T.M. Krishna, the stormy petrel of Carnatic music, and this year’s winner of The Music Academy, Madras’s prestigious Sangita Kalanidhi award, is an ardent artiste and an avid activist.
As an artist he is rooted in tradition but his vision is new, seeking boundless horizons. He is nourished by the past but not circumscribed by it. Like a gushing mountain stream ever refreshing but bound by its banks. As an activist, both in the domain of music and on societal and civic issues, he espouses causes, amplifying the voice of the voiceless. He ruffles the feathers of the conservatives on the concert stage and those in power on civic platforms. Some would say he delights in poking the bull in the eyes.
The artiste’s stage
Any concert of Mr. Krishna is always teasingly enchanting. It is also provoking, disturbing, awakening. It is a feast for the purists of the art form, delightful for the avant-garde and is full of surprises to the devout believers who are pantheistic in their outlook. But the religious fanatics bristle at his irreverence toward long-held beliefs and feel outraged. The atheists and agnostics celebrate his audacity when he cocks a snook at the conservatives. The old, who are true connoisseurs of classical music, grudgingly admire him, even though he is unconventional. Modern youth who are drawn to classical music and students of that art adore him.
He has a huge fan base. He is gifted, charismatic and daring. He is an iconoclast but his music and his views have evolved and are shaped by eclectic interests and deep research. He is an author of books on classical music, art and the artisans of classical musical instruments and their loving devotion to their age-old craft and their discrimination, alienation, neglect and obscurity. He is a prolific writer, tireless speaker on art and contemporary issues, and an intrepid activist. His works have drawn critical acclaim as well as ire.
His music and his repertoire of actions always baffle you. He is an unbeliever who mesmerises you when he sings devotional songs in temple festivals. He is an innovator and a disruptor who does not subvert. It is when he challenges and questions our cultural and social spaces in the realm of art and its orthodoxies, gender bias and casteism, its hypocrisies and its undercurrent of politics that are often exclusive, divisive and discriminatory and holds a mirror to us that we are offended.
He may be a non-conformist. He may at times be abrasive and arrogant. He may not draw universal praise but he sparks lively debate and enriches art by celebrating various genres — folk, puranic, classical, Dasa and Vachana sahitya, ancient and navodaya and Dalit poetry, Tamil songs, Sanskrit hymns and shlokas from epics, even Sufi, drawn from various languages and regions of India.
For instance, in one concert, in Bengaluru, after singing classical ragas and compositions of the Trinity (of Tyagaraja, Dikshitar and Syama Sastri) and Purandara Dasa and a bouquet of Tamil songs including one by Perumal Murugan, he sang a composition of saint reformer Narayana Guru from Kerala and a lilting, melodious Urdu bhajan on Kanhaiya (Krishna) by Pakistani poet Hafeez Jalandhari who has also penned the national anthem of Pakistan. This may have seemed sacrilegious to the orthodox. Mr. Krishna says music is universal.
He is a serious student of the art, a purist when he sings the major ragas and compositions, and one who is constantly experimenting and transcending himself in every concert by seeking to explore new frontiers. His mastery and rendition of kritis, ragas, alapanas, tanam, pallavis, kalpanaswaras and neravals are refreshing and cast a spell on the audience.
A polarisation
The most coveted Sangita Kalanidhi title conferred on him has stirred up a hornet’s nest among musicians and music enthusiasts. In fact social media seems to be driving the polarisation among musicians along abominable lines: right-wing politics and religiosity pitted against the ideological left and liberals; zealots of Brahminical ways and ‘Hindutva’ persuasion versus the followers of Periyar. With the citadel of action being Chennai, even the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is ranged against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In the reactions in the world of music, the sisters, Ranjani and Gayatri, who are popular classical singers, were first off the block in going public about withdrawing from the annual conference later in the year, which is hosted by the Music Academy. Among the points they raised were that they could not overlook Mr. Krishna’s glorification of an anti-Brahmin persona such as EVR (Periyar). Vidwan N. Ravikiran, recipient of the Sangita Kalanidhi in 2017 announced that he would return the award as Mr. Krishna was ‘trying to polarise and destabilise Indian classical music’. A few authors with leanings toward the ideologies and politics of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh rallied behind these artistes and attacked the Music Academy for dishonouring itself by honouring a ‘Brahmin hater’ and rabble-rouser.
In a letter addressed to Ms. Ranjani and Ms. Gayatri, the President, The Music Academy, Madras, N. Murali, firmly stated that, “The choice of Sangita Kalanidhi made year after year is a prerogative of The Music Academy and has always been made after careful deliberation, with the sole criterion being musical excellence demonstrated over a significant and sustained career. This year the Executive Committee of the Academy chose T.M. Krishna for this accolade based on his excellence in music over a long career, with no extraneous factors influencing our choice.”
We will be smothering the creativity of future generations if, in the name of tradition, we cultivate a certain bigotry imprisoned by the habit of a past generation. True art is not a magnificent tomb brooding over the immemorial past. Music, like art, belongs to the procession of life, and is as different as a tree is from a seed. It is like the river, ever old and ever new. It has a wealth of inheritance. It must constantly evolve and burst forth with new blossoms and continually be nourished by the past.
Mr. Krishna may have erred in boycotting the Music Academy and the various sabhas during the December festival held every year just as those who are now withdrawing from the festival and returning their awards are likely to be making a similar mistake.
The role of the artiste
There are many artistes who are content and totally immersed only in their art and innovate within its confines. There are also others who are bold activist reformers who challenge their traditional art forms, fight the inequities and prejudices that prevail in communities and cultural spaces, and also speak out against injustices in society in the wider context of politics and government. History has many examples of great poets, artistes and philosophers who were all rebels who went beyond their chosen calling.
What is the role of an artiste when he becomes an activist and when those roles overlap? As Camus said eloquently, “Considered as artists, we perhaps have no role to play in the world. But considered as men, yes... We must simultaneously serve both suffering and beauty.”
All those invested in music and the arts, and the Academy, the various vibrant sabhas that patronise artistes, and the artistes themselves must rise above their differences and come together with humility in a spiritual quest to enrich music through dialogue, debate and assimilation. We must leave our inheritance richer for future generations. Art can become a many-splendoured offering only through a cross-fertilisation of ideas and cultures or it will languish because of ‘intellectual incest’.
Boycotting and responding with misplaced chauvinism is churlish on both sides of the divide. To recall Tagore’s words, “The role of an artist is to take a creative part in the festival of life, to give expression to the infinite in man.”
Captain G.R. Gopinath is a soldier, farmer and founder of Air Deccan
