The ongoing public furore — both in the press and social media in India and abroad — over the Madras Music Academy — MMA— conferring its prestigious Annual Award of Sangitha Kalanidhi on T. M. Krishna (TMK) the enfant terrible of the Carnatic Music world, has reignited fierce and polarised social discourse on several themes and sub-texts of Wokeism in the land of the Tamil Brahmins.
Two polarised arguments are encapsulated in 2 letters that are currently going viral on the social media : One is written by Dushyant Sridhar (who is known popularly in the prime TV talk-show channel as a “Vedic Scholar”) to the President of MMA, N. Murali . The other letter is written by N. Murali to the Carnatic music “rock-star” singing-sensation duo, the sisters Ranjani and Gayatri.
Here below are facsimilies of the 2 letters.
Anyone who wants to make some sense of this rather bizarre social-media maelstrom that has hit MMA and Carnatic music worldwide would perhaps do well to carefully parse the two letters and pay attention to the phrases and expressions used by Dushyant Sridhar and N. Murali.
The crux of the argument on one side — i.e. N. Murali’s side — is that the MMA is an institution — a private Trust, in fact — that every year recognises one outstanding individual who by sheer dint of talent and artistic accomplishments has reached the pinnacle of his or her Art or Sangitha Vidwath. By that criteria alone, it is hotly argued by this side that T.M. Krishna is thoroughly deserving of the 2024 Award.
N. Murali makes that clear in his letter through the expression : “The choice of the Sangitha Kalanidhi made year after year is the prerogative of the Madras Music Academy and has always been made after careful deliberation, with the sole criterion being musical excellence demonstrated over a significant and sustained career”. (phrase in bold font highlighted by me)
The other side of the aisle — and Dushyant Sridhar’s letter is best representative of it — does not deny the artistic credentials of T.M. Krishna but argues that the Sangitha Kalanidhi Award was never meant to be recognition of artistic excellence or prowess alone. It signified far much more. It was equally as much a recognition of artiste’s values as artistic values.
The phrases Dushyant Sridhar uses to describe his “differences” with TMK and by corollary the MMA, are : “I am pained by many of his (TMK’s) public statements on Dharma” and “I am guided by the life and teachings of Srimad Ramanuja, Vedanta Desika and Kanchi Paramacharya. I will prove very disrespectful to their values if I perform (on MMA stage in 2024) after the “sadas” (where he (TMK) will be awarded”.
The cleavage between the MMA and its critics at large today could not have emerged more starkly than in how the epistolary arguments of N Murali and Dushyant Sridhar are framed. One says the sole criterion for the award is “musical excellence”. The other says the criterion is not only “excellence” or prowess but also “Dharma” and “Values”!
Which argument has the greater weight?
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In almost all public discourse today in India — most especially in Tamil Nadu — on any substantive social issue or cause, the moment any interlocutor drops the word “Dharma” in an an argument, it instantly invites and incites references to a host of other extraneous side-issues and sub-textual Wokeist pet-themes — viz. Caste , Gender, Patriarchy, Language, Elitism, Social Discrimination, to name only a few.
Thus, in the ongoing fracas over MMA awarding TMK, no one should be surprised that it has taken on the character and overtones of a minor Culture War in the Chennai theatre between Sanatana Dharma and its detractors, between Brahmin and anti-Brahmin forces and between ideas of social equality/justice and cultural elitism.
Normally, every year when the MMA announces the name of the Awardee, the rasika public at large usually only argues amongst itself about the relative merit or demerit of the successful candidate. In 2024 too, after the Award was announced, what otherwise might have passed off only as a civil, jejune or anodyne debate held privately amongst friends’ groups or within family living-rooms over whether TMK’s Vidwath was “excellent” enough to fully deserve this year’s Sangitha Kalanidhi — or whether there were perhaps more deserving candidates (such as for example Vijay Siva). Such debates might have been the only mild flutter or sensational flavour of the Season. But that did not happen this time … And why ? Because TMK is TMK.
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In the public eye T M Krishna is really not much about “musical excellence demonstrated over a significant and sustained career”, to use N Murali’s phraseology. In the public perception, T M Krishna is a humongous larger-than-life persona in the pretty small world of Carnatic musicians tucked away in a corner of South India.
To the genuine rasika community across the world, Carnatic music is not just only about savouring it as a classical art form. The community virtually worships the music as a form of religious faith.
Now in such a community’s eyes, TMK the musician has long been totally eclipsed by TMK the neo-liberal, anti-Brahmin, cultural Naxalite. They only see and know him today as the Vidwan who, in 15/20 years of a long mature career, went about on a rampage weaponising his music and deploying it to project his own political beliefs and social activism.
In all of TMK’s public utterances, posturing, and in the 3 or 4 books he has written so far, in the innumerable Op-Eds, articles he has penned for left-wing newspapers and magazines, in several interviews and Twitter posts, one can easily see that Carnatic Music itself always came second for him. His music, in fact, came in last many a time …. and only well after he had already made his strident statement on his social crusade against the ills and evils bedevilling the Carnatic music world — Patriarchy, Brahminical conservatism and prejudice and the imperial cultural suzerainty that for long had been exercised by the caste elite.
As soon as he began wielding his music as a weapon, no holds were barred for TMK. His commentaries all in the public domain today on Bhakthi, on Thyagaraja kritis , on MS Subbulakshmi , the Brahmin patriarchal dynamics of the music world … etc. etc… were all heavily laced with his own prejudices and weltanschuang.
In one of the interviews he gave in 2017 he said: https://openthemagazine.com/columns/open-conversation/we-musicians-sit-on-the-high-horse-of-religiosity-says-tm-krishna/
“When you attend a concert, you are not just getting music, you are also getting a lot of these ideas about the supposed superiority of the art. We musicians sit on the high horse of religiosity and spirituality, almost like pontiffs, protectors of all that is high and pure in Hindu culture. Asking us to respond to socio-political change is like asking the middle-class to enter party politics. This affects the way we deal with society in general. Also, we do not want to address many social truths because our audience, like us, is upper class and upper caste. Why ask questions that make us vulnerable?”
What was this “social truth” that he, as a Carnatic musician, was speaking about? He explained:
“The intention of classical music is not to literally create social or political change, but we can use the aesthetics of the form to raise our voice. The music must be grounded in the reality that exists around. I will go a step further and argue that abstraction in art occurs only when our feet are grounded on the streets, not when we float like disconnected puritans.”
That was TMK so clearly enunciating his fundamental approach to weaponising music as a strategy for social change.
And further then came from him this weird, bizarre shocker too:
“…. if the canvas of meaning is enlarged, people may start experiencing divinity in thoughts that are not divine, or even in ideas that disturb them. That’s when I started changing lyrical content on the concert stage. I have worked with Perumal (Murugan, the Tamil novelist) for nearly a year now and we Shriram Kumar (violinist), Sangeetha (musician wife) and Arun Prakash (mridangist) have tuned 11 of his compositions. His kirtanas cover a wide range of themes— from non-irrigated agricultural land, love, the five elements and the mind to the palm tree. My hope is to keep moving the discourse to a point where it really doesn’t matter what you are singing about. You may get to a point where Rama is equalised with a palm tree or a dog”.
Rama is equalised with a palm tree or a dog?!! What kind of discourse on “social truth” is that?! Is it what TMK meant by saying that he wanted rasikas to start “experiencing divinity in thoughts that are not divine”?
When such bizarre and pretentious pronouncements as above were slowly absorbed in by the ordinary Carnatic Music rasika, it became obvious to him (or her) that for T M Krishna his Music was really only of a second order of excellence subordinated always to the first order of his social activism and causes.
In the press statement made by the MMA on the day the Awardee’s name was announced, 17 March 2024, the citation said that T M Krishna has “worked towards expanding the listener base of the art by taking it to varied social settings and focusing on its exploratory as opposed to tightly defined structures. He has used music as a tool for social reform.” https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/a-tribute-to-the-mind-and-music-of-t-m-krishna-2945636
In that case, the cat was out of the bag and N Murali contradicted the press statement of the MMA, didn’t he?
If T. M.Krishna “has used music as a tool for social reform” — in other words, has weaponised his music — how on earth can N.Murali possibly see even an iota of moral justification in his statement: “The choice of the Sangitha Kalanidhi made year after year is the prerogative of the Madras Music Academy and has always been made after careful deliberation, with the sole criterion being musical excellence demonstrated over a significant and sustained career”.
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Sudarshan Madabushi
First MA should come out of The Hindu… And leftist hands .
Absolutely