Three from Bihar among Padma Shri awardees

Three notable figures from Bihar—Bishwa Bandhu, Bharat Singh Bharti, and Gopal Ji Trivedi—are among the 113 Padma Shri awardees for 2026.

Three eminent personalities from Bihar — folk dancer Bishwa Bandhu and folk singer Bharat Singh Bharti in the field of arts, and innovator Gopal Ji Trivedi in science and engineering — are among the 113 Padma Shri awardees announced this year, according to the list released by the Union ministry of home affairs on the eve of Republic Day on Sunday.

Three from Bihar among Padma Shri awardees

For 2026, the President has approved 131 Padma awards, comprising five Padma Vibhushan, 13 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri honours. The awards will be conferred by the President at ceremonial functions at Rashtrapati Bhavan, usually held in March or April.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar welcomed the announcement, saying it was a matter of pride and happiness that individuals who made outstanding contributions in their respective fields were being recognised at the national level.

Among the awardees, Bishwa Bandhu has been honoured posthumously. He passed away on March 30 last year at the age of 95. His wife, Indu Kumari, said the family felt proud of the recognition, even though it came after his death.

Born on November 23, 1930, at Shahpur near Danapur in Patna, Bandhu was a pioneering figure in Bihar’s folk arts. Widely credited with taking the traditional Domkach dance from village courtyards to national and international stages, he played a key role in transforming the wedding ritual of the Magadh and Mithila regions into a recognised symbol of Bihar’s cultural identity. By refining its presentation while retaining its folk essence, he helped Domkach gain wider acceptance as a classical folk expression. A former schoolteacher, Bandhu left his job in 1958 to pursue dance full time and later founded the Surangan academy in Patna, where he trained students free of cost.

“He would have been very satisfied had he got the award when he was alive,” said Indu Kumari, his octogenarian wife, while talking to this reporter over phone from her residence at Mukherjee Nagar near the Delhi University north campus on Sunday evening.

Though his parents – Vishwanath Prasad a lawyer and Sushila Devi, a homemaker – never wanted their son Bandhu to take to dance, he was deeply interested in it from birth.

“Unnke mata-pita ya gaaon mai koi nahi chahta tha wo nritya kare. Wo chori chhupe dance karte the. Ghar se ladai jhagda kar ke apne guru ji Uday Shankar ji se seekhne Calcutta gaye the (Neither his parents nor anyone in his village wanted him to dance. He would dance secretly. He fought with his family and went to Kolkata to learn dance from his guru Uday Shankar),” said Kumari.

Bandhu did his schooling from a government school in Shahpur before graduating from the BN College in Patna. He was a history, Hindi and English teacher at Patna’s TK Ghosh Academy but he quit in 1958 to take up full-time dancing.

Veteran folk singer Bharat Singh Bharti, born in 1936 in Bhojpur district, has been honoured for his lifelong contribution to Bhojpuri folk music. Trained under noted guru Satrunjay Prasad, Bharti composed and performed more than 1,000 folk songs spanning devotional, seasonal and ceremonial traditions. His work, rooted in the social life and cultural ethos of rural Bihar, has earned him national recognition, including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Amrit Award and the Bhikhari Thakur Smriti Samman.

Gopal Ji Trivedi, popularly known as Gopal Ji, represents Bihar in the field of science and engineering. Hailing from Bhagalpur district, he gained national attention for developing bio-cells capable of generating electricity from banana stems and waste paper, showcasing low-cost and sustainable energy solutions. His innovations have earned him multiple patents, the INSPIRE Award of the Government of India, and association with the National Innovation Foundation under the Department of Science and Technology. His work has been showcased at several national and international platforms.