Manohar Shyam Joshi (9 August 1933 – 30 March 2006) was a Hindi writer, journalist and scriptwriter, most well known as the writer of Indian television's first soap opera, Hum Log (1984) and his early hits Buniyaad (1987), Kakaji Kahin, a political satire and Kasap, a novel which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award.