Chiranji Lal Yadav
A Moradabad brass engraver who has practised the finest carving styles for over 50 years and trained 500 young people, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2026.
Chiranji Lal Yadav has been engraving brass in Moradabad since he was a boy. In 2026 he was named for the Padma Shri in the field of art, from Uttar Pradesh [1].
Learning the craft
Yadav was born on 8 July 1950 into a very poor family in Moradabad [2]. He left school after Class 7 and started brass engraving young, learning from Amar Singh Ji [2]. From the age of 22 he trained further under a Government of India programme [2].
He works in many of Moradabad’s styles, from mehraab, panchranga and angoori work to marori, the most intricate of them [2].
Teaching
Yadav was a master craftsman from 1980 to 1982 [2]. He has taught engraving to 30 children in Puri district, Odisha, and to 10 children in Moradabad in 2011 under the Ministry of Textiles, and has trained about 500 young people through the Metal Handicrafts Service Centre [2].
Shows at home and abroad
He has exhibited at Pragati Maidan, Dilli Haat, Surajkund and Hyderabad’s Shilparamam, and abroad in Dhaka (2010) and Frankfurt (2015) with the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts [2].
His honours include the National Merit Award (2008) and the Ministry of Textiles’ Shilp Guru award (2019) [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2026: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 11 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2026 investiture ceremony brochure: citation for Chiranji Lal Yadav — Press Information Bureau, Government of India. Accessed 12 October 2026.
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