Sangita Kalanidhi for Krishna triggers row, musicians pull out of Margazhi season

Carnatic vocalists Ranjani and Gayatri and five other musicians have decided to boycott the annual December music festival in protest against the decision.

Chennai: The Music Academy, Madras conferring the prestigious Sangita Kalanidhi award to eminent Carnatic musician and activist T M Krishna has triggered a row with Carnatic vocalists Ranjani and Gayatri and five other musicians deciding to boycott the annual December music festival in protest against the decision.  

Chitravina Ravikiran, who received the Sangita Kalanidhi in 2017, also announced he will be returning the award given to him and the prize money due to the Academy’s decision to honour Krishna, who he said,  “tried to polarize and destabilize Indian Classical music” along caste and communal lines. Ravikiran was dropped from the Music Season in 2018 after he was named in the #MeToo movement.

Ranjani and Gayatri, in a letter to the Music Academy President N Murali which they released on social media, said they were withdrawing from their December 25 concert as the music season will be presided over by Krishna, who they said, has caused “immense damage” to the Carnatic music world, and “wilfully and happily stomped” over their sentiments.

Accusing Krishna of insulting respected icons of the fraternity like Tyagaraja and M S Subbulakshmi and “vilifying” the Carnatic music world, the sisters said it was dangerous to overlook the singer-activists’  “glorification of a figure” like EVR Periyar who they said “openly proposed a genocide of Brahmins.”

Vocalists Srikrishna Mohan and Ramkumar Mohan (aka Trichur Brothers), Harikatha exponents Dushyanth Sridhar and Vishakha Hari have also told the Academy that they won’t be participating in the Margazhi season this year. 

While Krishna refused to comment, Murali wrote a strong letter to Ranjani and Gayatri expressing “shock” at its “vituperative content” replete with “unwarranted and slanderous assertions and insinuations verging on defamation” against a respected musician. 

About 3,000 vocalists, musicians and other exponents perform at the Margazhi season (mid-December to mid-January) in Chennai.  

Krishna, who started performing at the age of six, stopped performing at the annual Margazhi Festival since 2015, after making it clear that he feels “aesthetically, socially, and philosophically disconnected from the music season.” He has also been performing at unconventional spaces, including buses and metro trains, besides before fishermen.  

Murali said 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,” Murali added.

Krishna received support from DMK MP Kanimozhi who said the hate the musician 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. This hate, similar to the hate filled speech given by the BJP politician in Karnataka recently. Maybe they don’t believe in the freedom of thought and expression that our country believes in,” Kanimozhi added. 

Murali, in his letter to Ranjani and Gayatri, said normally, a missive of the kind you have addressed to the Academy posted on the social media before receiving a reply would not warrant a response. “But I would not like to deny you the courtesy of a response in consideration of your contributions to the field of Carnatic music,” the Music Academy president added. 

As the issue became the hot topic on social media platforms like X, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu said he admits to being a zero compared to a talent like Krishna, but finds his woke politics nauseating.

“If he truly wanted to reform Hindu society, he could start with Swami Vivekananda. Instead he has sadly chosen to be in bed with forces that want to destroy Dharma and break this nation. That I cannot stand,” Vembu wrote on X platform, triggering a sharp response from Tamil Nadu IT minister P T R Palanivel Thiaga Rajan. 

“While I disagree with him on many things, I respect his right to air his views. But people in responsible positions should avoid demeaning phrases like forces that destroy Dharma and break this nation. Being successful does not make him an arbiter of patriotism, or even of Dharmam,” Rajan wrote. 

He further added that decorum has restrained people like him from using Vembu’s “own problems” over the past year to question his character or integrity, referring to his marital discord that played out in public domain last year. “He (Vembu) should exercise the same restraint, instead of denigrating people with whom he disagrees,” the minister added.