East Punjab (known simply as Punjab from 1950) was a state of India from 1947 until 1956, consisting of the parts of the Punjab Province of British India that went to India following the partition of the province between India and Pakistan by the Radcliffe Commission in 1947. The mostly Muslim western parts of the old Punjab became Pakistan's West Punjab, later renamed as Punjab Province, while the mostly Sikh and Hindu eastern parts went to India.

The princely states of the Punjab region (which had not been British possessions, so could not be partitioned by the British) all acceded to the new Dominion of India and were combined into the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU).

The Constitution of India, which came into effect in 1950, renamed East Punjab as "Punjab".

In 1956, the PEPSU was merged into an expanded Punjab state. Later, with effect from 1 November 1966, there was yet another reorganization, this time on linguistic lines, when the state of Punjab as constituted in 1956 was divided into three: the mostly Hindi-speaking part became the present-day Indian state of Haryana and the mostly Punjabi-speaking part became the present-day Punjab, while a new union territory (Chandigarh) was also created, to serve as a capital to both states. At the same time, some parts of the former territory of Patiala and East Punjab States Union, including Solan and Nalagarh, were transferred into the state of Himachal Pradesh.

Rajmohan Gandhi (born 1935, New Delhi, India) is a biographer and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and a research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Gandhi's maternal grandfather was C. Rajagopalachari, free India's first Head of State, the first Indian Governor General of independent India and one of the foremost fighters for Indian independence. His father was Devdas Gandhi, who was the Managing Editor of the Daily Hindustan Times. He attended St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, India. Associated from 1956 with Initiatives of Change (formerly known as Moral Re-Armament), Rajmohan Gandhi has been engaged for half a century in efforts for trust-building, reconciliation and democracy and in battles against corruption and inequalities. These efforts, made in India and across the world, have involved writing, speaking, public interventions, and organizing dialogues.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, he played a leading role in establishing Asia Plateau, the 80-acre (320,000 m²) conference centre of Initiatives of Change in the mountains of western India. Asia Plateau has been recognized in the Indian subcontinent for its ecological contribution. During the 1975-77 Emergency in India, he was active for democratic rights personally and through his weekly journal Himmat, published in Bombay from 1964 to 1981. He contested the Lok Sabha elections in 1989 but was defeated. He served (1990-92) in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian Parliament) and led the Indian delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva in 1990. In the Indian Parliament he was the convener of the all-party joint committee of both houses addressing the condition of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Kuldeep Manak (Punjabi: ਕੁਲਦੀਪ ਮਾਣਕ‌) was a noted Punjabi singer from Indian Punjab. He was best known for singing a rare genre of Punjabi music, Kali, known by its plural from kalian or kaliyan.

Manak was born as Latif Muhammad (Urdu: لطیف محمد) on 15 November 1951, to father Nikka Khan, in the village of Jalal in Bathinda district of East Punjab. He completed his matriculation from the village school, where he was a keen field hockey player. He had an inclination towards singing from a very young age and was persuaded by his teachers to sing and perform on stage.

Manak's father, Nikka Khan, was a singer himself. Manak had two brothers: Siddqui, a devotional singer, and Rafiq, a tantric, who was also briefly noted. Kuldeep Manak's ancestors were the Hazoori Raagis (designated cantors) of Kirtan for Maharaja Hira Singh of Nabha.

He was married to Sarabjeet and had two children, a son named Yudhvir Manak and a daughter named Shakti. They both are married. Yudhvir is following in his father's footsteps as a singer.

Surinder Kaur (November 25, 1929 – June 15, 2006), was an Indian singer and songwriter. She sang mainly Punjabi folk-songs, where she is credited for pioneering and popularising the genre and later was known as the ‘Nightingale of Punjab’; she also sang some Hindi movie songs, between 1948-1952.

In an illustrious spanning nearly six decades, her repertoire included Punjabi Sufi Kafis of Bulleh Shah and verses by contemporary poets like Nand Lal Noorpuri, Amrita Pritam, Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batalvi giving memorable songs like, Maavan te dheeyan, Jutti Kasuri, Paireen na poori, Madhaniyan, Kiven akhiyan che pavan kajra, and Ghaman di raat lammi hai jan mere geet. In time her wedding songs, most notably Lathe di chadar, Suhe ve cheere valeya and Kaala Doriya, became an indelible part of Punjabi culture.

She was born in a Punjabi khatri Sikh family. She was sister of Prakash Kaur famous singer. She is the mother of Dolly Guleria. She had three daughters and dolly is eldest of them.

Kaur made her professional debut with a live performance on Lahore Radio in August 1943, and the following year on August 31, 1943, she and her elder sister, Parkash Kaur cut their first duet, Maavan Te Dheeyan Ral Baithiyaan for the HMV label, emerging as superstars across the Indian subcontinent.

Shiv Kumar 'Batalvi' (Punjabi: ਸ਼ਿਵ ਕੁਮਾਰ ਬਟਾਲਵੀ) (1936–1973) was a noted Punjabi language poet, who was most known for his romantic poetry, noted for its heightened passion, pathos, separation and lover's agony

He became the youngest recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1967, given by Sahitya Akademi (India's National Academy of Letters), for his epic verse play based on the ancient legend of Puran Bhagat, Loona (1965), now considered a masterpiece in modern Punjabi literature, and which also created a new genre, of modern Punjabi kissa. Today, his poetry stands in equal footing, amongst that by stalwarts of modern Punjabi poetry, like Mohan Singh and Amrita Pritam, all of whom are popular on both sides of India-Pakistan border.

Shiv Kumar was born in a Saraswat Brahmin family on 23 July 1936 (though a few documents related to him state October 7th, 1937 as his DOB), in village Bara Pind Lohtian, Shakargarh Tehsil, Sialkot District (now in Punjab province, Pakistan), to Pandit Krishan Gopal, village tehsildar in the revenue department, and Shanti Devi, a housewife.