‘Threat’ from an artiste

Inconsistent with the dominant political mood in the country, Carnatic vocalist TM Krishna had, at Kumaon Literary Festival, 2016, dared to refer to the ‘climate of fear’. ‘We are living in times where everybody is scared… Ideology is a market. When one says you have a majoritarian ideology, it is creating a majoritarian market space.’ Freedom of expression was an act of sharing, he asserted, and a natural way of life for an individual. In another time, he would have been applauded. Now, he is a potential troublemaker — an ‘urban Naxal’, a ‘converted bigot’.

And so, in the new normal, he must be stopped. Cancelling his concert was one way. His performance to be held in the National Capital was scrapped by SPIC MACAY and the Airports Authority of India (sponsors) following a troll campaign. Later, in a coverup, the event was deemed ‘postponed’, not cancelled. The AAP government hurriedly stepped in, and rightly, by inviting him for a concert on November 17, saying an artiste’s dignity must be upheld. Krishna is among the finest proponents of the 600-year-old Carnatic music tradition and credited with taking it forward. An economics graduate, he won the Magsaysay award for bringing ‘social inclusiveness in culture’ and also Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration in 2015. But he is more, and therein lies the rub — an outspoken activist on diverse issues: women’s rights, egalitarian spaces for music, caste barriers, the dangers of narrow nationalism. Understandably, he is the target of hate trolls for his anti-establishment views and his unflattering take on Hindutva. The cancellation doesn’t surprise.

He had, in the past, spoken of the need to change the semantics of the freedom of expression to preserve the ‘process of intellection’. Not to be cowed in the face of threats on social media for his compositions on Jesus, a defiant Krishna had recently tweeted: ‘I will be releasing one Karnatik song every month on Jesus or Allah.’ It speaks of reckless times, when a 42-year-old artiste is perceived as a threat for talking sense. His concert is on; what is not is extreme intolerance.