“Do Stalin and Veeramani know the Music Academy they’re supporting now was against singing in Tamil?”, Swarajyamag, March 26, 2024:
“Whoever is advising Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin in the recent controversy surrounding the awarding of the Sangita Kalanidhi award to T M Krishna by the Music Academy surely has no sense of history. First of all, it is an issue that is within the fraternity of Carnatic musicians. It is, at core, a matter involving difference of opinions and ideas, and not of any financial impropriety or any other type of legal misdemeanour.
The man at the thick of it all, Krishna himself, has not opened his mouth till the moment of writing on the whole shenanigans. So, for a state Chief Minister to plunge into the volley of exchanges involving a private institution is a case of misplaced priorities. And if Stalin, or for that matter Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) chief K Veeramani who has also weighed in on the subject, had known adequately about the Music Academy’s chequered past, they would have actually chosen to stay out of this.
For, the Music Academy had once campaigned vehemently against the singing of Tamil songs in Carnatic music concerts. And the man who spearheaded this anti-Tamil song movement was one of the founders of the academy and the granduncle of Krishna, T T Krishnmachari. And the person who lent the Tamil Isai movement a lot of impetus and credibility was none other than M S Subbulakshmi.
As irony would have it, the venerable icon was savaged by a personal attack piece (masquerading as an intellectual assessment of her music) by Krishna — it has become one of the bones of contention. It has been raised by top singers Ranjani and Gayatri in their protest against the academy conferring the award on Krishna……”
Read the full article at Swarajyamag.com
