Known as the most important voice for the women in Punjabi literature, in 1956, she became the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for her magnum opus, a long poem, "Sunehade" (Messages), later she received the Bharatiya Jnanpith, one of India's highest literary awards, in 1982 for "Kagaz Te Canvas" ("The Paper and the Canvas"). The Padma Shri came her way in 1969 and finally, Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2004, and in the same year she was honoured with India's highest literary award, given by the Sahitya Akademi (India's Academy of Letters), the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship given to "the "immortals of literature"" for lifetime achievement. she wrote her poems mostly for the partition