Music and ... Brahmin Supremacy
(Non-Indian subscribers and those not familiar with South Indian classical music might perhaps feel lost in the details. Even if so, I hope you will at least scan through to get a feel for how intricately politics and caste are entangled even in something like classical music.)
Listening to South Indian classical music, known as Carnatic music, was a serious passion among most elders in the extended family. Immersed in this environment, appreciation of the music came quite naturally to me and I was beginning to get really good in recognizing the ragas even from the first couple of notes. It was all wonderful until ... I started questioning religion.
Carnatic music is built around religion. Rare is a traditional composition that is not about any one of the Hindu gods. For all purposes then this classical music is also devotional music. Bhakthi (பக்தி) is the word that is used, a word that means much more than devotion, as a simple Google search for the word would reveal.
Into my teenage years, as I started questioning religion, the agnosticism spilled over into the appreciation of this music as well. The more I moved away from religion—not merely Hinduism, but any religion and god—the more I disconnected from this classical music as well. Over the decades, I pretty much lost any interest in Carnatic music, and it is only the intellectual curiosities about the music that remain.
Every time I visited India, which for years was almost always in December, I was often presented with opportunities to think about this question of bhakthi in Carnatic music. In December, Chennai hosts a huge music festival, and there are programs on television as well. One of the TV programs features Q/A sessions with musicians. Without fail, there is always a question about the role of bhakthi in the music, and in response practically every musician emphasizes that without bhakthi there cannot be any music.
In summer 2011, after reading a commentary that was authored by the Carnatic musician TM Krishna, I emailed him about this bhakthi aspect about which he had made critical remarks. Much to my surprise, he replied in length. Krishna wrote about his experiences when questioning the bhakthi: "reactions have varied agreements to very upset emails etc."
And then in 2014, Modi and his Hindu nationalist party came to power at the federal level and in a number of states. The pro-Hindu politics left no room for even mild criticisms of any tiny attribute of Hindusim, leave alone weighty topics like Brahmin supremacy and deep-seated casteism in Carnatic music.
When Krishna and a couple of other musicians started singing songs set to the Carnatic music framework but with lyrics that were about Allah or Jesus, the push back was swift from the faithful Hindus, whether or not they were music aficionados. Hindu fundamentalists saw this as a threat to Hindu traditions. So much was the vitriolic reaction that even NPR covered it in 2018: “India's Carnatic Singers Face Backlash For Performing Non-Hindu Songs.”
Which brings us to now.
The Music Academy in Chennai, a prestigious institution where musicians would feel honored to perform—like performing at Carnegie Hall in NYC or La Scala in Milan—recognizes a few musicians every year with their awards. This year, they are bestowing their highest award, Sangita Kalanidhi, on TM Krishna.
TM Krishna has earned that honor and deserves the award. He is one of the best contemporary musicians and could easily rank among many in a hall of fame.
But then he is also a social activist, who opposes the caste system, and shines a bright light on how Carnatic music is plagued by casteism and religion. Such activism leads him to sometimes sing songs that are not the traditional ones but new ones that address caste and religion. And he has been recognized for his activism and inclusion: “Krishna, a recipient of the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay award for social inclusion in culture, is a Brahmin but has never shied away from criticising his community and fraternity.”
The fact that Carnatic music is tightly woven with caste and religion is why I was not surprised one bit that several other Carnatic musicians have vocalized their displeasure at the Music Academy honoring TM Krishna. A music duo, Ms. Ranjani and Ms. Gayathri, “also took objection to what they called “Mr. Krishna’s glorification of a figure like EVR aka Periyar” to make the case that he was undeserving of the award.”
Periyar was an influential anti-caste activist politician whose political rhetoric never failed to target brahmins and their supremacy. He lived a long life of 94 years and died in 1973. The fact brahmin Carnatic musicians publicly cite in their opposition Krishna’s “Krishna’s glorification of a figure like EVR aka Periyar” says it all about the politics of caste even in 2024.
This balanced commentary sums up the situation well:
The present controversy exposes the gnawing or rather abhorrent conservatism of the Carnatic music enthusiasts rather than the musicians themselves. In fact, they seem to be leading the polarisation drive. …
Krishna’s award is therefore a shock treatment. A strong message from the pulpit itself–that art and conservatism contradict each other, that blind faith-based conservatism limits the pursuit of excellence. Whether his pursuit of democratising Carnatic music and liberating it from its habitual conservatism has been successful or not, Krishna has certainly won a personal battle.
In December 2013, I was in Chennai when TM Krishna’s first book was being launched. I took my father and cousin along. We stood in line at the book signing, and I requested Krishna to sign it for my father, which he did:
Six years ago, in a discussion at a blog that was not mine, I argued in favor of the work that TM Krishna was doing. The response from that blogger was lengthy and emphatic in which he wrote: “TM Krishna is an ass. I have no time for him.”
If memory serves me well, that was the last time we engaged in discussions.
This latest TM Krishna brouhaha over an award that he truly deserves is yet another reminder that Brahmin supremacy is alive and well in India even in 2024. Caste and religious divides are deep and wide, so deep and wide that there is nothing significant enough on the horizon to suggest that tomorrow will be a better day in the old country.
(The song that TM Krishna performs in the video above is one of my favorites from my childhood, when my sister had lessons with a music teacher who came home to teach her. I learnt, a lot, by simply watching and listening.)