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A former school teacher, Hari Shankar Acharya, gave up his job to devote all his time to music and to raise awareness on social issues through songs. He has been composing and performing songs for over 30 years and is based in Muskara, a village in the Hamirpur district of Uttar Pradesh, where he commands great respect among the people for his commitment to social causes. What sets him apart from other folk artists is that he writes his lyrics on existing folk tunes and innovates the songs to better connect with the audience and make them relevant to contemporary times and issues.
For instance, Lamtera is a traditional folk song sung on the occasion of Makar Sankranti. Hari Shankar Acharya has rewritten the lines of this song to talk about rivers and lakes drying up due to climate change and their pollution by industries. He intends to raise awareness of the environmental hazard and encourage collective action to save the rivers. Likewise, he has even composed songs on the importance of toilets, sanitation and manure pits. He has been registered with the UP government since 2016 and has written songs for almost every scheme and relief program launched by the government. He takes a keen interest in current affairs and social problems and researches the topics to compose songs on them.
He quit his job as a school teacher because he didn’t find the job very satisfying regarding what he could contribute to society. He sees folk music as a powerful tool to inspire change because the tunes are native and familiar to the people. This helps them connect better with the songs when compared to mainstream, generic campaign songs. Hence, he believes that folk artists must innovate and modernise their songs to align with the present times.
He is a self-taught musician who learnt it by listening to performances in his village’s community space and practising independently. He has been running his music group for about 30 years and has given performances around UP and Delhi. In addition to singing and writing, he also plays the harmonium and keyboard. He works as an agent for LIC to supplement his income.