Chinmayi Sripada defends TM Krishna amid criticism: ‘He wants to dismantle casteism in Carnatic music’

Thodur Madabusi Krishna, also popularly known as T M Krishna has had many achievements in the art and music industry. He dons many hats including being a vocalist, writer, activist and author. An announcement by Madras Music Academy to honour the artist with Sangita Kalanidhi award invited backlash from many singers. However, Indian playback singer Chinmayi Sripada came in support of the vocalist and called out Carnatic musicians ganging up against him in a social media post. (Also read: Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin backs TM Krishna on award: Don't mix politics and music)

Chinmay Sripada says TM Krishna is against casteism in Carnatic music

Chinmayi, when asked about the same in an interview with The Wire said, “They (Carnatic musicians) are just mixing up their personal problems and their personal dislike for the gentleman because he is asking them to dismantle the general casteism that is associated with Carnatic music.”

“They want to be the gatekeepers of it and they want to say that only a certain caste and a community that is the Brahmin community should be ideally practising the [Carnatic] music. And it’s not that the Brahmin community has always been practising the craft. They themselves have basically hijacked it from the Devdasi community and they started gatekeeping it saying that nobody else except us, who have any devotion and bhakti can perform this. Therefore, the way of teaching and imparting [music] education [itself] has so many hurdles.”

“So, here T.M. Krishna has been one of the people who has been very vocal about the Tam Bram [Tamil Brahmin] community and dismantling caste and calling out the casteism and the way of treating the accompanying artists and the sub-human behaviour [meted out] to artists from other communities. He has been doing this for a few years.”

Chinmayi also called out the Carnatic musicians for being silent on MeToo allegations and often victim-shaming in such cases.

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