Sunil Dutt

Biography

Sunil Dutt (born Balraj Dutt; 6 June 1929 — 25 May 2005) was an Indian actor, film producer, director, and politician.

Dutt debuted with the 1955 Hindi film Railway Platform. He acted in a number of successful films including Ek Hi Raasta (1956), Mother India (1957), Sadhna (1958), Insan Jaag Utha (1959), Sujata (1959), Mujhe Jeene Do (1963), Gumraah (1963), Waqt (1965), Khandan (1965), Mera Saaya (1966), Milan (1967), Mehrban (1967), Hamraaz (1967), Padosan (1968), Heera (1973), Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye (1974), Nagin (1976), Jaani Dushman (1979), Muqabla (1979) and Shaan (1980).

In 1968, he was honored with the Padma Shri by the Government of India. He is the father of actor Sanjay Dutt.

In 1984 he joined the Indian National Congress party and was elected to the Parliament of India for five terms from the constituency of Mumbai North West.[6] He was the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports in the Manmohan Singh government (2004–2005) and also a former Sheriff of Mumbai.

Early life

Sunil Dutt was born on 6 June 1929 in Nakka Khurd, Jhelum District, Punjab Province, British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan) into a Hussaini Brahmin family as Balraj Dutt to father Diwan Raghunath Dutt and mother Kulwantidevi Dutt. When he was five years old, Dutt's father died. When he was 18, the Partition of India began inciting Hindu-Muslim violence across the country. A Muslim friend of Dutt's father named Yakub, saved their entire family. The family resettled in the small village of Mandauli on the bank of the river Yamuna located in Yamunanagar District, East Punjab, which is now a district in Haryana. Later he moved to Lucknow, United Provinces with his mother, Kulwantidevi Dutt, and spent a long time in the Aminabad Bazaar neighborhood during graduation. He then moved to Bombay, Bombay State, where he joined Jai Hind College, University of Bombay in Churchgate, South Bombay as an undergraduate and took up a job at the city's BEST Transportation Engineering division. He graduated with B.A. (Hons.) in History in 1954.

Early career

Starting out in radio, with his command over the Urdu language, Sunil Dutt was hugely popular on the Hindi service of Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia. He moved to act in Hindi films and got introduced to the industry in 1955's Railway Platform.Political career[edit]

In 1987 when Punjab was facing heightened militancy, Dutt, accompanied by his daughter Priya undertook a 2,000 km 76-day long Mahashanti Padyatra (journey by foot) from Bombay to Amritsar (Golden Temple) to establish communal harmony and brotherhood. During the padayatra, he attended more than 500 roadside meetings and suffered a bout of jaundice.

His political career was halted for some years in the early 1990s when he worked to free his son from jail after he was arrested for keeping an AK-56 that he claimed was for the protection of his family after bomb blasts in Bombay.

Death

Dutt died of a heart attack on 25 May 2005 at his residence in Bandra, West Mumbai, two weeks before his 76th birthday, At the time of his death, he was the Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports in the Union Government led by Manmohan Singh and was the Member of Parliament from North-West Mumbai. He was cremated with full state honors at Santacruz Crematorium in Mumbai. He was succeeded as Minister by Mani Shankar Aiyar. His seat in the Parliament was contested by his daughter, Priya Dutt, who won it and was a Member of Parliament until May 2014.