An award row shakes up a venerable Carnatic music institution

The Music Academy decision to confer the Sangita Kalanidhi title on TM Krishna has triggered protests

The decision of The Music Academy, the venerable institution in the city of Chennai which is considered the Mecca of Carnatic music, to confer the prestigious title Sangita Kalanidhi on maverick musician TM Krishna has stirred up a hornet’s nest.

Usually, the Sangita Kalanidhi title is conferred during the Sadas held on January 1 every year after the completion of the annual music concert series. A huge controversy has broken out since the announcement with many musicians slowly coming out openly to protest against the Academy's move to honour TM Krishna, a winner of the Magsaysay Award who is quite vocal with his left-liberal views on assorted subjects including Carnatic music. The controversy surrounding the award to TM Krishna has spread like wildfire on social media with opinion sharply divided among people across the spectrum.

A Flurry Of Protests

The initial trigger for the anti-TM Krishna protest has come from Ranjani and Gayatri, the versatile sisters who are the shining stars in the Carnatic music horizon with tremendous power to pull audiences across the spectrum. In a social media post, the sisters said, “We have communicated our decision to withdraw from participating in the Music Academy’s conference 2024 and from presenting our concert on December 25. We have made this decision as the conference would be presided over by Mr TM Krishna.”

The sisters were sharp in their criticism of T.M. Krishna. “He has caused immense damage to the Carnatic music world, wilfully and happily stomped over the sentiments of this community and insulted most respected icons like Tyagaraja and MS Subbulakshmi. His actions have tried to spread a sense of shame in being a Carnatic musician and have been exhibited through his consistent denigration of spirituality in music. He has vilified the Carnatic music fraternity that has collectively contributed millions of hours of artistry, hard work and literature,” they said.

While voicing their protests against TM Krishna, the singer-sisters appear to have opened up an avoidable front. “It is dangerous to overlook Mr TM Krishna’s glorification of a figure like EVR aka Periyar who openly proposed a genocide of ‘Brahmins’, repeatedly called/abused every woman of this community with vile profanity, and relentlessly worked to normalise filthy language in social discourse,” they went on to state, justifying their protest against T. M. Krishna. “We believe in a value system that respects art and artists, vaggeyakaras, rasikas, institutions, our roots and culture. We will be in moral violation if we were to bury these values and join this year’s conference,” they further said.

Talented Trichur brothers – Srikrishna Mohan and Ramkumar Mohan – too have announced their pull-out from the annual conference of the Academy. The reasons alluded to by the Trichur brothers for their pull-out are broadly in conformity with the ones given by the RaGa sisters. Chitravina artist N Ravikiran has decided to return the Sangita Kalanidhi award – conferred on him seven summers ago by the Academy. “My decision stems from my inability to relate to the kind of values that the Academy is glorifying today by honouring an individual who has stridently tried to polarise and destabilise Indian classical music and dance fields and the country as a whole along caste and communal lines through misinformation, malleable truths and unprovoked attacks against certain groups of people,” he said in a letter to the Academy President N Murali, who belongs to the promoter family of The Hindu Group of publications. A few years ago, Ravikiran was embroiled in the “Me Too” controversy.

Harikatha exponent Dushyanth Sridhar, too, has chosen not to participate in the annual conference of the Academy. Like others, Sridhar too has cited several public statements made by TM Krishna on Dharma, Ayodhya and Sri Rama to justify his pullout. Vishaka Hari, another Harikatha exponent, has also voiced her angst against the Academy's decision to confer Sangita Kalanidhi on TM Krishna.

Support For TM Krishna

The TM Krishna issue has already taken a political overtone with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader Kanimozhi extending her support to TM Krishna. “TM Krishna being recognised as Sangita Kalanidhi by the Music Academy has ruffled the feathers of parts of the music fraternity. The hate he is receiving for his social beliefs or his engagement with Periyar is uncalled for. A basic reading of Periyar's ideas shows us that he is one of the greatest feminists the world has seen. He never called for a genocide,” she said in her tweet.

The Academy President Murali hit back at the RaGa sisters for the “unwarranted, slanderous assertions and insinuations verging on defamation, and vicious tone against a respected senior fellow-musician”. Justifying the Academy award to TM Krishna, the Music Academy president questioned the intention and purpose behind the letter written by the RaGa sisters.

The unfolding controversy over the move to confer Sangita Kalanidhi on TM Krishna has raised several questions that could go beyond TM Krishna per se and borders on the functioning of the Academy as a premier cultural institution. If the TM Krishna issue has brought the simmering discontent within the Carnatic music community into the open, the way it is getting articulated is bound to give it an avoidable political twist.

In a democratic system, everyone is free to express his/her views on issues. But freedom comes with responsibility. In the guise of free speech, no one has the right to cause hurt – either physically or otherwise.  TM Krishna, no doubt, has been vocal on very many issues. Somewhere along his musical journey, TM Krishna has chosen to become a self-styled crusader. Perhaps, he feels Carnatic music needs to be democratised. Maybe he wants Carnatic music to be a mass-based art. His idea of taking Carnatic music to the downtrodden is fine.

Why The Blowback Against TM Krishna?

His expressive views, however, seem to betray a sense of arrogance or superiority. The moot question is: Why should one thrust Carnatic music on anybody?  His democratisation idea suggests that his music (Carnatic music) is superior to others. Any knowledge has to be sought and cannot simply be thrust on others. One needs to have an innate inclination to learn anything. Carnatic music has long become commerce. The Guru-Shishya system is comfortably buried in the pages of history. In the unfolding world of AI (artificial intelligence), music learning and music making are just a click away.  In the Internet Age, rapid changes in technology have given anybody a sort of fair access to music of Carnatic kind as well.

But TM Krishna has an uncanny penchant for staying in the limelight with his controversial acts and views that often hurt the faith and sentiments of many. While penning a foreword for the Bhaja Govindam song sung by the late MS Subulakshmi, Rajaji said: ”Knowledge without bhakti is useless.” Carnatic music – whether you like it or not – is bhakti-oriented. The music of the Trinity of Carnatic music (Thyagarajar, Muthuswamy Dikshithar and Syama Sastri) is embedded in bhakti.

TM Krishna has the right to express his views. But his aggressive articulations have hurt a sizable section of the Carnatic music community. This section is now getting emboldened, and that is finding expression in the form of protests against the Academy’s decision to confer the Sangita Kalanidhi award on him.

Spotlight On The Music Academy

Ironically, TM Krishna was the first one to revolt against The Music Academy ­– considered the sanctum sanctorum of Carnatic musicians – very many summers ago. Virulent in his attack on the Academy for its narrow, discriminatory and moribund ways, he has castigated the Academy for its Brahminical orthodoxy and gender/ caste bias over the years.

The Academy is now finding itself in an unenviable position of defending an artist who sought to consistently pierce its defences. The anti-TM Krishna protests reflect a new challenge to the Academy in the emerging new dynamics of the world economy. Time was when a performance at the Academy proved a passport for landing concert opportunities in places like Cleveland in the US.

In the post-Covid new world order and the wake of technological changes, opportunities are plentiful for performing artists. Not surprisingly, the voices against the Academy’s ways of functioning are getting sharper. For a change, the Academy is facing the music due to the TM Krishna imbroglio. Well, the Academy is in for a tumultuous time.

KT JAGANNATHAN is a senior financial journalist based in Chennai and a co-founder of www.carnaticdarbar.com, a news website for Carnatic music. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication