Bharatendu Harishchandra (भारतेन्दु हरिश्चन्द्र) is known as the father of modern Hindi literature as well as Hindi theatre. He is considered one of the greatest Hindi writers of modern India. A recognized poet, he was also a trend setter in Hindi prose-writing. As an author of several dramas, life sketches and travel accounts, Bharatendu Harishchandra represents the agonies of the people, country's poverty, dependency, inhuman exploitation, the unrest of the middle class and the urge for the progress of the country. He wrote under the pen name "Rasa".
Biography

Born in Banaras, Bharatendu Harishchandra's father Gopal Chandra was a poet. He wrote poems under the pseudonym Girdhar Das. Bharatendu's parents died when he was still young but they seem to have had an influence on him. Acharya Ramchandra Shukla has described how Bharatendu went to the Jagannath temple in Puri, Orissa with his family in 1865, when he was merely fifteen years of age. It was during this trip that he was influenced by the Bengal Renaissance and decided to bring the genres of social, historical, and Puranic plays and novels into Hindi. This influence reflected in his Hindi translation of the Bengali drama Vidyasundar, just three years later, in 1868.

Bharatendu devoted his life to the development of Hindi literature. In recognition of his services as a writer, patron and modernizer, the title of "Bharatendu" was conferred on him at a public meeting by scholars of Kashi in 1880. Reputed literary critic Ramvilas Sharma refers to the "great literary awakening ushered in under Bharatendu's leadership" as the "second storey of the edifice of renascent Hindi," the first being the Indian Rebellion of 1857.