We have assembled here to confer the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award upon one of the most renowned and beloved personalities of our time, Ustad Bismillah Khan. I have great pleasure to welcome to our midst this Kind of Shahnai as he has been called, this musical messenger of peace and goodwill. May I also extend a hearty welcome to the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narasimha Rao, Smt. Sonia Gandhi and other distinguished members of the Advisory Committee of the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award, and to the eminent ladies and gentlemen assembled here this evening.

On this occasion we recall the radiant personality of Raji Gandhi who during his short but shining public life sought to spread the spirit of Sadbhavana among the people of this vast and great country who fought against the forces of hatred, violece and terrorism, and who worked hard to foster communal and social harmony and the unity and integrity of the nation.

Rajiv Gandhi understood that culture and the arts were the basis of the unity of the Indian civilization and also of the modern multi-religious, multi-lingual Indian State. He once said: “The performing arts are the most viable, most participative form of arts, snce on all occasions of joy, whether it is at birth, a wedding or a festival, we burst into dance and music. The performing arts link a powerful moder nation-building medium with all that is rooted in our cultural heritage, bringing the old together with the new and binding our country together,” He also wanted to substitute the old patronage of the Maharajas for the arts, which has now passed into history, with the patronage of the people for arts. His was one of the most significant efforts to bring to the surface the underlying age-old cultural unity of India, and to spread among the diverse sections of our people the spirit of harmony, fellowship and amity by taking culture and arts to the people. 

Ustad Bismillah Khan is one of the great artistes who has used music in this way. He elevated the humble Shahnai into an instrument of classical concert halls. It is symbolic of theuplifting of the common man to a higher cultural level. It has been said that music finds its way where the rays of the sun cannot penetrate. Khan Sahib’s music has found its way penetrating barriers of religions, caste and class into the hearts of millions of our people uniting them in shared ecstasy. “The though of the eternal efflorescence of music is a acomforting one”’ said Romain Rolland, “ and comes like a messenger of peace in the midst of universal disturbance.” It is in this way that Khan Sahib’s music has soothed people in India and abroad in the midst of “the universal disturbace” that troubles their hearts and minds today. If any artiste has spread Sadbhavana in the minds of people, it is Ustad Bismillah Khan.

In our complex society and composite culture, Bismillah Khan’s music has a special significance. It is the music of secularism. The quality of this music is not strained. It has the quality of a flower that blooms among the leaves of a tree. The manner in which Khan Sahib has been performing his nammaz in the masjid and then playing Shahnai in the mandir, is symbolic of the beautiful and essential unity which is at the core of Indian life and culture. He has never accepted that there is any contradiction between music and his religious faith, rather he sees perfect unity, a divine connection between the two.

It has been told that once when he was in Iraq he had an argument with some Maulvis who belived that music was entithetical to their religion. The Ustad did not continue the argument. With closed eyes he played Allah-ho-Akbar in Rag Bhairavi. He then asked if this prayer to God in song was against religion. The Maulvis remained speechless. On another occasion, almost in language that is unconsciously Shakespearean, he said: “If music is a thing of sin, sin on” “If music is haraam, our harram karo, aur haraam karo.” Of Bismillah Khan and his Shahnai one may say as Rabindranath Tagore said in “Geetanjali”: “This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breather through it melodies eternally new”

It is such a musical genius, a man of universal goodwill and a divinely inspired humanist, that we hare honouring today by the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award. On behald of you all, I have great pleasure to welcome to our midst Ustad Bismillah Khan.

Thank you