Awadh · Upper Indus–Gangetic Plain

People

Name	Years	Field	Known for
Tulsidas	c. 1532–1623	Poet	Wrote the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi rather than Sanskrit, beginning at Ayodhya in 1574. It is the most recited literary work in northern India and the reason Awadhi has a canonical literature.
Malik Muhammad Jayasi	c. 1477–1542	Poet	A Sufi of Jais in Rae Bareli who wrote the Padmavat in Awadhi in the Persian masnavi form — a Muslim poet using a Hindu allegory in a vernacular Hindu literary language, and the earliest full statement of the region's synthesis.
Wajid Ali Shah	1822–1887	King, poet, composer, dancer	The last Nawab of Awadh; composed thumri as Akhtar Piya, wrote and performed the Rahas dance dramas, and after the 1856 annexation carried the court's cooks, musicians and dancers into exile at Metiabruz near Calcutta.
Begum Hazrat Mahal	c. 1820–1879	Ruler and rebel	Took charge of Lucknow's defence in 1857 in the name of her son after the king was deported, refused British terms, and died in exile in Kathmandu.
Mir Anis	1803–1874	Poet	Brought the Urdu marsiya to its full form in Lucknow, composing elegies of Karbala at a scale and control that made the genre a major literature rather than a devotional exercise.
Mirza Salaamat Ali Dabeer	1803–1875	Poet	Anis's contemporary and rival; the two are still discussed as a pair, and partisanship between them was a Lucknow pastime.
Begum Akhtar	1914–1974	Singer	Born in Faizabad; carried thumri, dadra and the Urdu ghazal from the salon tradition into recording and the concert stage, and largely defined how the ghazal is sung.
Birju Maharaj	1938–2022	Kathak	Inheritor of the Kalka–Bindadin lineage, and the performer through whom the Lucknow gharana's emphasis on abhinaya became the public face of Kathak.
Josh Malihabadi	1898–1982	Poet	The "poet of revolution", from the mango town of Malihabad; his memoir Yaadon ki Baraat is one of the frankest accounts of Awadhi society written from inside it.
Majrooh Sultanpuri	1919–2000	Poet and lyricist	From Sultanpur; wrote Urdu ghazal and then five decades of Hindi film lyric, and was jailed in 1949 over a poem.
Naushad Ali	1919–2006	Composer	Took Awadhi and Bhojpuri folk melody and Lucknow's classical training into Hindi film music, most visibly in Baiju Bawra and Mughal-e-Azam.
Ram Manohar Lohia	1910–1967	Politics	Born at Akbarpur in eastern Awadh; the socialist thinker whose argument about caste and language shaped north Indian politics for a generation.

People from Awadh who shaped its history, arts, science, sport and public life. (12)