Dhaneswar Engti
A Karbi poet, songwriter and editor who founded the literary magazines Monjir and Samphri, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2022.
Dhaneswar Engti is a writer and songwriter from Karbi Anglong who has worked to build a modern literature in the Karbi language. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of literature and education, from Assam [1].
Editor and civil servant
Engti was born on 1 November 1955 at Bithilangso Palam Engti village in Karbi Anglong [2]. He graduated from Diphu Government College in 1978 and took an MA in English from Gauhati University in 1981 [2]. In 1976 he founded the Karbi literary magazine Monjir, and in 1984 another, Samphri [2]. Selected by the Assam Public Service Commission in 1986, he served the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council and retired as its joint secretary in 2017 [2].
Poems and songs
His poems, articles and stories have appeared in many newspapers, among them The Assam Tribune, The Sentinel and Amar Asom [2]. He has written 19 books in Karbi, Assamese and English [2]. Over the years he wrote and set to music many modern Karbi songs, bhajans and ghazals, some of them sung by Alka Yagnik [2].
He was a member of the central committee of the Asom Sahitya Sabha in 2009–11 [2]. The Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council gave him its Semsonsing Ingti Award in 2018, and the Assam government granted him a literary pension in 2019–20 [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2022: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2022: citation for Dhaneswar Engti — Padma Awards, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
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