Bhai Balbir Singh Jiਭਾਈ ਬਲਬੀਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ

A Hazoori Ragi is a musician appointed to sing Gurbani inside Sri Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple at Amritsar, in the raag prescribed for each part of the day. Bhai Balbir Singh Ji held that honour for 36 years, and he is remembered as one of the last masters of the shrine's own kirtan parampara, the traditional raag based style of singing handed down at Darbar Sahib for centuries. He carried nearly 3,000 shabads in his memory and could sing in more than 200 raags.

A seventh-generation kirtan family

Bhai Balbir Singh Ji was born on 23 March 1933 in Mrigindpura, his maternal village near Bhikhiwind in the Tarn Taran area of Punjab. He was the eldest of four brothers, born to Bhai Santa Singh and Mata Prasan Kaur. Few Sikh musicians could claim a longer inheritance: his family had sung Gurmat Sangeet, the sacred music of the Gurus, for seven generations, in a line his family traces back to the time of Guru Arjan Dev Ji.

Family tradition holds that his ancestor Sri Ram Ji was among the Sikhs who first performed kirtan at Sri Harmandir Sahib when the Rababi musicians did not appear. The line continued through Sri Hari Ji and Bhai Hira Singh, who took Amrit from Guru Gobind Singh Ji, then Bhai Inder Singh and Bhai Kundan Singh, down to Balbir Singh's father, Bhai Santa Singh, the sixth generation. Bhai Santa Singh was a celebrated tabla and pakhawaj player who taught at the Gurmat Vidyalaya in Tarn Taran. His elder brother, Bhai Sohan Singh, was the main ragi of the family jatha, his younger brother Bhai Tara Singh played the harmonium, and the three brothers sang together at Darbar Sahib, Tarn Taran, and taught students who came from far and wide.

Training under the great masters

Balbir Singh began learning to sing at the age of four. As a small boy he would sit quietly beside his father during lessons, and when he was finally invited to begin, he surprised his father by reciting a complete shabad he had already absorbed by ear. His formal training came from his father, his grandfather Bhai Kundan Singh and his great-grandfather Bhai Hira Singh, and from his uncle Bhai Sohan Singh, himself a ragi of the Golden Temple.

His teachers reached well beyond the family. He learned dhrupad, the oldest style of Hindustani singing, from Pandit Nathu Ram, khayal from Pandit Krishnarao Pandit, tabla from Ustad Habibuddin Khan and jal-tarang from Gyani Gyan Singh Almast, and his father taught him the dilruba. As a young man he spent about two years in Kolkata learning from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, the greatest Hindustani vocalist of the age, and he also counted Ustad Salamat Ali Khan and Pandit Dilip Chandra Vedi among his mentors.

The promise showed early. At seven he made his public debut at Darbar Sahib, Tarn Taran, singing two compositions, and at the same age he travelled to Indore and won a gold medal at a kirtan competition meant for teenagers. He accompanied his father to music conferences in Benaras, Lucknow, Gwalior, Pune, Calcutta and Delhi, listening to the finest classical musicians in India. The discipline of those years stayed with him: by his own account it took him eleven years to commit the whole of Asa Ki Vaar to memory, exactly as it should be sung.

Hazoori Ragi at Sri Harmandir Sahib

At 21, Balbir Singh formed a permanent jatha with his brothers, Bhai Chattar Singh on the side harmonium and Bhai Mahinder Singh on the jori. The brothers began as Hazoori Ragis at Darbar Sahib, Tarn Taran, and were then invited to Sri Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, where their command of raag and difficult compositions won them the sangat's deep affection. Sikh reference works sum up his Amritsar service as 36 years of kirtan at Darbar Sahib, from 1955 to 1991.

The jatha's service was not confined to one shrine. In 1977 the sangat of Delhi asked for them, and the brothers sang at Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib until 1984, when the violence of that year brought them back to Amritsar and to Sri Harmandir Sahib. He also sang as a ragi at Takht Sri Patna Sahib. Within the Golden Temple he was known for singing every shabad in its prescribed raag: he could perform all 31 raags found in the Guru Granth Sahib, along with partaal singing and the complex taals of Dhamar and Ada Chautaal, and he loved the taranas attributed to Guru Gobind Singh Ji.

Recordings, students and the Guldasta

His first vinyl record appeared in 1974, and after his retirement from Darbar Sahib he continued to sing across India and abroad. He recorded nearly 30 albums in all. Two releases preserve the heart of his art: Sikh Virasat, a two disc set of 50 recordings of shabad and raag kirtan running to four hours, and the Guldasta, a multi volume set of shabads sung in all the raags of the Guru Granth Sahib.

He also taught. Many students learned Gurmat Sangeet from him, among them his own sons, Bhai Bahadar Singh and Bhai Saudagar Singh, so that the family line of kirtan which reached him through seven generations passed on through his teaching as well.

Honours

Honours followed the service. In 1983 he received the Shiromani Ragi Award, and over the years he was honoured by the Kendriya Singh Sabha, the Chief Khalsa Diwan, the SGPC and Guru Nanak Dev University, among many others; he received the Bhai Mardana Yadgari Award in 1995 and an honour from the President of India, K. R. Narayanan, in 1996. The crowning recognition came with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2012, the national academy's honour for Gurbani kirtan, presented to him at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi in May 2013. He was the first Hazoori Ragi from the Harmandir Sahib tradition ever to receive it.

A difficult episode, and his final years

In 2015, when he was 82, a video circulated showing him at the Noormehal dera, bowing before its head, Ashutosh, and reciting Gurbani in his praise. The Akal Takht responded by barring him from performing Gurbani kirtan and announcing a punishment. Bhai Balbir Singh Ji apologised publicly, saying that he had not known where he was being taken that day and that the video had been posted to conspire against him. The episode was a sorrowful close to a public career of six decades, and it is recorded here as it was reported at the time.

Bhai Balbir Singh Ji died on 23 February 2020, after a long illness, a month short of his 87th birthday. The Shiromani Ragi Sabha mourned his passing, and his cremation took place near Shaheed Ganj Baba Deep Singh in Amritsar. His recordings remain the surest way to hear how kirtan sounded in the Golden Temple tradition he inherited: unhurried, raag bound, and carried by a memory that held nearly 3,000 shabads.

How long did Bhai Balbir Singh Ji sing at the Golden Temple?

For 36 years, from 1955 to 1991, as a Hazoori Ragi of Sri Harmandir Sahib, with a period of service at Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib in Delhi within those years. Before Amritsar, he sang with his brothers' jatha at Darbar Sahib, Tarn Taran.

Why is Bhai Balbir Singh Ji called a master of the kirtan parampara?

Because his singing joined three things that rarely meet in one musician: a family tradition of Gurmat Sangeet reaching back seven generations, a classical training under some of the greatest Hindustani masters of his century, and a memory that held nearly 3,000 shabads and more than 200 raags, including all 31 raags of the Guru Granth Sahib. It is why profiles of him describe him as one of the last links to the original kirtan parampara of the Golden Temple.