Hypocrisy, Misrepresentation And More: Five Times T M Krishna Went Woefully Out Of Tune

First up, the current shenanigans surrounding T M Krishna is not entirely of his own making. It stemmed from the Madras Music Academy, one of the most forbidding and snooty sabhas, deciding to bestow its prestigious honour Sangita Kalanidhi on Krishna.  (You can read about the issue here, here and here).

And all hell has broken loose since then.

So, in that sense, Krishna has not gone after the headlines. Instead they have come looking for him.

Even though the 48-year-old Krishna projects himself as a principled dissenter, a closer look at his career would reveal that he is no more different from the rest of the Carnatic music ilk whom he never fails to criticise.

Born into an affluent Brahmin family in Chennai — he is the grand nephew of India's first finance minister and one of the founders of the aforesaid Madras Music Academy T T Krishnamachari — Krishna grew up in the lap of luxury.

His parents both were well versed in Carnatic music and he was trained in the classical art right from a young age. His first guru was Bhagavathula Seetharama Sharma. He later underwent special grooming under Chingleput Ranganathan and that legend Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer. 

He has been performing on stage since the age of 12. But he kind of transmogrified into an activist of sorts in the last 15 years or so. He has been speaking, like a typical Left liberal, on every conceivable subject, including on ones with which he has no real expertise. The likes of International affairs, Gaza-Israel conflict, for example.

Initially, him speaking out against some of the unacceptable practices in the Carnatic music realm seemed revelatory. But in the course of time, it has become clear that he has no moral force of a whistleblower but has only the choleric biliousness of a jilted insider.

His zealous acceptance of Music Academy's award is a case in point. In the past, he had hit out at the very sabha for being the frontrunner in making the Carnatic music ecosystem forbidding. He had raised the banner of revolt against the Music Academy in the past, and for him to accept its award now is symbiotic and bogus.

Anyway, here is a quick list of controversies that he had willingly courted in the past.

M S Brahminised Herself

Making a shallow argument against one of the biggest icons of Indian classical music M S Subbulakshmi, Krishna alleged that she 'Brahminised' herself to gain acceptance among Tamils. He also made the unsubstantiated judgemental claim that M S became sad in her latter days.

"One can hear M S Subbulakshmi’s old songs on YouTube. The music is free-spirited and electrifying and one feels like one is listening to a rock star. The music rendered by her after undergoing cultural and social transformation is equally fascinating to hear, but one notices the sorrow behind her voice," Krishna said. 

He also asked if M S would have been as adored if she was dark-skinned and dressed differently. This controversy could also be explained by the fact that he spoke these ideas at the inauguration of Manaku Teliyani M S, the translation into Telugu of TJS George’s book on Subbulakshmi.

Starting an uproar to get the focus on a film or book being launched is an old trick. Krishna may well have been playing it then.

Muslim Radicalisation, Who To Blame? Of Course, Hindus

Krishna has been constantly sniping at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is fine as it is against his political ideals. But he is also regularly at the throat of the Hindus, even going to the extent of blaming them for, well, Islamic radicalisation. 

Writing on an online portal, Krishna said: "(Islamic) Radicalisation comes from insecurity and a desperate need for validation. When young people from an already marginalised community are bombarded with fear, instigation, abuse, suspicion and malicious accusations, overtly and through innuendos, they become easy prey for barbaric mad-hatters who spread their message via deep sea fibre optic cables. The Hindu majority needs to hold itself as responsible for the turn that Islam has taken in some parts of the country."

Krishna Throws A Music Legend Under The Bus, Again

In his book Sebastian and Sons: A brief history of mrdangam makers, Krishna wrote about mridangam makers, who are mostly Dalits. 

Krishna's case was that while mridangam is revered as a celestial instrument its makers are unfortunately neglected and hardly given any recognition. It is an altruistic line of inquiry. Of course, it is a systemic issue. But Krishna went into this using Palghat Mani Iyer's life and times as his narrative ploy.

In the way he chose to write it, the veteran mridangist emerged as a heartless casteist, which of course he was not. But Krishna made him one.

The music world was stunned, but since Krishna and his Left cohorts hold all the mics, many of them kept quiet and the legendary percussion instrument player's family itself remained silent in a dignified manner.

The moment the latest controversy broke, Palghat Mani Iyer family has decided to return the Sangita Kalanidhi conferred on him in the 60s in protest.  

Singing The Praise Of Hinduphobic E V R On Carnatic Stage

If you are looking for a synonym for sacrilege, you need not look beyond Krishna's monumentally provocative attempt to sing E V Ramaswamy (EVR), a known Hinduphobic, on a Carnatic music platform.

Now, Carnatic music is inextricably linked to the culture and heritage of the Hindu land. Krishna and his like have been constantly trying to snap off this intrinsic connection.

Krishna had previously sung in a moving bus in Chennai. Performed Carnatic concerts inside a mosque and church. On paper, they may all seem well-meaning  secular efforts, and also an attempt at acceptable diversity. But they were also meant to destroy the Hindu roots of this old art.

And the inclusion of EVR on a Carnatic platform was the worst offence. For, EVR, the eternal rabble-rouser, had built a career for himself by beating figurines and pictures of Hindu Gods including Lord Ram and Lord Krishna with slippers. To give sacred space to such a iconoclast was vile. 

Krishna Disregards Film Music And Belittles Maestro Ilaiyaraaja

Krishna's snobbish disregard for musical doyens did not stop with the Carnatic field. He was also critical of maestro Ilaiyaraaja. In general he had a very poor opinion of film music. And his views were bordering on extreme gatekeeping orthodoxy, the kind that he generally projects himself to be against.

In his book A Southern Music —The Karnatik Story, Krishna tore into the mixing of Carnatic music and film music.

He wrote: "Some may feel that this is part of the form's musical evolution. I do not agree. We have to analyse every influence in the context of what the music itself is, where it comes from and what it means. I believe cine-Carnatic fails this test and, hence, is not part of Carnatic music's development process. The internal aesthetics of the music are disturbed wherein its sound is altered on the basis of an external influence. We need to analyse Carnatic music in the context of its existent expression and see if the influencing cinema has a place under its sun or not. A blind acceptance of any influence as being part of a larger process of evolutionary change is unacceptable, as it defies the basic nature and dynamics of Carnatic music.”

He criticised the Telugu film Sankarabharanam (1980), widely considered to be a musical tour de force, to be lacking in Carnatic musical heft. He also criticised the efforts of Ilaiyaraja in the Tamil film Sindhu Bhairavi (1985) to recreate a Thyagarajar song in a raag different from the original envisaged by its late creator. 

"What does this transposition of a composition from its parent raga onto another actually do to the kirtana? A great deal, actually. The essence of its being disintegrates," Krishna typically said. "To me, the film version was unacceptable," he wrote, seemingly perched on a high-horse.

Aside from these, Krishna has gone against Saint Thyagaraja, the most well-known composer in Carntic music. He labelled some of his songs to be problematic. Imagine the peevishness of the man to declare the songs on Lord Rama to be casteist and racist. That is Krishna's silly chutzpah for you. 

We can go on and on. But we are afraid we may end up sounding like Krishna — all sour.