Activist, Carnatic vocalist, writer, author and Ramon Magsaysay award winner Thodur Madabusi Krishna a.k.a TM Krishna, recently performed an exclusive musical tribute to the memory of the innocents killed in the anti-Muslim Gujarat genocide of 2002. The event: Gujarat 2002 – 2022. Memories of Struggle, an evening of music and conversations organised by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) also honoured the survivors who wait for justice, 20 years later. TM Krishna tells SabrangIndia, how the music was curated and how it has an even bigger role to play now when with communal tension, and open calls are given for genocide.  

Memories of Struggle was not a typical event. How did you choose the songs you performed?

It was difficult to think of what to sing for such an event. The choices were made for faiths to speak to each other, and people speaking to their faith. The idea that all faiths have always spoken to each other. There is no faith that is independent. That notion is nationalistic. Every faith is intertwined not just in the past but in the contemporary sense also. They also enrich themselves from the unspoken receiving they get. Say, two people of different faith meet and there is an exchange, then there is sharing and learning. No faith can exist independently, it will die. I was thinking in terms of those intersections. Music does something to poetry, that is the difference between saying Allah, and singing Allah. That transcending is not limited to any one faith, there is no Hindu feeling of transcending or Muslim feeling of transcending, and atheists also transcend. You just want to find a language of mutual happiness. To be able to tap into that use the semantic and the lyrics to position these two having conversations and then when you bring in music it dissolves into the experience. At some point you don’t know if I am singing of Allah or Rama… right? I was trying to tap into that kind of a conversation when I was choosing the songs.

You didn’t know what the survivors were going to say…

I had no idea. I must tell you it was very difficult to listen to what they said… It was very hard to sing. At some point it even challenges what I was trying to say. It does question everything in a way. That is the role of art, there is a contradiction, I can’t run away from  it. What I said so far sounds philosophically fine, but when I am sitting there and I am hearing these people tell me about their lives there’s a big difference between reading what is written and hearing a survivor speak. These are two different things. It is very difficult to even listen to it. That is a lived experience. There is a difference between me having compassion across faiths and a survivor [of communal violence] having compassion. I don’t know if i would have it honestly. It is easy for me as my encounters are limited. Privilege allows me to push it back. But when you hear them [survivors] you wonder if Allah is the same as Eshwar.

Did you question yourself there?

I know I was very disturbed… that is a fact that it is not a universally accepted idea. We can talk about ganga jamuni tehzeeb, it sounds good… now when I say it, there is violence in me, when I say it at this point.

Did you have to detach from being an activist to get into artist mode?

I usually never do that, I just let the experience happen. I am not after musical perfection. There were moments I couldn’t sing… I took a breath. That is what art shoudbe. Be alive to whatever is around you…. That is the essence of any art. That is my state at that point. How can I deny it? If it means I did not sing perfectly so be it. Exactly! I did not do too much alaap that was not the occasion. 

What made you choose ‘Aye dekhne waalon’?

It was a song I bumped into two years ago, and I gave it to Shubha (Mudgal) It is one of the most beautiful songs on Krishna that I have heard. She tuned it for me. Around Diwali, when the whole Hindu-Muslim hungama was on, I decided it was time to sing it. It had something to say across faith, people, international borders. It is an Urdu bhajan actually. The description of Krishna is beautiful… it [the poem] is from pre-Partition, and it brings the identity of the land. It is a beautifully crafted poem, now it is an Urdu bhajan in its intent. 

It would be a painful poem for a survivor to hear…

It is difficult because it does turn perception on its head in some ways. I think survivors understand this better than you and me. They are able to understand and connect with something larger that is not divided. 

What does such a commemoration mean for the generation of today?

The man  who played the mridangam does not even remember the riots. He was 10 years old and has no memory of it. What we forget is that most young people do not know anything about the riots. It is essential to remind yourself and people of it. What I got from speaking to survivors is that they were happy to see people who remembered this [Gujarat pogrom] and wanted to talk about it. It is important we do this, find ways in which we gather with people who have gone through it. 

What about picking ‘Vaishav Jan Toh’, and ‘Hum Dekhenge’? 

Sometimes I wonder if a lot has been appropriated because we refused to give it direction. In Vaishnav jan toh there is a little subversion that I do when the line ‘Ram nam sunn’ comes I sing it as “Rahim” also. I do it, let somebody complain, I don’t care. I first did it in Delhi on the day Amit Shah made a comment on Gandhi, that was when I first shifted that line on stage for the first time. I now sing it with that diversion. The idea is that you are also asking questions of ‘vaishnav jan toh’ that is important. You reclaim it because you have to find meaning and resonance in it today. Ram and Rahim flowed together. Noticing it says something, as does not noticing it says something. Those on the parochial side will notice it immediately. 

Is there a move from the right wing to curb music as a tool of dissent?

I faced that before with my own form of Carnatic music, that you can’t sing on Christ or Allah. But I said I will, do what you want. What is even scarier is the self-censorship that has happened in the artistic world. Let’s be clear, everyone irrespective of government likes to control artists, but there is a textual difference now. Everybody [artists] is clear they do not want to disturb anything, they do not want confrontation. Violence that erupts even in small pockets is scary. While there is the larger monster, which is the establishment, but there are also smaller monsters and tentacles who operate in pockets. There is open fear. There are artists who are going overboard trying to convince people how ‘faithful’ ‘ nationalist’ they are… especially the privileged performing arts. They tell me privately why do you do it? My response is that this is my art. I am also worried about nostalgia, we remember someone who did something, but we don’t remember what happened to those individuals at that time, their struggles and battles. People who believe in homogeneity know culture is one thing that can be manipulated. Everything else will follow. The liberals have still not woken up.

Is there hope? Dissent now means jail as seen for satirists, journalists, cartoonists, curbs on sources of income, where is the hope?

I think there is hope. You have always had artists fighting on, some of them you may not see in the news but there are many artists fighting the battle with songs, theatre productions in their own little way. I think many small things are happening, I would say there are many brave people who may not be spotlighted as much as the rest. 

In a way that is good too…

That is good. There is hope, we also learn that there has to be a way of fighting this consciously, which is why Hum Dekhenge makes sense. We have to  find the courage and the will to come together. Maybe it is a much longer road than we would think it is. The fear is what we will lose in the meantime.

Art has always recovered?

I think it does. I think that art and culture is very difficult to remove from society, that is why the responsibility on the artist is so much. If anybody can make it disappear it is the artist who can make art disappear not the State! If artists don’t think that art is important by itself and in what it does in society art will disappear. It will become homogeneous, that is not art.

That is the vision of ‘Hindu rashtra’, or the Taliban who banned music…

Exactly, any kind of bigots. Because art is an experience of freedom, which is why they challenge it. 

What does a young artist do now?

It is very easy to speak from my position of privilege, I probably will survive or if something happens to me there are at least 10 people who will speak up for me. I think the young people have to be strategic and smart about this. I will advise them to be smart. Learn, find your own ways to have conversations, I always think 100 small things have a bigger impact than one large thing. Don’t self censor, be strategic. Know when to do what. Keep educating yourself, read, listen, watch. That is where 

How was the overall experience for you emotionally?

It was emotionally exhausting. These things leave a mark, which is our learning. For anyone who participated, watched. At the end of the event I wondered what to say. Maybe we should do more such events. Maybe a small community event. What we need are not big events. They have their place too but we need small gatherings where we talk.

The one of its kind event that brought together conversations, music, and film was held at G5A , in Central Mumbai. The G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture is envisioned and founded by Anuradha Parikh, an architect and filmmaker and its belief is “that art and culture have the power to catalyse change for the better.” The Black Box is its multi-functional space which too became a part of the conversations and came to life as the light design by Gurleen Judge took the participants on a journey connecting the harrowing past to a hopeful tomorrow.

The live recording of the entire event held at G5A may be viewed here.

Related:

Memories of Struggle: The quest for justice continues 20 years after the Gujarat Carnage
20 years after Godhra – Some reflections 
Scars of Sardarpura

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Carnatic musician and Magsaysay award winner TM Krishna has penned a passionate open letter to his fellow citizens, requesting them to not make the mistake of failing to raise their voice against wrongdoing, as he may have done.

He writes, “Today, these thought-controllers are making us hate our democratic, plural past because they do not love the country’s diversity, its variety, the beauty that lies in its nuances”, instead, “they want us to love, in fact, to worship uniformity, their sense of uniformity, of ‘oneness’ for that eliminates just about everything that is not about them”.

The complete letter may be read here:

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Last November, T M Krishna was scheduled to perform at the concert organised by Airport Authority of India (AAI) and SPIC-MACAY at Nehru Park, New Delhi.  Mere days before the event, it was called off citing unnamed “exigencies” and that it would take place on another date. From the time of the event’s announcement on social media by the singer, an online hate campaign was launched by right-wing trolls, who branded him with epithets like “anti-Indian” and “urban naxal”, a term that currently has their relentless patronage. T M Krishna is known for his outspoken commitment to social and political justice as much he is for masterful singing. Undeterred by harassment and bullying, he declared, “Give me a stage anywhere in Delhi on November 17, I will come and sing. We just can’t let ourselves be cowed down by these kind of threats”. The AAP government in Delhi stepped in and organised an event at the Garden of Five Senses and T. M. Krishna sang as scheduled.

On his return to Chennai, he was to be a part of an event organised by First Editions Arts (FEA), Mumbai. FEA has been a platform for bringing together musical practices across genres and traditions.  In a series of tweets posted on the afternoon of May 13, he spoke of the events that transpired as right-wing groups once again attempted to stop his performance. “The day after I performed in Delhi (Nov 17th, 2018) at the invitation of the Delhi government after the Spic Macay performance series was postponed by AAI due to exigencies of work, I was scheduled to sing for First Edition Arts in Chennai. The auditorium rented by @firsteditionart was Rasika Ranjani Sabha. To cut the long story short (which has many behind the scenes sinister happenings), a senior member of Hindu Makkal Katchi called Devina Dutt [of the FEA team] and threatened to disrupt the concert. The Tamil Nadu BJP unit also called her to stop the concert. The officials of RR Sabha put pressure on First Edition Arts to cancel the event. As a final bid to stop the concert officials of RR Sabha insisted that they must be allowed to condemn my political positions publicly while I am seated on stage, just before the concert begins. And if this was not allowed they would cancel the concert. I agreed to these terms and the RR Sabha official spoke for long saying many things! My answer was in song! And here it is,” he said, with a YouTube link to the performance.

T. M. Krishna sang a composition by Subbarama Iyer titled “Yarukkaghilum Bhayamaa”. The title can be loosely translated as “Is there anyone I fear?” The song as sung by a female protagonist, speaks of the declaration of love made to her by King Lingadurai. The town gossips about her, expects her to be furtive and slink through sidedoors. But she is proud. “Let them talk,” she says. Whom should she fear? Whom has she wronged?

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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As it was postponed by AAI, Krishna showed his availability for the program on that date, which Delhi’s ruling AAP party picked up to host. Program was well attended not only by music lovers but also by those who are opposed to the politics, which is trampling the liberal democratic ethos of the country. The attack on the Krishna concert, in a way, is the continuation of the politics which we have seen in the recent past. These attacks came in the form of ‘Award Wapasi’ (returning) which was the first major resistance to the intolerant acts which had led to the murders of Dr. Dabholkar, Com. Govind Pansare, M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh. Around this time beef lynching took its first victim in the form of Mohammad Akhlaq and that’s when Uday Prakash and then Nayantara Sahgal returned their well earned honors to be followed by nearly fifty other literary figures, film personalities and scientists.

During this period we also saw the attack on the dalit aspirations leading to the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula. On parallel level the attack on JNU was orchestrated. At JNU the masked men who shouted the slogans have not been caught while Kanhaiya Kumar and company was targeted. The word anti national was thrown up. The aim was very clear, it was to create and enemy image of those who are critical of this Government. Same way all those disagreeing with the ruling dispensation are being called as anti National and BJP’s well oiled troll army is the new form of aggressive foot soldiers adding on to the Bajrang Dal types.  

Krishna is an outstanding musician who has not only been contributing to the Carnatic music but has also voicing his opinion against the politics of sectarian nationalism and growing intolerance. In the true traditions of music he sings Gandhi’s favorite Bhajan (Vaishnav Jan to), sings about Jesus and Mohammad. As such music is essentially based on the prevalent cultures, which are not bound by any narrow boundaries. It is only from last few decades that creative artists are being questioned and targeted on the ground of religion. Whole of Indian culture has been an intermixing of traditions coming from different religions. The peak point of this has been seen in our medieval times in particular, when Hindus and Muslims both contributed. While the peak of this syncretism is expressed in Bhakti and Sufi traditions, our food habits, literature, art and architecture have all evolved through these interactions.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Discovery of India’ underlines this aspect of our culture. As per him there are layers of culture intermixing and influencing each other. When cultures meet they interact and evolve into better forms. They have their own distinct signature even while changing themselves and that’s what is called, ‘salad bowl’. Some do believe in ‘melting pot’ model where the original distinctions get merged into a uniform whole. India is fairly unique in having these different components of ‘Salad bowl’ contributing to the richness of the land. While bhakti saints have an appeal cutting across religious boundaries, those visiting Sufi saint shrines are not just Muslims. In the field of literature the devotional songs of Rahim and Raskhan dedicated to Lord Shrikrishna are amazing. The Hindi film and television world is a living testimony to this interactive culture.

One cannot forget the brilliant Bhajans (devotional songs) sung by Mohammad Rafi, Man Tarpat Hari Darshna ko aaj (Baiju Bawara) or ‘Insaf ka mandir hai ye (Amar). There is a long list of these inter religious cultural expressions. The contributions of Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan match those of Ravi Shanker and Shiv Kumar Sharma to give just one example. In current times music maestro A R Rahman, on one side is composing ‘Piya Haji Ali’ and on the other is composing ‘Shantakaram Bhujanagshayanam’.

If Krishna is singing about Jesus and Mohammad, that is just so much natural and inspiring. This precisely is the core essence of creative artists. The bigots cannot see beyond their narrow prisms and cannot tolerate the natural interaction in the positive light. This is what the Taliban do, and this is what the Christian fundamentalists assert.

Taking a cue from the trolls succeeding in postponing AAI SPICMAY concert, other trolls are also showing their aggressive teeth. After the cancellation disguised as postponement another organizers planning to host the program in Mysuru Kuvempunagar have pulled out on similar grounds as they got a warning that hosting Krishna will be like denigrating Hindu Dharma!  One admires Krishna who in the face of these aggressive reactions is holding his ground and believes that music does not know borders of nation, region, religion or language. As per him music should soar across the world and captivate all humanity. Says he; “The troll army has the underlying patronage of people in power. I have been trolled for a long time for my social position, my perspectives on politics, and my disagreements with the BJP regime. I believe in every art form. Allah, Jesus and Ram make no difference. It is a multilingual and multi-religious country.” Salute to the brave soul, brave Indian!

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Image Courtesy: The News Minute

On November 17, when people gathered at the Garden of Five Senses in Saket, it was not just for their love of music, but also in solidarity with a particular kind of politics. The evening was special and the performance important because T M Krishna was performing in Delhi three days after the Airports Authority of India (AAI) “postponed” an event featuring the Karnatic singer, owing to a backlash from right-wing trolls who called Krishna an “anti-national” “Urban Naxal”.

The threats could not budge T M Krishna who made a public announcement asking for a stage, anywhere in Delhi on November 17, for him to come and sing. Responding to his appeal, Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, stepped in and invited Krishna to perform. “No artist should ever be denied an opportunity to perform. I have invited T M Krishna to perform on November 17 for the people of Delhi. It’s important to maintain the dignity of the art and artists”, Sisodia said.

Politics and art, thus shared the same stage at the Delhi government’s event, “Awam ki Awaz”. Krishna said before commencing his performance, “The spirit of the day has transformed over the few days and keeping with the spirit, I will try and see if we can see multiple voices, languages, traditions, religion in the concert. I will not speak much.” And while Krishna refused to talk about politics, his music spoke for him.

He struck a mesmerising chord against the on-going cultural barbarism that the country is subjected to. Starting with an all-denominational prayer that Mahatma Gandhi had instituted at the Sabarmati Ashram, Krishna’s performance included a Malayalam rendition in praise of Jesus Christ, an adaptation of Nagoor Hanifa’s Islamic Tamil song, Kabir, Tukaram, Basava, Perumal Murugan and much more.

Around the same time when AAI decided to postpone Krishna’s performance, the organisers of another event hosting T M Krishna also received threat calls. Krishna is scheduled to hold a concert and music workshop on “Rare Krithis of Sri Muthuswamy Dikshithar” on 22–23 November at Gana Bharathi in Mysuru’s Kuvempunagar area. The organisers, however, as per a report in ThePrint, are planning to go ahead with the event. “There is no need to bow down to the pressure by some random elements”, Himanshu C R, one of the organisers said.
In the times when expressing a dissenting opinion mean threats, vandalising venues and cancellation of events, Krishna’s performance was loud enough to reverberate a rhythm of resistance.

Daniya Rahman is a member of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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New Delhi: Carnatic musician T M Krishna will perform in New Delhi on Saturday evening. In a tweet, the vocalist announced that he will be performing with RK Shriramkumar, Praveen Sparsh and Anirudh Athreya at Garden of Five Senses, Near Saket, New Delhi at 6.30 pm on Nov 17.
 

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, making the announcement Friday, said no artist should ever be denied an opportunity to perform.

 
 
The AAP government had offered to host Krishna in the national capital after an event in which he was to perform was called off by Airports Authority of India (AAI- SPIC MACAY.)
 
The Airports Authority of India’s decision to postpone the event came after Internet trolls attacked the organiser for supporting an “anti-India” musician.
 
“Give me a stage anywhere in Delhi on November 17, I will come and sing. We just can’t let ourselves be cowed down by this kind of threats,” TM Krishna had said.
 
Krishna’s views on constitutional values like secularism and his attempts widening the reach of Carnatic music concert repertoire by including hymns in praise of Christ and Allah, and poems by writers including Perumal Murugan, have made him a target of right-wing attacks.
 
“The troll army has the underlying patronage of people in power,” he said. “I have been trolled for a long time for my social position, my perspectives on politics in India and my disagreements with the BJP regime… I believe in every art form… Allah, Jesus and Ram make no difference… It is a multi-lingual and multi-religious country,” Mr Krishna said, a report said.
 
The Magsaysay Award winner first came to the attention of right-wing groups in August when an audio clip reportedly of his Carnatic songs on Allah and Jesus Christ was circulated on WhatsApp. A fringe group in Tamil Nadu had threatened him for singing the songs.
 
Born in Chennai, TM Krishna started learning music at the age of six and trained under several top musicians like Chingleput Ranganathan, Vidvan Seetharama Sarma and Semmangudi Srinivasier. An economics graduate from Madras University, he has authored three books — Voices Within: Carnatic Music – Passing on an Inheritance, A Southern Music – The Karnatik Story, and Reshaping Art.
 
Related Articles:
Airport Authority cancels T M Krishna’s concert after twitter trolls call him anti-Indian.
 

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Image Courtesy: E P Unny

On November 5, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) announced on its twitter handle that Karnatik vocalist T M Krishna would perform in Delhi as part of the programme “Dance and Music in the Park,” organised jointly by The Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth (SPIC-MACAY) and AAI. But according to a report in The Indian Express, on the night of November 13, AAI informed SPIC-MACAY over email that the concert has been postponed. “Because of some exigencies of work, we are not in a position to go ahead with the dance & music concert jointly organised with SPIC MACAY on 17th and 18th November, 2018 at Nehru Park, New Delhi. Hence, we request you to kindly postpone to a new date and inform all concerned. The new date will be discussed with SPIC-MACAY soon,” the email said.
This comes days after AAI’s tweets about T M Krishna’s performance received backlash from trolls who were enraged by the fact that T M Krishna was invited to perform.  AAI was accused of organising a concert that would feature the “anti-India”, “anti-Modi”, “Urban Naxal” singer using public funds. Some trolls also tagged senior government officials such as Suresh Prabhu, Minister for Civil Aviation.

Krishna’s attempts to increase the Carnatic music concert repertoire by including hymns in praise of Christ and Allah have been frequently attacked by Hindu right-wing activists. In August, TM Krishna, OS Arun and Nithyashree Mahadevan were targeted by the Rashtriya Seva Sangham, a group based in Tamil Nadu, for singing devotional songs about “gods of other religions”. In response, Krishna resolved to sing one Karnatic composition every month on Jesus or Allah, which was ostensibly the cause for his concert at the United States being cancelled. In September, during his tour of the United States, he was invited to perform at the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Maryland but his concert was cancelled by the organisers after he was accused by Hindutva groups of singing Christians songs. However, a group of music lovers in Georgetown University, Washington organised a concert for him on campus the same day.

This time too, like the Maryland incident, Krishna has many people standing by his side. According to a tweet by CNN News18, the AAP government has extended an invitation to T M Krishna to come and perform at the National Capital on 17 November after an unfazed T M Krishna announced, “Give me a stage anywhere in Delhi on November 17, I will come and sing. We just can’t let ourselves be cowed down by this kind of threats”.

Commenting on the incident, poet and critic Ashok Vajpayee told the Indian Cultural Forum, “The cancellation of Krishna’s concert in Delhi is yet another instance of a continuing assault on the pluralistic nature of the Indian culture, traditions and arts, including music. Krishna has boldly asserted and taken upon himself to highlight the presence in and contribution to carnatic music of Muslims and Christians. Apart from being an insult to the classical, this assault is anti-Indian and anti-tradition.”

Renowned poet and author K Satchidanandan told the Indian Cultural Forum, “I am very sad that the trolls have taken control over our culture. Very recently, Ramachandra Guha was not allowed to take the visiting doctorship at the Ahmedabad University and now T M Krishna has been discouraged from singing at this festival.” Calling the incident “disheartening”, he added, “Musicians and music lovers look at him with great awe. To deny him the chance to sing in Delhi and to deny the audience a chance to listen to him, is in my opinion, an extremely criminal act on the part of whoever has done it and we know who has actually done it. These trolls know nothing about T M Krishna’s music, they have only heard from someone or the other that he is very critical of the right-wing government at the centre. It is because of Krishna’s political position that they are denying him his stature as one of the leading musicians of the country, trying to popularise classical music. This is yet another step towards the kind of barbarism that is already prevailing in the country and all of us as writers and artists should stand up against this kind of trolling and attacks on all artists.”

Writer Githa Hariharan told the Indian Cultural Forum, “T M Krishna has integrity, not only in his artistic practice, but also in his convictions. All of us, whether musicians or writers or film makers, are citizens. We do not produce our work in an apolitical vacuum. We have the right to critique the present government and its extended family of hoodlums. Equally important, all citizens have the right to read our books, watch our films, and listen to our music without trolls as guardians. This is why we say, quite categorically: Sing, Krishna, we want to hear you.”

Ramachandra Guha too has tweeted in support, “When a scholar like myself is stopped from speaking, that is intolerance. When a great musician like T M Krishna is prevented from performing, it is not intolerance, but barbarism.”

T M Krishna talks to the Indian Cultural Forum:

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 
 

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New Delhi: A concert by Carnatic singer T.M. Krishna scheduled for Saturday was postponed by the organizers, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and SPIC MACAY, allegedly after a tweet about the concert was attacked by online trolls who called for its boycott.
 

Krishna had re-tweeted AAI’s invitation on Monday, which triggered a spate of trolls who targeted the government body for sponsoring the concert. The tweets accused AAI of using public funds to sponsor Krishna, who sings about “Jesus and Allah”, is “anti-India”, a “converted bigot” and an “Urban Naxal”.
 
Soon after, the hashtag #DisinviteTMKrishna started doing rounds on Twitter.
 
The trolls also tagged senior functionaries in the government, including Minister of Railways, Coal and Corporate Affairs Piyush Goyal and Minister of Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu.
 
Krishna said he was even given assurances that the concert would go ahead as scheduled but it was cancelled without intimating him. “This is alarming. At least they could’ve come up with a better excuse to cancel my performance,” he told News18.
 
“Music fraternity is very timid and rarely do they take positions that are anti-establishment. I hope it changes culturally. We should be a country of artists who come together in supporting freedom,” he added.
 
AAI Chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra has denied the allegations that suggest the concert was postponed due to the backlash received for inviting Krishna.
 
Krishna’s views on constitutional values like secularism and his attempts widening the reach of Carnatic music concert repertoire by including hymns in praise of Christ and Allah, and poems by writers including Perumal Murugan, have made him a target of right-wing attacks.
 
“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.)” wrote Ramachandra Guha, a historian who was not allowed to teach in an Ahmedabad university due to the same pressure.

 “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,” he said.
 
“Give me a stage anywhere in Delhi on November 17, I will come and sing. We just can’t let ourselves be cowed down by this kind of threats,” TM Krishna said.
 
the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government on Tuesday vowed to hold his event in the national capital. The office of Deputy CM Manish Sisodia has already contacted the singer and is working on a date for the event. CM Arvind Kejriwal also extended an invitation.
 
In August, a Maryland temple had cancelled his concert, allegedly after Hindutva activists accused him of singing Christian hymns. In January this year, a Hindu right-wing group had threatened to disrupt his concert in Tirupur, the textile town in western Tamil Nadu, but it was held under enhanced security.
 

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Image Courtesy: The Week

In March this year, almost immediately after the BJP won the State Assembly elections in Tripura after 25 years of CPI(M) rule, BJP supporters celebrated the victory by toppling a statue of Lenin in Belonia, Tripura. The vandalism was justified on the grounds that Lenin was a “foreign” leader anyway, and therefore irrelevant.  

Since then, it has become clear that this was just the beginning. More cases of statue vandalisms have been reported from various parts of the country. Soon after the vandalism in Belonia, BJP workers also, reportedly, vandalised Periyar’s statue in Vellore. Multiple reports of more statues being disfigured followed. Among these were Dr. Ambedkar’s statues in [give places and links], Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s statue in Uttar Pradesh, and Savitri Bhai Phule’s in Telangana.  

In response, contemporary Tamil poet and writer Perumal Murugan penned down a poem to protest against such vandalisms. T M Krishna, A Carnatic music singer, social activist, and a recipient of the Magsaysay Award, composed the poem. Listen to the song, “Work of Art,”  here: 

“Works of Art” is a song that raises its voice against the recent vandalism of statues across India. These statues represent the collective consciousness of our society. They are also the works of art that need to be treasured.

Tuned in Kalyani Raga and set to Adi Tala, TM Krishna gives musical life to the poetic words of Perumal Murugan.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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