The harmonium was born in Europe – so how did it become synonymous with Indian music?
The Indian harmonium similarly made its way to the United States in the first half of the 20th century, but it was the Asian immigration wave in the 1950s-1960s that popularised it.
This was also the period of the American Counterculture, an anti-establishment cultural movement fuelled by such disparate elements as women’s rights, race relations, and the Vietnam War. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, widely known was ISKCON, was assisted in his early years in America by Beatniks like Allen Ginsberg.
As the harmonium was by this time an established vehicle for devotional music, ISKCON members using it became a common sight. Beatniks and hippies gravitated towards the instrument. Ginsberg played it constantly, most famously when he whipped it out and chanted the Hare Krishna mantra to the conservative writer and commentator William F Buckley Jr on his “Firing Line” television show in September 1968.
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