CHENNAI: Three days after Carnatic musician T M Krishna was awarded the Sangita Kalanidhi by the Music Academy here, Carnatic vocalists Ranjani and Gayatri and Harikatha exponent Dushyanth Sridhar said they won’t perform at the academy’s upcoming music festival in protest.
Ranjani and Gayathri said they will neither perform on Dec 25 as per schedule nor participate in the conference, which will be held between Dec 15 and Jan 1. Dushyanth Sridhar, meanwhile, who has rendered Harikatha at the academy on Jan 1 every year since 2017, said he would not perform on Jan 1, 2025.
“We’ve made this decision as the conference will be presided over by T M Krishna,” Ranjani and Gayatri said in their social media posts. “We won’t go anywhere if he is there. We are boycotting the entire season at the academy,” Rajani said. The academy, she said, has not been considerate of the feelings of artists and rasikas.
“We believe in a value system that respects art and artists, vaggeyakaras, rasikas, institutions, our roots and culture. We would be in moral violation if we were to bury these values and join this year’s conference,” the sisters’ post stated. Krishna “has caused immense damage to the Carnatic music world, wilfully and happily stomped over the sentiments of this community and insulted the most respected icons like Tyagaraja and M S Subbulakshmi,” it added.
Krishna’s actions have tried to spread a sense of shame in being a Carnatic musician, vilified the fraternity, and have been exhibited through his consistent denigration of spirituality in music, the sisters claimed. They also said it would be dangerous to overlook his glorification of Periyar, who “proposed genocide of Brahmins”, “abused women of the community” and “worked to normalise filthy language in social discourse”.
In a letter to Music Academy president N Murali — a copy of which was posted on social media — Dushyanth Sridhar said he had a “sea of ideological differences” with Sangita Kalanidhi designate of 2024. “I have no authority to question the selection of his name for the award. I am pained by many of his public statements on Dharma, Ayodhya, Sri Rama, and more,” he said, adding it would be disrespectful to the values of life and teachings of Bhagavat Ramanuja, Vedanta Desika, and Kanchi Paramacharya to perform immediately after the award ceremony.
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