Celebrated Urdu poet and Padma Shri awardee Bashir Badr passed away at his Bhopal residence after a prolonged illness.
May 28, 2026: Bashir Badr, the celebrated Urdu poet and Padma Shri awardee, passed away at the age of 91 at his residence, Bashir Manzil, in Bhopal after a prolonged illness, his family confirmed. His wife, Rahat Badr, shared the news through a social media post, saying, “Bashir Sahib left us… Prayers.” He is survived by his wife and two children.
According to family members, Bashir Badr breathed his last in the same room where he once hosted poetic gatherings and literary discussions. In recent years, he had withdrawn from mushairas due to dementia but continued to meet admirers who visited him. Born in Ayodhya on February 15, 1935, he later studied at Aligarh Muslim University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and doctorate in Urdu literature.
Bashir Badr was regarded as one of the most influential voices in modern Urdu poetry and the Nayi Ghazal movement. He taught Urdu at AMU before serving as head of the Urdu department at Meerut College for nearly 17 years. Over his literary career, he wrote thousands of poems and published several acclaimed ghazal collections. He was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1989. Poet Anjum Barabankvi described him as a “trendsetter who gave ghazal a new idiom and stature.”