Caste and Classical Music and Sense and Sensibility

This articl by Radhika Rammohan is also my own take on caste and the strengths, and some perversions like untouchabilty. And on the demonisation of caste, often stretched out of context.

"In the pre-trinity era the important composers of Tamil Nadu were Muthu Thandavar,Marimuthu Pillai and Arunachala Kavi, all non-Brahmins. Purandaradasa, considered the 'father' of the art form was from the Vaishya caste. Performers and composers spanning several centuries straddled many classes and at least two castes -- Brahmin and Isai Vellalar. It is well known that Muthuswamy Dikshitar had several non-Brahmin students including the Tanjore quartet and Kamalam, a Devadasi.

Having said this, one could keep in mind that Indian society was caste-based. Most occupations, art-forms, folk traditions, and craft were practiced by specific castes. Every caste perpetuated the traditions they were custodians of, including the tradition of caste itself. Let me hasten to add – this is no attempt to condone inhumane treatment of the so-called lower castes or the crime of untouchability.

Is Carnatic Music Casteist?

September 4, 2015 at 11:00pm

[This article appeared in the August 2015 issue of Sruti Magazine for the Performing arts. The online version is only accessible via subscription]

In January this year I enthusiastically attended the Urur-Olcott kuppam margazhi vizha as a resident of South Chennai, lay-listener of Carnatic music, and a peripheral volunteer of the festival. Changing the context, bringing together people of different backgrounds on the equalizing beach sands, and a sense of inclusivity all appeal to me. I enjoyed the change from the stifling air-conditioned sabha with its Kanchipuram silks, perfumed air, and specific accents, to the simple fishing village playing host to us. Village children proudly showed off their villupaattu and in turn enjoyed a different sound presented by Unnikrishnan. It was a great occasion bringing together fisher folk,the socially-aware urban crowd, beach-walkers and regular concert goers. 

I didn't however, see this vizha as an answer orchallenge to the Brahmin caste's alleged domination of the art. Yes, most performers today are Brahmins, and so are listeners. However is this by design of the Brahmins and are non-Brahmin aspirants feeling hurt and left out? Several articles over the last few months, including some published by reputed Indian and foreign media make out that over the last few decades, the Brahmin elite of Chennai deliberately elbowed out the Nadaswaram community. Many of these articles quote the charismatic vocalist TM Krishna or present his interpretation of history. I admire my friend TM's music and his genuine search for a critical understanding of the relationship between art and society. However, many of the conclusions he draws are flawed.

Let's examine this more in the historical and social-political contexts of this art.

Earlier history

In the pre-trinity era the important composers of Tamil Nadu were Muthu Thandavar,Marimuthu Pillai and Arunachala Kavi, all non-Brahmins. Purandaradasa, considered the 'father' of the art form was from the Vaishya caste. Performers and composers spanning several centuries straddled many classes and at least two castes -- Brahmin and Isai Vellalar. It is well known that Muthuswamy Dikshitar had several non-Brahmin students including the Tanjore quartet and Kamalam, a Devadasi.

Having said this, one could keep in mind that Indian society was caste-based. Most occupations, art-forms, folk traditions, and craft were practiced by specific castes. Every caste perpetuated the traditions they were custodians of, including the tradition of caste itself. Let me hasten to add – this is no attempt to condone inhumane treatment of the so-called lower castes or the crime of untouchability.

Late 19^thand early 20^th Century Tanjavur

My great-grandfather, Soolamangalam Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar (1866 to1943) was a respected Brahmin Harikatha Bhagavatar and a towering musical personality of his era. He wrote a series of articles for the Kalki magazine – now also published as a book in English titled Cameos [1] -- chronicling noteworthy artists he hadpersonally witnessed. Many of the artists he wrote about, in much admiring tones, were non-Brahmins (Pillais). A great deal of cooperation and mutual respect between these castes is evidenced from this book, an authoritative narrative on the musical mileu of that time. Incidentally, my great-grandfather had two major rivals inconducting the aradhana for Thyagaraja in Tiruvayyaru: one was Bangalore Nagaratnammal, a Devadasi. The other was a group predominantly of vidwans belonging to the Nadaswaram caste. While he had his differences with them, he also had artistic and personal respect for them.

The 20^thCentury

Nadaswaram players and Devadasis of the Isai Vellalar caste were traditional custodians of the arts and had important roles in temple rituals. During the British era, Devadasis were stigmatized as being 'nautch girls',mainly due to Victorian morals and social reformers, and not due to Brahmins. Hurdles placed on their patronage by temples unfortunately caused great harm to their livelihoods, and their numbers as serious performers to dwindle.

Continuing over the last century, instances of shishya-paramparas across the two castes were not rare at all. Well known exampes of this are: TN Rajaratnam Pillai learned vocal music from Tirukodikaval Krishna Aiyar and Konerirajapuram Vaidyanatha Aiyar, leading Brahmin musicians. In the other direction, P.S. Narayanaswamy, today considered one of the go-to Gurus for aspiring performers, himself received his training from Tiruppambaram Somasundaram Pillai. Several Brahmin men and women who were leading performers learned from women of the Dhanammal family. More recently, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, a popular young vocalist learned from nadaswaram vidwan Sempannarkoil Vaidyanathan. 

The Chennai sabhascene

Members of the Brahmin and other privileged classes who were lawyers or bureaucrats in the British government of Chennai around one hundred years ago, founded an alternative to the dying feudal and royal patronage of the arts -- the membership-based sabha.

Sumana Ramanan in [2] says:

"The Brahmin elite ... did not integrate nadaswaram players into the kutcheri framework, leaving them to find their own way as performers during religious rituals."

Nadaswaram has always been an instrument used for temple rituals, processions, weddings and the like. Even in the era of outdoor pandals, it was not typically played seated on the concert stage – a status famously and successfully challenged by the yesteryear genius TN Rajaratnam Pillai. The changing context from outdoor venues to closed halls further reduced the instrument's use in concerts. Keeping in mind the mutually respectful relationships between these groups, the claim that it was the Brahmin elite who did not give a place in kutcheries to the Nadaswaram is misinformed and misleadingly gives a caste-slant to these events.

One should further note that it was a time of many other changes and adaptations. For instance, singers had to change their voice culture to suit concert halls, and the format of concerts themselves changed. Harikatha, an art form which held sway in an era that was strongly influenced by the Bhakti-infused spirit of the Carnatic trinity gradually lost its importance in the changing times.

Despite the diminishing number of Isai Vellalar musicians on the performing stage, 18 out of 84 (a sixth) Sangeetha Kalanidhi titles given out by the Music Academy have been to non-Brahmins. While this is not a big proportion, it's not insignificant either.

As in many other fields, being born into privilege -- of caste, economic, or social is an advantage. We would do well to recognize and work on our biases, and on being more inclusive. But Brahmins could stop flagellating themselves for they don't conspire to be the majority in the world of Carnatic music. There are many other dimensions to the absence of non-Brahmins on stage and in the audience.

Socio-political context in Tamil Nadu

The participation of castes other than these two in the art-form needs to be examined as well. The music of theater of the previous era had its basis in carnatic ragas. A minority of non-Brahmin musicians of other castes performed in drama troupes. In the twentieth century these musicians naturally migrated to cinema acting and singing. They were often trained by concert-performing carnatic musicians, both Brahmin and Isai Vellalar. Prominent examples are M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavatar from a goldsmith family, T.M. Soundararajan from a weaver family and K.B. Sundarambal, a talented young girl spotted singing for alms on a train.

Carnatic music and religious themes were the bases for drama and cinema. Later influences changing that included the atheistic politics of the Dravidian movement.

Non-brahmins from the states of Kerala, Karnataka and AP have done very well in the art form. KJ Yesudas, Mysore Manjunath & Nagaraj, M. Balamuralikrishna are leading performers from various non-Brahmin (and non Isai Vellalar) castes. What happened in Tamil Nadu? Where are the MKTs, KBS's and TMS's of a later period?

Though all castes perpetuated the caste system through history, Dravidian politics in Tamil nadu has led to a simple polarization of caste as Brahmin versus other! It has had the bad consequence of labeling the art form a Brahmin one and alienating entire groups of people from it. Papanasam Sivan (1890-1973) a composer in the Tamil language was also a leading film-music composer in an earlier era. The performers and listeners were non-Brahmins. Yet today, that same music would be considered Brahminical.

The Dravidian parties could have ensured that basic education in classical music be included in government schools, so that appreciation, listening and learning is more widespread. They could have offered grants and financial support to indigent temple musicians, scholarships for the training of talented children of poor economic means, and so on. In fact efforts of several musicians to develop and introduce an accessible school curriculum have not been implemented by various TN governments [4]. In the process, leaders like Karunanidhi and MGR remained closet rasikas of Carnatic music while denying access to their own and the State's cultural heritage to the wider population.

The role of religion

Art grapples with the dilemmas and struggles of the human condition. Composers are inspired by the symbolism and evocative power of mythology. Every character in the Mahabharata is a symbol for a heroic internal journey. The divine charioteer, the battlefield, the bow -- all evoke deep questions and give a context to develop the melodic and rhythmic frameworks to greater sophistication. The art-form does not dictate that the theme has to be religious. Musicians are welcome to explore other themes, or pure sound for its own sake, and inspire or evoke what it does in the listener. Whether this is successful depends onwhat happens! 

A lot of western classical music of an earlier era thus similarly drew on the supremely evocative crucifixion of Christ as its theme. JS Bach lived and breathed the word of God through his music. To the secular western musicians of today, the Masses and Passions remain an important body of classical music, not of 'religious' but of artistic importance. In spite of their own agnosticism or atheism, they approach Bach with the reverence he deserves, and acknowledge his work as deeply religious at its core.

Folk traditions examine human dilemmas too, and many of them are also based on mythology. The audience was broader, because the art is more accessible in the sense of using simpler frameworks bethey of melody, rhythm or visual code, but still evoking these questions in the mind of the audience. 

Carnatic music is elitist

T.M. Krishna is quoted in [3]:

“’Classical’ as used in common parlance is purely a social hierarchical construction with no relation to the idea of ‘art aesthetics,’.”

Across the domains of visual, movement, musical and literary art, the distinctions between such idioms labeled “serious”, “classical”, and “popular”,“folk”, remain so not simply because of social hierarchies. The tag “exclusive” is statistical; less people engaging in something doesn't make them somehow better (notwithstanding their own snobbery!) -- which implied superiority then has to be resisted! 

If the Music Academy doesn't wish to include Parai-attam, it is no different from the literary forum which excludes pulp fiction, or the Opera house which excludes the Beatles. I enjoy the Beatles, Parai-attam and T.M.Krishna's Jambupathe equally. But these don't evoke the same feelings in me. All are my feelings, all are valued by me.

Life is rich because of the diversity in its contexts and art forms. I greatly value and struggle for equivalence and wish for all art forms their duespace to grow. Equality on the other hand, is a flawed notion.

- Radhika Rammohan