Confer the Padma Bhushan on Narendra Singh Negi: The Voice of Uttarakhand
The Issue
Confer the Padma Bhushan on Shri Narendra Singh Negi: The Voice of Uttarakhand's Folk Tradition
Addressed to: The Hon'ble President of India, the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (Padma Awards Committee)
Ask any Uttarakhandi, no matter where life has taken them, from a village in Chamoli to a rented flat in Gurugram, from a construction site in the Gulf to a home in London, and they will tell you the same thing. When the first notes of a Negi song play, something inside them returns home. His voice has ridden the buses down winding ghat roads with departing migrants, sat beside the chulha with grandmothers, echoed through valleys at weddings and community gatherings, and reached soldiers stationed far from their villages. For an entire generation of hill people, he has been the sound of memory itself, the reason a child born far from the mountains still knows and loves her mother tongue. When we ask for this honour, we are not asking only for him. We are asking on behalf of every hill home where his songs have carried love, longing and identity across half a century.
That voice belongs to Shri Narendra Singh Negi, folk singer, poet and composer, widely regarded as the most influential living cultural figure the state of Uttarakhand has produced. And yet, in nearly five decades of unbroken service to Indian folk music, the Government of India has never conferred any Padma award upon him.
We, the undersigned, respectfully urge the Government of India to correct this long-standing oversight and confer the Padma Bhushan upon Shri Narendra Singh Negi. At the very minimum, we appeal that he be conferred the Padma Shri without further delay, a recognition already granted to a fellow Uttarakhandi folk singer of a younger generation, Shri Pritam Bhartwan, in 2019.
Who is Narendra Singh Negi?
Born on 12 August 1949 in Pauri Garhwal, Shri Negi began his musical journey with All India Radio (Akashvani) in 1976 as a casual artist. In a career spanning nearly fifty years, he has sung more than 1,000 songs across Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari, three of Uttarakhand's principal regional languages. He has recorded over three dozen musical albums and has written and sung for fifteen Garhwali films.
In April 2022, he was formally conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in Delhi, becoming the first-ever folk singer from Uttarakhand to receive this national recognition for the performing arts. He is also a recipient of the Uttarakhand Gaurav Samman, along with numerous institutional honours conferred by cultural bodies and Garhwali associations across India.
Why his contribution stands out
Shri Negi is not only a singer. He is a cultural chronicler of a state and its people.
His songs on migration, environmental change and the disappearing hill way of life have shaped how Uttarakhandis, from villages in Chamoli to diaspora homes overseas, understand their own identity and history. Songs like Kafal Pakka, Malu Pakka, Ghasyeri ka Saud, Heera Samdhini, Ta Chuma and Meri Tamanna are sung across three generations. His work reached even wider audiences in 2018 when playback singer Jubin Nautiyal, alongside Tulsi Kumar, recorded a version of Ta Chuma.
He has also used his voice to speak truth to power, without regard to who holds office. His satirical composition Nauchami Narayana drew sharp criticism from the establishment in 2005 for its pointed lyrics on the state government of the day in Uttarakhand, and in 2011, he composed similarly unsparing material on the next state government, led by a rival political formation. Few artists in any Indian language have maintained such a consistent, non-partisan public conscience through their music.
Above all, he has kept Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari alive as living, thriving performance languages at a time when many smaller Indian languages face decline.
The precedent is clear
India has rightly honoured its regional folk icons with Padma awards. Shri Bhupen Hazarika of Assam was conferred the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan, the Padma Vibhushan and, posthumously, the Bharat Ratna. Smt. Teejan Bai of Chhattisgarh received the Padma Vibhushan in 2019 for her contribution to Pandavani folk performance. Shri Pritam Bhartwan of Uttarakhand himself received the Padma Shri in 2019 for Garhwali folk vocals.
Each of these decisions was correct. Each of these artists deserved the honour. The question we respectfully raise is a simple one. If these recognitions are just, how can the most senior and most widely acknowledged folk voice of Uttarakhand, a man now 76 years of age with a fifty-year body of work, remain without a single Padma award?
Our appeal
We, the undersigned, respectfully appeal to the Government of India to:
- Confer the Padma Bhushan upon Shri Narendra Singh Negi in the forthcoming Republic Day honours, in recognition of his lifetime of service to Indian folk culture and to Uttarakhand's regional languages.
In the alternative, we appeal that he be conferred, at the very minimum, the Padma Shri, without further delay. - This is not a request for charity. It is a request for a long-overdue correction. Shri Narendra Singh Negi has spent fifty years giving voice to a state, a people, a language and a way of life. We now ask the Republic of India to formally acknowledge what every household in Uttarakhand has known for half a century.
Please sign this petition and share it widely. Let the voice of the mountains reach the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
154
The Issue
Confer the Padma Bhushan on Shri Narendra Singh Negi: The Voice of Uttarakhand's Folk Tradition
Addressed to: The Hon'ble President of India, the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (Padma Awards Committee)
Ask any Uttarakhandi, no matter where life has taken them, from a village in Chamoli to a rented flat in Gurugram, from a construction site in the Gulf to a home in London, and they will tell you the same thing. When the first notes of a Negi song play, something inside them returns home. His voice has ridden the buses down winding ghat roads with departing migrants, sat beside the chulha with grandmothers, echoed through valleys at weddings and community gatherings, and reached soldiers stationed far from their villages. For an entire generation of hill people, he has been the sound of memory itself, the reason a child born far from the mountains still knows and loves her mother tongue. When we ask for this honour, we are not asking only for him. We are asking on behalf of every hill home where his songs have carried love, longing and identity across half a century.
That voice belongs to Shri Narendra Singh Negi, folk singer, poet and composer, widely regarded as the most influential living cultural figure the state of Uttarakhand has produced. And yet, in nearly five decades of unbroken service to Indian folk music, the Government of India has never conferred any Padma award upon him.
We, the undersigned, respectfully urge the Government of India to correct this long-standing oversight and confer the Padma Bhushan upon Shri Narendra Singh Negi. At the very minimum, we appeal that he be conferred the Padma Shri without further delay, a recognition already granted to a fellow Uttarakhandi folk singer of a younger generation, Shri Pritam Bhartwan, in 2019.
Who is Narendra Singh Negi?
Born on 12 August 1949 in Pauri Garhwal, Shri Negi began his musical journey with All India Radio (Akashvani) in 1976 as a casual artist. In a career spanning nearly fifty years, he has sung more than 1,000 songs across Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari, three of Uttarakhand's principal regional languages. He has recorded over three dozen musical albums and has written and sung for fifteen Garhwali films.
In April 2022, he was formally conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in Delhi, becoming the first-ever folk singer from Uttarakhand to receive this national recognition for the performing arts. He is also a recipient of the Uttarakhand Gaurav Samman, along with numerous institutional honours conferred by cultural bodies and Garhwali associations across India.
Why his contribution stands out
Shri Negi is not only a singer. He is a cultural chronicler of a state and its people.
His songs on migration, environmental change and the disappearing hill way of life have shaped how Uttarakhandis, from villages in Chamoli to diaspora homes overseas, understand their own identity and history. Songs like Kafal Pakka, Malu Pakka, Ghasyeri ka Saud, Heera Samdhini, Ta Chuma and Meri Tamanna are sung across three generations. His work reached even wider audiences in 2018 when playback singer Jubin Nautiyal, alongside Tulsi Kumar, recorded a version of Ta Chuma.
He has also used his voice to speak truth to power, without regard to who holds office. His satirical composition Nauchami Narayana drew sharp criticism from the establishment in 2005 for its pointed lyrics on the state government of the day in Uttarakhand, and in 2011, he composed similarly unsparing material on the next state government, led by a rival political formation. Few artists in any Indian language have maintained such a consistent, non-partisan public conscience through their music.
Above all, he has kept Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari alive as living, thriving performance languages at a time when many smaller Indian languages face decline.
The precedent is clear
India has rightly honoured its regional folk icons with Padma awards. Shri Bhupen Hazarika of Assam was conferred the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan, the Padma Vibhushan and, posthumously, the Bharat Ratna. Smt. Teejan Bai of Chhattisgarh received the Padma Vibhushan in 2019 for her contribution to Pandavani folk performance. Shri Pritam Bhartwan of Uttarakhand himself received the Padma Shri in 2019 for Garhwali folk vocals.
Each of these decisions was correct. Each of these artists deserved the honour. The question we respectfully raise is a simple one. If these recognitions are just, how can the most senior and most widely acknowledged folk voice of Uttarakhand, a man now 76 years of age with a fifty-year body of work, remain without a single Padma award?
Our appeal
We, the undersigned, respectfully appeal to the Government of India to:
- Confer the Padma Bhushan upon Shri Narendra Singh Negi in the forthcoming Republic Day honours, in recognition of his lifetime of service to Indian folk culture and to Uttarakhand's regional languages.
In the alternative, we appeal that he be conferred, at the very minimum, the Padma Shri, without further delay. - This is not a request for charity. It is a request for a long-overdue correction. Shri Narendra Singh Negi has spent fifty years giving voice to a state, a people, a language and a way of life. We now ask the Republic of India to formally acknowledge what every household in Uttarakhand has known for half a century.
Please sign this petition and share it widely. Let the voice of the mountains reach the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Petition Updates
Share this petition
Petition created on 17 July 2026