T M Krishna Finally Responds In The Sangita Kalanidhi Case, But It Rings Hollow

T M Krishna (TMK) comes across as a person who is never lost for words. The articulate activist and singer, however, chose to go into quiet mode in the Sangita Kalanidhi case, in which he was made one of the respondents.

Krishna, who talks nineteen to the dozen on most subjects, hardly spoke on the controversial bestowment of the Sangita Kalanidhi award, which also carries a cash award in the name of the music legend M S Subbulakshmi.

As TMK is deemed to have besmirched her legacy with his provocative contrarian opinion piece on her in a magazine, the late singer's family, led by her grandson V Shrinivasan, strongly protested the Music Academy's award to him this year.

While the Carnatic music community, led by the leading singing duo Ranjani and Gayathri, voiced vociferous dissent against TMK being chosen for the award, Shrinivasan went one step further by moving the Madras High Court, seeking to stop the Music Academy from conferring the award on the maverick singer.

Shrinivasan filed the first formal affidavit in the case in court in April 2024, and The Music Academy, The Hindu media group (which had instituted the cash award in MS' name), and TMK were named as respondents.

In the ongoing hearings, the Academy and The Hindu formally responded (and Shrinivasan also filed a counter affidavit as a rejoinder to their replies).

After remaining silent for months, TMK finally chose to respond to Shrinivasan’s affidavit in court.

And on the face of it, TMK’s rejoinder sounds hollow and unconvincing, as he belabours to say that he has admiration and affection for MS.

In his rejoinder, he has thrown up a bunch of articles credited to his name, where he has spoken in praise of MS. His rejoinder also spends time on himself and how he is a well-known singer and a personality known for social causes.

TMK’s Allegation Against MS’ Family

Shrinivasan’s protestations are based on TMK’s most, and widely circulated, infamous article in which TMK went hammer and tongs against the late singer.

To this specific point, Krishna doesn’t offer anything substantive, and he merely deadbats it. “Ultimately, the article,” Krishna says in his affidavit, “is my assessment of MS’ career. It is not a piece of writing that is meant to be judged on the Applicant's terms. Indeed, it speaks for itself, and every reader is free to take from it what one wants to. But to claim as the Applicant herein has—by selectively quoting from it, and by quoting what I have attributed to others as my own statement constitutes nothing but a blatant falsehood and an attempt to mislead this Hon'ble Court.”

But what TMK fails to acknowledge is that it is not Shrinivasan alone who felt bad about his (TMK's) scathing piece on MS. A large cross-section of the Carnatic music community collectively felt that TMK had done a ‘hatchet job’ on the Indian music icon.

The article in question was a difficult pill to swallow for many. But at the end of the day, it was his opinion, and he was entitled to it, however flawed it may seem to others.

However, when the family of the great singer — India's Bharat Ratna, no less — took exception to that piece, basic civility demanded that he take a step back and not make it about himself.

Shrinivasan, in his affidavit, has said as much: “Krishna should either have the courage or conviction to say that he sticks to the vituperative comments made by him against Late MS Subbulakshmi and since according to him, she is not a great singer of merit on her own, he should decline to accept an award instituted in her name. Instead, he resorts to unpardonable hypocrisy in abusing her name on social media, and then accepting an award in her name.”

Much before the case broke out, it was no secret in Carnatic circles that MS' family felt deeply pained by TMK's article, and her daughter Radha, in fact, felt especially aggrieved by it. But as the family is known for their polite and discreet ways, they did not make any loud outward noises.

TMK, however, chose to ride roughshod over others' essential niceness. But then again, that's his prerogative. And now he is sticking to his guns by hiding behind semantics and legal nooks.

Krishna, in his rejoinder, has alleged that Shrinivasan lacks the locus standi to fight this case. And in saying that, he seems to be tangoing in tandem with The Hindu and the Music Academy, both of whom have thrown the same charge at him.

But they chose to do it in a manner that was despicable.

Music Academy’s Mean Shot

The Hindu and the Music Academy want Shrinivasan to 'prove' he is indeed the grandson of the singer. This is a cheap and below-the-belt attack on him, who, for the record, is not the biological grandson of MS.

But the equation between MS and Radha Vishwanathan, the biological mother of Shrinivasan and also the daughter of MS' husband, Sadasivam, through his first marriage (the first wife, Apithakuchambal, passed away in 1938, and he married MS in 1940), was sacredly mom and daughter’s.

MS did not beget any children of her, but the whole world knew that she treated the two daughters of Sadasivam from his first marriage, Radha and Vijaya, as her own.

Though Vijaya was close to MS and had accompanied her on stage on occasion, it was Radha who was practically her shadow on public platforms for over five decades, singing alongside her in all her legendary concerts and recordings, including the iconic Venkateswara Suprabatham and Vishnu Sahasranamam.

"My world was my MS Amma to me, she guided me not just in music, she was the light to my path of life," Radha famously said of her MS Amma. 

But by now insinuating that Shrinivasan has to formally prove he is the grandson of MS is to vulgarise the mother-daughter relationship of MS and Radha.

(For the record, The Hindu, which is now casting aspersions on Shrinivasan, headlined an article on the death of Radha in January 2018, thus: 'Radha Vishwanathan, daughter of M.S. Subbulakshmi, dies at 83'. Is what it put out in the headline wrong?)

On the one hand, Krishna’s article has been deemed vile by MS’ family and many others, and on the other, the Academy and The Hindu are throwing the family members under the bus by fundamentally questioning their very connection.

Surely, they don’t seem to care for her legacy, do they?