People buy Tricolours in Bistupur on Republic Day-eve. (Bhola Prasad); (below) a file picture of Ram Dayal Munda

Ranchi, Jan. 25: Scholar and regional music exponent Ram Dayal Munda will receive the Padma Shri this year for his contribution to the field of art.

Munda, among 81 to be bestowed the honour this year, is the only winner from the state. He will receive the award from President Pratibha Patil at a function to be held in Rashtrapati Bhavan sometime in March or April.

“The Padma Shri is recognition for Jharkhand’s art, culture, dance and music. The culture of the state has evolved over the last several centuries amid the happy coexistence of tribals and sadans,” said Munda, while speaking to The Telegraph.

Munda, considered a driving force behind the movement for a separate Jharkhand state, recently lost the Assembly polls from Tamar, which he contested on a Congress ticket.

A former vice-chancellor of Ranchi University, Munda received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2007. Though many know of his intellectual contribution to society, very few know about his contribution towards the development of regional art, music and dance.

Apart from being a singer and song writer, Munda also plays several traditional musical instruments including the flute, mandar, nagara and dholak. He is also an accomplished painter.

Hailing from Deuri village in Tamar, the 70-year-old scholar said dance, music, art and painting were a part of his life right from his childhood. When he was a student, he was a regular performer in youth festivals and All India Radio during the late 1950s.

As a student in Chicago, where he went for higher studies and subsequently as a teacher in Minnesota University, Munda got together a band of South Asian folk performers, including Indian students, who performed in various cities across the United States in the late 1960s. In 1987, when he was vice-chancellor of Ranchi University, Munda led an Indian cultural contingent to the Festival of India in the USSR. In 1989, he toured Philippines, China, and Japan with his troupe.

This apart, Munda also participated in an international music workshop in Bali in 1988, the International Dance Alliance in Manila in 1989 and International Folk Dance Festival in Taipei in 1990.