Chandrakant Mehta

Chandrakant Mehta is an educationist and author in Gujarati and Hindi, who has also been a poet, essayist, journalist and administrator. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2021 in the field of literature and education, from Gujarat ^[1].

From primary school to university

Mehta was born on 6 August 1939 ^[2]. He began his working life as a primary schoolteacher and rose to become pro-vice-chancellor and acting vice-chancellor of Gujarat University ^[2]. He taught Hindi for 51 years and journalism up to postgraduate level for 38 years; 6 students earned PhDs in Hindi and 9 in journalism under his guidance ^[2].

Known as a “media guru”, he has trained more than 1,500 journalists, and six of his journalism books are used as reference texts by universities ^[2]. He gave more than 100 radio lessons on All India Radio teaching Hindi to people in Gujarat ^[2].

Vocational courses and literacy

In 1978 he brought vocational education into colleges in Gujarat with a range of new courses, and later set up several vocational institutes ^[2]. For 38 years he has worked against illiteracy, running 9,350 adult education classes that helped 216,925 slum residents learn to read and write ^[2].

173 books

Mehta has written 173 books: 139 in Gujarati, 30 in Hindi, 2 in English and 2 in Prakrit ^[2]. For 45 years he has written three columns a week for the Gujarati daily Gujarat Samachar, more than 5,000 articles in all ^[2]. He has been president of the Hindi Sahitya Parishad and chief editor of the Hindi quarterly Nutan Bhasha Setu ^[2].

His honours include the Dhumketu Award, awards from the Gujarat Sahitya Academy and the Hindi Sahitya Academy, and a national award for his book Saath Saath Chal Rahi Kiran ^[2].