In tune with freedom

Book review of The Spirit of Enquiry: Notes of Dissent

Why does T M Krishna have to write? Being a trained classical singer, this is a question he is often asked. Why does he not stick to singing, pleasing listeners and receiving applause? Like for most, writing came to him perchance, in the form of an angered retort to a columnist’s sweeping claim.

If it had not been written, the world may not have read T M Krishna. The commentator, who provoked a letter to the editor, was judgemental. Musicians these days, he contended, were unlike past maestros, in terms of modesty and humility — the current crop of musicians were “star-like” and made themselves inaccessible while living a life of luxury. Yet, immersed in the world of music, the author did not see that “writing would become as central as singing”. That happened later, when he began looking at everything he saw, music included, and understood the interconnections.

The book is a self-curated collection of essays Mr Krishna wrote for newspapers, magazines and websites. These are an assortment of responses to various events and developments in recent years, mostly after 2016, although in an interview after the book was published, he said it is not true that issues that provoked his columns had not arisen before 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. These articles are culled from responses following that watershed election, when Mr Krishna felt that the need for questioning had become more acute. Make no mistake, this book is as political as it can get without siding with any particular force, except those who believe in democracy, freedom of expression and personal liberty. The title emerges from the author's belief that under the current political regime, questioning has been trivialised and questioners vilified.

In his introduction to one of the five themes on which Mr Krishna compiled 50-odd published columns, this one on Art and Artistes, the author confesses that asking questions and reflecting on issues “are not our strong suit.” The laziness suits the regime because it clutters the mind with trivia. For Mr Krishna, there is need to pose “unspoken questions that may challenge our own identity”. In this way, these essays turn the spotlight on the blind spots. For instance, in the essay on the “Art of solitude” in which he revisits Albert Camus’ “courage and plain-speaking”, Mr Krishna mentions the strange coincidence of the execution of the four men convicted in the Nirbhaya rape case with India entering the era of lockdowns becoming a regular normal. The essay is as much about personal isolation as about questioning the death penalty, because “law must not be revenge or retaliation.”

The Spirit of Enquiry: Notes of Dissent

Author: T M Krishna

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 344; Price: Rs 599

Mr Krishna has an activists’ way of making each one confront personal decisions of not speaking out. In the January 2015 essay on the intelligentsia “failing” Perumal Murugan, the author argues for the need to stand with those targeted, and “online campaigns will not do.” Each one has to walk the talk for the circle of those laying siege of the mind are not stray individuals but those of a certain mould. He echoes sentiments once conveyed evocatively by the anti-Nazi German Theologian, Martin Niemöller that the voice must be raised against the assault of the first one targeted, otherwise it will be too late and there will no one left to speak for you.

Written last year against the backdrop of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse against the Hindustani classical maestros, the Gundecha brothers, the author asks for an overhaul of the  guru-shishya  tradition. Mr Krishna is categorical in his contentious claim that the world of Hindustani music, “compared to its southern cousin” is more entrenched in “patriarchal and medieval mindsets”. He fearlessly drops names when speaking about the silence that prevails after allegations are levelled. Acknowledging the advantages of an informal system of learning, outside the school-college structures, he nevertheless argues that it is often misused by teachers and it is time to reinvent the teacher-pupil relationship currently based on the deity-devotee model.

In August 2020, in the essay after the prime minister performed bhoomi pujan at Ayodhya, Mr Krishna asked a vital question: Why has the entire exercise been reduced to looking for Rama in a temple, or in the “other’s humiliation”? For him as for innumerable others Rama, who has always been part of their lives, was not to be found that day in the temple-town. After almost four decades of strife when the first lot of devotees enter the sanctum sanctorum of the “resplendent” temple in late 2023, obviously they will be the chosen ones. Will they find a different Rama from the one that has been part of their sub-conscious?

These essays were contemporary comments but remain valid because of the nature of the catalytic “events”.

Mr Krishna confesses that discourses like these are merely part of a passage — others, possibly he too, will likely carry the baton. The volume is vibrant and reading this is as invigorating as the pleasure of listening to Mr Krishna. He must continue writing.

The writer is a NCR-based author and journalist. His books include The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. @NilanjanUdwin