Harris Khalique is a Pakistani poet, columnist and public intellectual who has a keen interest in social democratic politics. He is based in Islamabad.

Harris Khalique's ancestors were Kauls from Kashmir who converted to Islam and moved from Srinagar to Lucknow where they established educational and cultural institutions, practiced Greek medicine, published newspapers and magazines in Urdu, and actively participated in the freedom movement of British India.

After initial education in Lucknow, Harris's father Khalique Ibrahim Khalique (1926-2006) was educated and trained in literature and filmmaking in Lahore and Bombay before moving to Karachi. Harris's mother Hamra Khalique (née Firdaus Hamra) spent most years of her childhood and youth in Faisalabad (then Lyallpur) before settling down in Karachi.

His father was the pioneering and awarded documentary filmmaker of Pakistan, a writer, poet and cultural historian of Marxist persuasions. He was an ardent supporter of the cause of mother tongues and promoted an egalitarian and just society through his work. Urdu was his first language but after settling down in Karachi, he always identified himself with the struggle for the rights of Sindh and Sindhis. Harris's mother is a teacher, short-story and drama writer and translates literature from English and Persian into Urdu. Harris was born to them in Karachi on 20 October 1966. He was raised in Karachi but travelled across Pakistan from a very young age and spent considerable time in Hyderabad (Sindh), Tando Mohammed Khan(Sindh) and Lahore, where a part of his mother's family lives.

He attended Cantonment Public School and D.J. Sindh Government Science College before graduating in Mechanical Engineering from NED University of Engineering and Technology. Later, he earned a master's degree in Development Management and Development Studies from London School of Economics and Political Science. He started his career as an engineer and worked for more than a year on instrumentation of power plants. Then switched to the fields of community development and human rights as a student and young professional. After working out of Karachi and London, he moved to Islamabad in 2001 where he now permanently lives.

From his high school days, he remained active in student politics. He was not allowed to travel abroad during the Zia-ul-Haq regime, his writings faced censor and the video of a song written by him was banned during the terms of both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s. He had also worked with Qaumi Inqilabi Party and Pakistan People's Party in the late 1980s. He remained associated with Progressive Writers Association in Pakistan and Transport and General Workers Union while in the UK. He played a key role in initiating Awami Party Pakistan in November 2008. The party is committed to bringing fundamental changes in the structure of the state and society with a particular focus on the rights of workers, peasants, women and religious minorities. He also works closely with minority rights organisations, labour unions and environmental movements.

Both professionally and voluntarily, he worked with civil society and human rights organizations including NGO Resource Centre, Amnesty International and Save the Children UK working across Asia and Europe.

He was the Chief Executive of SPO Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO), the largest rights-based civil society organization in Pakistan from, 2002 to 2010. SPO works in the areas of democratic governance, social justice and peace by supporting community institutions and public interest organizations across Pakistan. Now he sits voluntarily on governing bodies of various civil society organisations.

He is a critically acclaimed poet in Urdu and English with seven collections of poetry to his credit. He has also written a few poems in Punjabi.His poetry is anthologised by University of Georgia Press, W.W. Norton and Co. and Oxford University Press and on the web at lyrikline.org.[1] He also co-wrote a book of creative non-fiction with partitions of South Asia in 1947 and 1971 serving as the backdrop. Academically, his interests straddle issues of governance, new institutional economics, identity politics and language and culture on which he has published papers and articles internationally.

Besides contributing occasionally to other magazines, journals and newspapers, he writes a weekly column in The News International. He has spoken to university audiences and conferences in many countries across Asia, Europe and North America and is regularly invited by various media channels as an expert commentator on political and social issues of Pakistan.

Books

Poetry 

. Ishq Ki Taqveem Mein (Urdu, 2006) 
. Between You and Your Love (English, 2004)- 
. Purani Numaish (Urdu, 2001) 
. Divan (English, 1998) - 
. Saaray Kaam Zaroori Thay (Urdu, 1997) 
. If Wishes Were Horses (English, 1996) 
. Aaj Jab Hui Baarish (Urdu, 1991)

Prose 

. Pakistan Mein Siyasi Tqbdeeli Ki Samt (co-written, Urdu, 2007) 
. Pakistan: The Question of Identity (English, 2003) 
. Unfinished Histories (co-written, English, 2002)