Padma Shri (1972) Balwant Gargi (4 December 1916 – 21 April 2003)[1] was an Indian Punjabi language dramatist, theatre director, novelist, short story writer, and academic.

The second son in the family of Shiv Chand Garg, a head clerk in the Irrigation Department, he would go on create history in the world of Indian and Punjabi literature.

His plays were translated into 12 languages, and have been performed around the world, including Moscow, London, New Delhi and around the United States.

Gargi's first play, Loha kutt (English: Blacksmith) in 1944 became controversial for its stark picture of the Punjab countryside.

In Saunkan (English: Rival Women) in 1979, the paradigm of Yama-Yami, the Hindu god of death and his twin sister, becomes an occasion to glorify sexual union.

In the composition and performance of his dozen full-length plays and five collections of one-act drama, he traveled from the realistic to the mythopoeic mode.

A book, Folk Theatre of India, published in New York City and two semi-autobiographical novels in English and Punjabi, The Naked Triangle (Nangi Dhup) and The Purple Moonlight (Kashni Vehra) brought him to the forefront of cosmopolitan attention.