of Balti odes, elegies and praise poetry in 2001 ^[2]. His first collection of Balti poems, Guldastae Basharat, came out in 2002 and was welcomed by Balti speakers on both sides of the border; a second, Bazme Basharat, followed in 2011 ^[2]. In 2015 he chaired the board that prepared Balti textbooks for the Jammu and Kashmir school board ^[2].

He also writes in Urdu for several periodicals ^[2]. A farmer by profession, he is president of a fruit growers’ cooperative in Kargil and promotes apricot farming ^[2].