The Madras Music Academy’s (MMA) invitation to its c. 1500 members has just been sent out to them today.
I am a long-time member and I had mixed feelings swirling through my mind as I read the invite card.
I was mystified by the presidential choice that MMA has made. To me it seems truly as inappropriate as its choice of the artiste chosen by it to be bestowed its prestigious annual award of “Sangitha Kalanidhi”. But then by way of self-explication, I told myself that the MMA’s choice can’t be any more or less bizarre than the choice that America (now “made great again”!) has made of its own President only a couple of weeks ago.
Birds of a feather do always flock together…. If TM Krishna is the Donald Trump of the Carnatic Music world, it’s possible for me to imagine Prof. David Schulman being to him what Elon Musk is now to the new POTUS.
I wouldn’t be alluding at all to American politics but for the fact that it is also so utterly riddled by the ubiquitous Israeli lobby operating there.
Prof. David Shulman is a Jew who however champions the Palestine cause in West Asia , and I guess, in pretty much the same way as our own hero, T M Krishna supports the EVR cause with passion and elan in Tamil Nadu.
Many scholars and academicians in India — and even Tamil Nadu — have great respect for Prof. Schulman and his work. As for me I haven’t had the privilege of reading his books. (I might try now!) and what little I know about him is what I’ve read about him on his Wikipedia page. https://search.app/sHFhLEE9MMwWmHBw5
“David Shulman is a good Tamil scholar who has called off many of the bluffs by Dravidinists like George Hart, John Marr and others”, a noted Tamil scholar and novelist told me. “He has written extensively on even our temples and stala Puranas”.
More interestingly, I was also told this :
“David has extensively written about Divya Prabhandham and Thevaram Pann”.
Now, that truly got me really flummoxed …. Just as it had mystified too another good Rasika-friend of mine who posed a very pertinent question: “If David Schulman has written about Prabandam then he should not have accepted the invite from MMA/TMK. Any genuine author who has written about Stala puranangal,Prabhandam will not go near anywhere TMK.”
That left me wondering if on stage in the MMA on the day of the Festival Inauguration , would Schulman and T M Krishna compare with each other in hushed tones their respective scripted speeches? What would each have to say about the Bhakti tradition being the soul of Carnatic music ? Would they agree to disagree ?!
Since I’ve not read Schulman’s books, I’ve nothing to say much about his thinking, treatises and ideals . I have really nothing for or against Schulman …
What however I’m a little indignant about is why the MMA has chosen a “political activist” … to preside over the Sadas of the MMA in 2024? What has Carnatic music got to do with Palestine-Jew conflict?
It is my surmise therefore that the choice was based on the avian principle of “birds of a feather would flock together” and so then, what better stage in the world of Carnatic Music to do it from than at a festival of mutual admiration and self-promotion which is what this year’s MMA gala affair is all about ?
We have all seen how over the last decade and a half, TM Krishna has succeeded spectacularly in hyphenating Carnatic Music with the Aryan/Brahmin-Dravidian conflict . Are we now also going to see Carnatic music getting hyphenated with the Jewry-Palestinian conflict… thanks to the MMA and TMK? Is this now going to be the first step taken by the Research wing of the MMA to inaugurate a new branch of study into Carnatic Music and its neo-Indological connection with the Palestinian issue (a subject to be revisited maybe in one of the LecDems next year in 2025?).
Some MMA members do not readily agree with the grim tone and pessimistic tenor of my musings. One of them told me candidly :
“I am not concerned about Music Academy inviting whomsoever it wishes. And also neither am I concerned whether there could be an ulterior motive. But I just wanted to tell you David’s credentials in regard to Tamil and music are impeccable .”
No issues there, sir … none whatsoever.
But my issue is not so much about Schulman as it is about the MMA polluting the atmosphere of the institution of which it has been a custodian for nearly a century now. As if honouring TM Krishna with Sangitha Kalanidhi Award wasn’t a bad enough toxic stink raised in the murky context of anti-Brahmin, anti-Hindu dynamics of Tamil Nadu politics, now inviting Schulman to preside over the annual event, in my view, only suggests the unwarranted embroilment of the MMA, albeit only in the fringes, with Israeli- Palestinian international politics .
The world of Carnatic music is a world of cultural simpletons — it is filled with simple minded , art-loving people who are happy going about their business quietly in life . Why is the MMA trying to pollute and despoil our small, private and pristine little world (with its fragile, emasculated TamBrahm eco-system) by dragging the likes of TM Krishna and Sculman into it and giving them so much prominent space and opportunity to sort of weaponise this ancient and gentle art-form, while trying to turn it into a statement made to drive home a political or social agenda? This specialised classical art form, after all, never bore any malice to anyone and has always been charitable to all… Why pollute it?
As a Carnatic music rasika myself, I ask, what do I really have to do with politics and racism and the blood feuds of the Semitic peoples? What does it have to do with my enjoyment of a kriti of Sri Thyagaraja, Syama Sastri or Muthuswami Deekshitar?
There was another tidbit news I’ve heard floating about in the academic grapevine in Tamil Nadu: Prof . David Schulman is an academic Indologist who is not really that much “in the good books of Dravidian Tamil scholars”….
So, why then has he been invited to preside over an event of the MMA which, in recent years, has been known to have many invisible connections … at many different levels of engagement with the Dravidian-Periyar-DK-DMK ideological establishment?
TM Krishna must be congratulated indeed for the way he has bamboozled everybody in the world of Carnatic music, the Hindu religious community, the societal order and the Indian academia … and now , the MMA too !
His music has won him a Magasaysay Award. He has been patronised by Nobel Laureates and ex-Governors … He has shared platforms with politicians and cinema-stars. And now he’s going to be feted by Prof. David Schulman too … international scholar, Indologist and peacenik!
As another senior Sangitha vidwan observed to me : TM Krishna and Music Academy are made for each other —- They are both so versatile and adroit in being able to “sing Andal’s “Tiruppavai” in the morning to satisfy our Mylapore /Triplicane mamas and maamis and then also sing “Allahu Akbar” in the mosque or “Hallelujah” in the Church in the evenings” … with an RTP sung in praise of Thanthai Periyar… all in the name of enriching the traditions of both Carnatic Music and Indian pluralistic Secularism !
I can only say “Cheers” to that!
God save the MMA and the tradition of Carnatic Music !!
Sudarshan Madabushi