Ramachandra Guha - If Krishna can’t sing
When a scholar is prevented from speaking, that is intolerance. But to prevent a great musician from performing in the national capital is not mere intolerance — it is barbarism.
NB: Guha's argument is sought to be refuted in an op-ed piece today, that refers to T.M. Krishna as a 'vicious political activist'. In his twitter page, Guha says: "You claim no one mentioned you were part of the programme; I did, clearly, in my piece in the Express. You claim the AAI 'specified' reasons; it did not. It gave no reasons whatsoever. Krishna was giving a musical concert, not giving a political talk. It was his concert that was cancelled. By bringing in his politics and his dislike of Modi, you indirectly gave the game away. When commercial film stars become apologists for the Government (any government) it is pathetic. When great classical dancers do so, it is tragic."
Here are some examples of vicious behaviour by the 'Sangh's front organisations:
Dear Amit Shah, rein in ABVP and act on your
promise to set ‘gundas’ right
Ramjas College Violence: Delhi Police Assures Protesting Students A Fair Probe
Ramjas College Violence: Delhi Police Assures Protesting Students A Fair Probe
Six Months After Ramjas College Violence,
Things Are Only Getting Worse
Ramjas clashes: Delhi Police admits ‘mistakes’, transfers case to crime branch
A letter to Jaitley: Why do students get
jailed but RSS leaders who issue vile threats walk freely?Ramjas clashes: Delhi Police admits ‘mistakes’, transfers case to crime branch
Ramachandra Guha - If Krishna can’t sing
An Indian institution
I greatly admire is Spic Macay. Set up by Dr Kiran Seth, it has done remarkable
work in taking the extraordinary riches of our music and dance traditions to
young Indians. I first attended Spic Macay concerts in the 1970s, as a college
student in Delhi; I continue to attend them in the second decade of the 21st
century, as a 60-year-old in Bangalore. Under their generous auspices I have
heard Padma Talwalkar sing and seen Leela Samson dance, gloried in the sarod of
Amjad Ali Khan and in the flute of Hariprasad Chaurasia.
Another Indian institution
I admire is T M Krishna. Krishna is a force of nature. He is, best known, of
course, for his music. However, apart from being a singer of genius, he is a
public-spirited individual with an abiding commitment to the greater good,
whether it is the restoration of the forests of the Western Ghats or the
restoration of social harmony in strife-torn Jaffna. I have heard T M
Krishna sing many times. The concert of his that will stay with me until I die
was performed in a village named Belavadi, in the district of Chikmagalur.
Belavadi has a Hoysala-era temple, built on the human scale, and with exquisite
sculpture. A friend of Krishna’s has a farm nearby; and he had the inspired
idea of asking him to sing at this 1,000-year-old temple.
My wife and I drove
down from Bangalore for the occasion. The music was sublime; the setting
gorgeous. Behind where Krishna sat was the deity. After several minutes in deep
contemplation, his eyes shut, he sang for us the music of the divine. Krishna
is thoroughly trained in the classical tradition; and this evening he brought
us the full range of the Carnatic oeuvre. We city folks listened, transfixed;
as did the villagers of Belavadi, young and old, men and women, who had come to
this public space for this special, and especially joyous, occasion.
After the concert we
had dinner at the farm of the person who had brought Krishna to Belavadi. Here,
one man from Bangalore complained that whereas the musician had in the recent
past given concerts in the localities of Malleswaram and Seshadripuram, he had
ignored a prestigious sabha organised in Chamarajpet. Krishna gave his reasons;
that particular Gayana Samaj had, for a previous concert of his, invited a
politician who spoke for 20 minutes after the musicians had finished. Krishna
didn’t mind if speeches were made before a concert, but to have them afterwards
was an insult, not to the artists, but to the audience, who wished to leave the
hall and go home with music in their ears and in their soul. The Chamarajpet
partisan was unpersuaded. “You cannot refuse an invitation from our Sabha,
sir”, he said: “It is 100 years old”. Krishna answered: “My music is 600 years
old.”
As an admirer of
Krishna’s music, and someone who had once been a student in Delhi myself, I was
delighted when I heard that Spic Macay was hosting a two-day festival in Nehru
Park where he would be one of the performers. This was to be held on the
weekend of November 18/19. Though this was not the Veeranarayana temple in
Belavadi, the venue was attractive enough. By then, the air would be crisp and
cool, and the pollution levels would have abated. The music lovers of Delhi,
and the young especially, were in for a feast. I was pleased for them, but also
slightly envious on my own behalf.
The Nehru Park concert
was a collaboration between Spic Macay and the Airports Authority of India.
Till late last week, the AAI was enthusiastically tweeting about the event, and
asking people to come. However, when they heard that T M Krishna was to sing
there, right-wing trolls began abusing him, and demanded that the event be
cancelled. These trolls know nothing about his music; all they know is that, in
his work outside music, Krishna is a critic of Hindutva and the Modi
government. On Tuesday the 13th, the AAI announced that the event had been
indefinitely postponed. They had succumbed to pressure, most likely exercised
from above as well as from below. Who knows what calls were made from which
office to make the AAI act as they did. But, because of their shameful
capitulation, the music lovers of Delhi shall be deprived not just of the
sublime pleasure of listening to T M Krishna, but of the two-day festival as a
whole. (The other artists slated to perform were the sitarist Shahid Parvez,
and the dancers Sonal Mansingh and Priyadarshini Govind.)
Readers of this
newspaper will know that this writer was recently prevented by Hindutvawadis
from taking up a professorship in Ahmedabad University. The reports spoke of
pressure from goons on the ground; in fact, there was also pressure from above,
from powerful politicians in New Delhi. But I am being absolutely sincere when
I say that I am much more upset with what has happened to T M Krishna. This is
because Delhi is the capital of the nation, not of a mere state; and because I
merely write books, whereas Krishna carries the true greatness of Indian
culture and Indian civilisation in himself and in his art.
Indian architecture
was once sublime; to see how far it has fallen one has only to look at the next
building in the street. Two thousand years ago, India was a world leader in
science and philosophy; but now it lags behind not just the West, but even
small Asian countries like South Korea. However, our classical music,
Hindustani as well as Carnatic, is both authentically Indian as well as
gloriously alive. In a sane, civilised, world — that is to say, not the world
we currently live in — our classical musicians would be infinitely more
precious to us than our film stars, our cricketers, and our intellectuals. When, as happened to
me in Ahmedabad, a scholar is prevented from speaking, that is intolerance. But
to prevent a great musician from performing in the national capital is not mere
intolerance — it is barbarism.
