Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan

Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan was born on 2 April 1902 in Kasur district, Punjab, in what is now Pakistan. He was a Hindustani classical vocalist of the Kasur Patiala gharana. He began by singing the compositions of his late father, Ali Baksh Khan, and his uncle Kale Khan, and he blended elements of Dhrupad, the Jaipur style and Gwalior embellishments. He also composed under the pen name Sabrang. The Tribune calls him a Punjabi classical musician whose life reflected Partition's divisions.

Key moments

• 1938 and 1944: major performances in Calcutta and at the All India Music Conference in Bombay.
• 1947: after Partition he moved to Kasur, in Pakistan.
• 1957: he moved permanently to India. The Tribune says he left disillusioned with the state-led Islamicisation of music in Pakistan. Wikipedia reports a different view, from the writer Saleem Shehzad, that the audience for classical music was small and Radio Pakistan paid him poorly.
• He obtained Indian citizenship with the help of leaders including Morarji Desai, then Chief Minister of Bombay, and settled in Bombay. The Tribune says Jawaharlal Nehru also helped.
• 1960: persuaded by the director K. Asif, he sang two songs for the film Mughal-e-Azam, composed by Naushad. He had long avoided film singing.
• Honours, according to Wikipedia: the Padma Bhushan (1962), the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1962) and the Akademi's Fellowship (1967).

He died on 23 April 1968 at Basheer Bagh Palace in Hyderabad after an illness that had partly paralysed him, and was buried in the Daira Mir Momin cemetery there.

He is remembered for singing across the new border. The Tribune says he was a citizen of each country for about ten years and calls him a musical citizen of South Asia. On Partition he is quoted, by both the Tribune and Wikipedia, as saying that if one child in every home had been taught classical music, India would never have been divided. The Tribune adds that he was cut off from his extended family in Kasur and Lahore, a loss he felt for the rest of his life.