Harbans Singh Dhiman, a Punjabi scholar, linguist and author, died at a hospital here on Tuesday night. He was 73.
His close friend and writer Darshan Singh Asht told The Tribune that Dhiman and his wife met with an accident near Samana last week. The car in which he and his wife were travelling overturned on the highway leaving them seriously injured.
The couple was rushed to a Patiala hospital where Dhiman succumbed to the injuries a week after the accident. His wife is stable and still under treatment at the hospital.
Born on January 13, 1953, six years after Partition, Dhiman spent his life building literary and linguistic bridges across borders.
His demise has triggered a wave of grief among authors, language activists and academics associated with Punjabi University and regional literary circles.
Based out of the Patiala and Rajpura academic hubs, Dhiman was widely respected for his authoritative research into Punjabi phonology, morphology, and script history.
His seminal textbooks, including Punjabi Bhasha ate Vyakaran (Punjabi Language and Grammar) and Viharak Punjabi Bhasha ate Gurmukhi Lipi, are staples of higher education and are part of the curriculum at leading institutions like Delhi University.
Darshan Singh Asht remembers him as a meticulous grammarian who dedicated his career to refining and standardising contemporary Gurmukhi instruction.
Beyond his work as an educator, Dhiman played a pivotal role in promoting literary exchange between East and West Punjab. He specialised in transliterating contemporary Pakistani Punjabi literature from the Shahmukhi script into Gurmukhi, allowing Indian readers access to shared regional narratives.
His notable projects include the critical evaluation text Pakistani Punjabi Sahit: Nikas te Vikas and the Gurmukhi script conversion of Fauzia Rafique’s acclaimed novel Skeena, published via Patiala’s Sangam Publications. He also edited Panj Pakistani Punjabi Novelet, a highly regarded compilation of West Punjabi fiction.
Expressing condolences, the local writers termed his passing an “irreparable loss to Punjabi language planning”.
