Shaking up the establishment: The collective meltdown over Music Academy and TM Krishna

In 2015, Carnatic vocalist TM Krishna made an announcement – he would not sing during the famous December music season anymore. He’d previously experimented with singing only free concerts during Chennai’s music season that starts in December but in 2015, he gave up on that too. Apart from a handful of eid-ka-chand sightings, he’s not been seen at the music season since.

In a lengthy piece published at the time, Krishna railed against the sabha system, its nexus to NRI money, and the danger it posed to the art itself. In various writings, speeches and public interactions, he criticised the Carnatic (or Karnatik, as he likes to spell it) music establishment for being Brahminical, elitist, exclusionary and snobbish.

Carnatic music concerts are largely organised by sabhas – entities that sometimes own a concert venue and sometimes don’t – that organise music concerts, dance and drama performances through the year. Sabhas have members and sell tickets, but are mostly run through corporate sponsorship. As such, they are controlled by a small coterie of middle- to late-aged men who often act as a cartel wielding extraordinary influence over a Carnatic musician’s popularity and career. 

Every single word Krishna has said about this system over the years is true. And it may not be an exaggeration to state that little has changed even now. 

Still, when the Music Academy, the granddaddy of the sabha establishment that Krishna attacked so sharply, chose him for its equivalent of the Nobel Prize – the Sangita Kalanidhi – Krishna accepted it without protest. 

Krishna’s music deserves the Sangita Kalanidhi. He is one of the foremost musicians of his generation. Even his harshest critics will admit that they have, at many times over the years, been moved by his music. I will never forget a Hiranmayeem he once sang at Odakathoor Mutt in Bengaluru; I wept at the end. Sung at ultra-slow speed with Arun Prakash cajoling the mridangam, it was minimalist magic. 

My other unforgettable experience of listening to Krishna was at Chennai’s Krishna Gana Sabha on the day of the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya judgement when, in the middle of a rather ponderous alapana, he audibly admonished himself: “Just sing!” You could feel his pain at what had happened in every note of his music that day. His renditions of Raju Vedale, Mayamma, Senthil Aandavan, his deep understanding of Muthuswami Dikshitar, his Dhanyasi, his Khamas, his viruttams, his 50-line neraval crescendos, those breathless taanams – I could go on and on – leave no doubt that he is a treasure of musical arts. 

Over the last decade and a half, Krishna has also transformed himself into a public intellectual-activist. What started with on-stage experiments slowly moved to opinion pieces on subjects ranging from the death penalty to Palestine. He has had an opinion on nearly everything and he has freely expressed it. He has attempted to champion various subaltern art forms, he has fought for the rights of fishermen, he has fought against mercury poisoning, he was at Shaheen Bagh. He has spoken at universities, at conferences, at lit-fests and seminars. 

The one thing he hasn’t done is become a regular part of primetime news debates. Perhaps he needs to protect his voice. 

None of this sits well with Carnatic music’s largely conservative audience. Krishna’s attacks on Brahminism have drawn trolls of all varieties on Facebook and Twitter. His evaluation of MS Subbulakshmi came in for scathing criticism from the right and the left. His book on mridangam makers, Sebastian and Sons, courted controversy when the family of Palghat Mani Iyer objected to what he said about the legend. They even went to the extent of forcing Kalakshetra to refuse to hold his book launch. 

Krishna’s critics have also come down heavily on him for singing about Periyar, for singing Carnatic music in a church, for singing in praise of non-Hindu gods, for singing Perumal Murugan’s poetry, and even for setting Asoka’s edicts to tune.

The Carnatic music establishment cannot tolerate even the smallest act of rebellion, and Krishna’s acts have been far more radical than anything they have seen. For instance, when the Ram Mandir opened, Carnatic musicians flooded their social media with celebratory renditions of Rama compositions. But Krishna sang Tyagaraja’s Nadachi Nadachi around that time, in which the composer says, “People walked and walked to Ayodhya, but didn’t find Rama, because Rama was to be found in their hearts.” This simple act of defiance drew allegations that Krishna had disparaged Tyagaraja.

His music, in the past 15 years or so, has blended the chaste with the almost whimsical. He’s sung alapana, usually a precursor to a composition, as an item in itself. He’s changed the format of the concerts, singing varnams (usually used as a warm-up) as main pieces. He’s complained about the categorisation of pieces and ragas as ‘main’ or ‘tukkada’. I once heard him sing the popular Janani Ninuvina in no rhythm; he wanted to explore the possibilities of the composition when it was not shackled by a beat cycle. He’s pushed his accompanists centre-stage, both physically and musically. He’s collaborated with non-mainstream musicians. 

Some of these experiments paid off, some did not. But that never stopped him from trying. Even audiences who don’t approve of such innovations turn up for his concerns because, amidst all this boundary-pushing, there is still a core of beautiful music. But make no mistake: when you walk out of his concert, you will always hear grumblings and a certain nostalgia for a time when Krishna wore that Iyengar naamam and sang like a Semmangudi, albeit without a gruff voice.

So, during his exile from the sabhas of Madras, Krishna turned into what a Twitter troll would call a “Vatican-funded Urban Naxal Chrislamocommie”. What made this man accept this award from the Academy? 

The award itself is the greatest recognition a Carnatic musician could ever hope for. In my own teacher’s house, the walls of three rooms were filled with awards he got, but the Sangita Kalanidhi was hung front and centre, right above the sofa-throne he sat on. Rejecting the Sangita Kalanidhi would be like a mathematician rejecting the Fields Medal. I wonder if there’s a second reason – does Krishna want a homecoming of sorts? Does he want to be part of the madness of the season? Does he want to forge a space for himself within the establishment again?

No one knows what happened behind the scenes between Krishna and the Academy, but he performed there twice this year. He held his much-publicised ‘Friends in Concert’ there in January, followed by a concert during the Tyagaraja Aradhana celebrations hosted by the Academy. By then, it was clear that there was some kind of ‘patch-up’. Even so, the Kalanidhi announcement came as a surprise to most people following Carnatic music. 

The unexpectedness of this announcement has caused right-wing Brahmin artistes and listeners to have a collective meltdown. Social media is filled with posts decrying the Academy for letting Indian culture down. Ranjani and Gayathri, a popular singing duo, first made a public announcement that they would not perform during the season this year. They have been vocal supporters of the BJP over the years, and their ideology is clear in the letter they put out communicating their decision. This was followed by the Harikatha exponents Dushyant Sridhar and Visakha Hari condemning the Academy. Another duo, the Trichur Brothers, also boycotted the Academy. 

Then came the award wapsi. N Ravikiran, the chitravina artiste who had been sidelined by the Academy when fairly serious #MeToo allegations surfaced, returned his Sangita Kalanidhi in protest against Krishna. That award meant little to him by this point, and it didn’t mean much to the Academy either. As an interesting sidenote, it may be relevant to mention that Ravikiran invented a raga called Narendramodini. 

Yesterday, the family of Palghat Mani Iyer returned Iyer’s Sangita Kalanidhi, 43 years after his death. Of course, as his family, they claim to represent him, but can you really be so confident that this is what Mani Iyer would have wanted? Especially when no other living senior artiste, many of whom would be politically inimical to Krishna, has come forward to return their award? Perhaps the only thing that makes this less sad is the fact that now the three lords of the mridangam – Mani Iyer, Palani Subramania Pillai and CS Murugaboopathy – all don’t have a Sangita Kalanidhi. That’s one way to right historical wrongs.

The reactions from these musicians are littered with allegations that Krishna denigrated Carnatic composers, artistes, the divinity of the art form, and Indian culture itself. For all his maverick outward appearance, Krishna is a traditionalist when it comes to his music. He believes in the purity of the art form, has publicly decried ‘fusion’ music, and has criticised fellow artistes for diluting ragas. He expressed his displeasure at Ilayaraaja’s Mari Mari Ninne because Raaja dared to change the raga of the original Tyagaraja composition. Krishna even attempted to recreate music of the 18th century by poring over notation in texts and tracing the history of ragas. The evidence of him having done any kind of injustice to Carnatic music, composers or artistes is bogus at best.

There are also objections about how a person who respects Periyar should never be given this award. There are other general objections about his politics and his views on Brahminism. These arguments are dubious at best, and show that the objection to Krishna being given the Kalanidhi has more to do with his showing a mirror to the establishment than anything else. The Music Academy’s response to Ranjani-Gayathri is probably the most apt one. 

But Krishna should be happy that this conversation is happening. For years, he has maintained that one cannot separate one’s art from one’s politics. Now, more Carnatic musicians are openly political and they are turning their politics on him. 

Krishna and the Academy will deal with these objections easily enough, I am sure. None of them merit a serious response, and the Academy’s legacy and Krishna’s musicianship speak for themselves. But in a year in which not one nadaswaram or tavil vidwan has been given an award by the Academy, I hope they will both reflect on some things. Could a nadaswaram artiste or a dancer from one of the traditional communities be this outspoken against the sabha culture, which has definitely hurt them much more than it has ever hurt Krishna, and expect to be honoured by the sabhas some years later? Or is that a concession given only to someone as privileged as Krishna?

Swaroop Mami is a musician and lawyer based in Chennai.