Raj Mohan

As a Geet/Ghazal/Bhajan/Pop singer, composer, singer songwriter and poet Raj Mohan is established since the last 30 years as the finest Sarnámi artist in The Netherlands and Surinam.
As a singer and poet in the Sarnámi-Bhojpuri language he travels to Suriname, French Guyana, South Africa, Maritius, India and several Europena countries to perform.
In 2011 he released his 1st pop album with Sarnami-Bhojuri lyrics together with Hindi songs and poems which he all writes and composes himself. It’s the first time in the Surinamees history the Surinam Bhojpuri is utilized in this contemporary form.
Raj Mohan invented the Sarnámi-Bhojpori Geet in the Geet & Ghazal style which appreciated worldwide with his album ‘Kantráki’ (2005). The Geet/Ghazalnuma songs are performed by Raj in the traditional Ghazal setting as well as in jazz and pop (Album: Daayra, 2011). Which is remarkable.
He released 5 music album (a bhajan album with Shri Anup Jalota) and 2 book with Sarnami-Bhojpuri poems. His latest album ‘Dui mutthi’ (2013) is released on the occasion of 140 years Indian migration to Suriname.

Information about history and Raj Mohan’s music

The first Hundustani indentured labourers from British India arrived by ship on June 5th 1873 in Surinam (Dutch Guyana). The Day of Immigration is still celebrated today by Hindustani in Surinam and in The Netherlands.
The period of Hindustani contract labour lasted from 1873 to 1916, and over 35,000 Hindustani arrived from British India to Surinam. About one third of them returned to their homelands after their contracts expired. The rest remained in Surinam, and their descendants now number 300,000 in Surinam and 150,000 in The Netherlands.
The Sarnámi people kept their culture and their language alive after 140 years.

Raj Mohan introduces a completely new and own style of listening songs and sung poetry in the Sarnámi-Bhojpuri language, the Sarnámi geet & pop, that are not only thematically different from the baithakgana folkmusic of Surinam, but also musicwise.

The Sarnámi or hindustani language, as it has developed since 1873 in Suriname, mainly has songs in the folkloristic style, baithak gáná, in which predominantly religious -and society-critical songs were sung and still are sung. Raj Mohan has invented the Sarnami-Bhojpuri geet and pop. He release already 3 albums with geet and pop songs in his mother tongue: Kantráki (2005), Daayra (2011) and Dui mutthi (2013).