The Story
OrganizerFounded by Kamna Prasad, Jashn-e-Bahar grew from an annual Delhi mushaira into what its own organisers describe as the world's largest event of its kind, historically drawing around 5,000 attendees to New Delhi (commonly at the Delhi Public School, Mathura Road) and travelling to additional Indian cities in some years. Its 20th edition was held in April 2018 and its 21st in October 2019, themed around the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Distinguished Indian poets who have participated include Wasim Barelvi, Mansoor Usmani, Rajesh Reddy, Iqbal Ashhar, and Munawwar Rana (a longtime participant, remembered by Kamna Prasad after his 2024 death). International participants have included poets from the US, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The Jashn-e-Bahar Trust has also produced Urdu-focused documentary and broadcast projects for Doordarshan and the Ministry of External Affairs, including the series 'Kahkashan', 'Urdu Hai Jiska Naam', 'Sheharnama', and 'Dastan-e-Urdu'.
Jashn-e-Bahar is one of Delhi's two most established annual mushairas (alongside the Shankar-Shad mushaira), and one of the longest-running platforms bringing together India's leading Urdu poets with an international Urdu-speaking diaspora. Its consistent framing around India's 'Ganga-Jamuni' composite culture and its documentary/broadcast work for Doordarshan and the Ministry of External Affairs give it an institutional footprint beyond the annual event itself.
Visit Jashn-e-Bahar, among the world's largest annual mushairas, to experience the living tradition of Urdu poetry recited aloud before thousands in Delhi. Founded by Kamna Prasad, it gathers celebrated poets from India, Pakistan and the diaspora for an evening of ghazal and nazm, where the call-and-response of a great mushaira, its wah-wahs and repeated couplets, keeps a centuries-old shared literary culture vibrantly alive.
