 Today we are very fortunate to have TM Krishna, the perhaps most important Karnataka vocalist of his generation. He is the author of Sebastian and Sons, a very important book about the Dalit Christian craftsmen who make instruments. He has recently written a very cheeky essay in the Indian Express called, Unequal Spaces Hidden Power, which the Indian Express decided on their website to call, Being Left is about recognizing and grappling with various kinds of marginalization. TM Krishna, welcome to NewsClick. Thank you, thank you for having me. Well, last year, which seems, I think, eons ago, you did something quite interesting. You went to Shaheen Bagh in Delhi and you sang Faiz Ahmed Faiz's, Hamdekhenge in Malayalam, in Kannada, in Tamil and in Urdu. Tell us why you did that and how it felt to do it. Well, I mean, you know, at that point of time, the song itself had, you know, gathered a lot of importance because of how it is being interpreted. And it was being used as a point of attack on a community, on the Islamic community. And also, not seeing what Faiz Ahmed Faiz's context was and what he was actually saying through that and when it was written, etc., etc. And there were multiple versions of the song being rendered. Over a week, I noticed there was a Kannada version. There was a Tamil version. There was a Malayalam version. And when I was asked to come to Shaheen Bagh and also Shaheen Bagh, we have to keep reminding ourselves what are the most important moments in recent past in democratic India. And it's not gone away anywhere because of corona. Let's say that again and again and again. Shaheen Bagh is there in all our hearts and it will remain and will find spaces again. So when I went there, I mean, I think an important thing about poetry and song is that it's not limited by anything. In fact, it's not even limited by the author. It's not limited by the thoughts of the author. That's the beauty of art and craft and literature. That the author, after a point, is actually incidental to how that creative object or literature becomes part of lives, of ideas, of interpretations, beyond time. And the fact that the song was being written in different languages, and let's remember that when it's written in another language, it's another song in a way. It has a different spirit. It has a different sound. So fires is being rediscovered beyond what fires himself thought. The song is becoming much more than the context of fires. And the song literally now belongs to 2020. And I thought the magic of that is also in the multiplicity of sounds and languages that it offers in being sung in Kannada, Malayalam, Urudu, etc. Which is why I just thought of that idea of saying each verse in a different language, in a different, shall we say, register, yet coming together to say something that is so important for today's political context, that we all need to have difficult conversations. We all need to listen to those people who are not being heard. And it's very important that people with any kind of privilege or power need to support these voices, these environments, these spaces. And I felt the best place to try that out was Shahin Bah. Couldn't have been a better place. But the song is very powerful written in 1979 by Faiz against the dictatorship. Exactly. Yikhinge means, you know, we will see it's an act of defiance. In the essay you wrote on Sadguru and his claim that his commune is a communist paradise, you write something that's actually very important to consider. And it's not just about his commune or the Isha Yoga Center, but I hazard, you have all of India in mind when you wrote the sentence. The sentence is, institutions that create mindless followers who do not challenge the power structure controlling them cannot claim equality. Here you have India, we have a superb constitution, you know, we have something that we can be proud of. And yet it seems like we've entered a phase where mindless following is supposed to be the ethos of our politics. I mean the constitution is only as good as the people who are actually enabling its functionality. It's only as good as that, otherwise it's just words on a piece of paper. And, you know, we know it, our past history also tells us we know it, whether it is the state or whether it's the center. We have seen the worst things happen in a country that speaks about equality, about justice, about fraternity, about socialism, about care, about empathy. So therefore our present context is exactly, it's a hard context. We are now in a kind of mental state as a country where we believe that challenging any power, especially the political power in the country. Is an act which is undemocratic. I mean there can't be greater irony than that. That democracy today is about listening to one man's voice. It's about getting onto your balcony and hitting your plates because Mr. Modi said, hit your plates. I mean, I mean it is shocking that we've become so down to put it very bluntly, you know. I'm just not thinking about what we are acting. What does solidarity mean? You know, people say, but what does solidarity mean? What do you mean you're in solidarity with the people who are working on the streets? I will tell you what is solidarity. When they come to pick up your baggage, don't treat them like they are some, you know, untouchables. That's solidarity. Solidarity isn't the act that we enable ourselves to do individually and collectively in these communities. In the way we want to stay with the healthcare professionals or those civic people. It is not in banging plates. And how many people have balconies banging plates? I mean, we've been working with migrant workers. They don't have food to put on a plate. Who are we kidding? And the fact that a large part of the middle class India, and I must say beyond that too, which is also true, have somehow gotten to this, this tamasha. You know, it's almost some way, Vijay, that we all seem to be part of some kind of an opera or a play. And you know, and we're all just playing parts as directed by a party or an individual. And that we, you know, we should not think it's like, I mean, almost like an army in some ways where you say the army band should not think what is happening to us. And this is not about your political position. It is about your integrity as a citizen, your integrity as a collective. I mean, it is, it's about the basic things that make India India. And somehow we are convinced that just listening to honestly mumbo jumbo and irrational speeches by one individual is going to solve our problems because we have to just trust the person. How ridiculous is it? Yes, it is ridiculous, but it's also real. And that's terrifying. Babasaheb Ambedkar, in the last 10 years of his life, reflecting on this new democracy in India, wrote on many different occasions and with great feeling that you can't make a democracy, at least a liberal democracy in India, unless you uproot the caste system. The caste hierarchies were going to undermine democratic institutions. He warned that this was going to happen. Do you feel that this is indeed part of this sort of, you know, hallucination toward the Lord above? Look, there's no doubt the caste framework through which everything in our society operates. Our feudal sense is through the caste system. And we have never truthfully addressed it culturally and socially. And I want to bring that point up here. There is no, you know, we have to think of such frameworks, social discriminated frameworks as cultural beings. It's not just about access to education or access to public health, health care, etc. It is about transforming certain cultural fabrics that we consider part of our culture, which fundamentally are inhuman, discriminative and very, very subversive of freedom, of democratic ethos itself. And I don't think we have really addressed this in this country. That's the truth. And Amit Kuru is right that unless we address that fundamental thing, we are never going to go past. This cuts across every goddamn religion and every atheist, let me say that too. So, you know, it's not got to do with any religion right now or any believer that this is ingrained in the way we behave. It is ingrained and, you know, the oppressiveness, the acceptance of oppression as normalized as that's how it is. This whole really ugly mechanism is holding us back. In fact, that's the reason we don't understand rights. We don't understand democracy. We don't understand sharing. We only understand feudal help. We understand favors, which is why political parties behave like they are doing us a favor if they're doing their job, which is why babus behave like they're doing us a favor. All this is part of caste thinking that none of this is a right of equality, right of every citizen. Therefore, unless we very robustly address this culturally within our societal frameworks, within conversations and create a way by which we don't just talk about it, but we actually act upon it. And I think the government also has a role in this, you know, has a very important role in this. And, you know, as much as every government of India has talked about cultural diversity in India, they care a damn about it. They really care a damn about it. It's something that is to be put up in some ICCR festival somewhere where art forms are shown and flaunted. But actually we don't care about our culture because if we care about our culture, it means we have to ask difficult questions of our culture, which means we have to push citizens to uncomfortable positions. Therefore, we are very happy to not talking about culture in serious ways. Just saying we have nice music and dance, different cuisines, different ways of wearing a saree and feeling very proud that we are a Europe in one country. Come on. It's honestly, we have done this service to the democracy that we got. You know, in 2016, you were honored with the Maksase Award. And when they gave you the award, they said that part of it was for your advocacy towards breaking barriers of caste and class and so on. You know, one always feels that political change is easy to do, elect a new government, overthrow a government, so on. Economic change is pretty easy to do. You know, you can change economic policy, you have a different attitude towards money and so on. Even social change is easy to do. You know, you can create health, childcare systems that freeze women up and so on. Cultural change is so difficult. It seems the most difficult, enduring thing. You know, the Maksase Award says that you are an advocate for cultural change. Give us a little sense of what this really means. I mean, honestly, you hit the nail on the head. You know, cultural transformation both at the individual and at societal level between even small groups is a humongous task. You know, it can't be proven by data. That's the other challenge. You can't say, I changed 15 people because of what one person got. You know, you just can't do that. You know, with everything else, you know, we want to quantify everything in life, right? This is one change that you can't. It's probably only after two generations will a realization of change even happen. So what do we primarily do through activism? Through what were I right to through the events that we do or the conversations that we have is to try and find a way by which we can disturb the status quo situations of the concerned parties, including ourselves. Okay, which means putting us up for experiences for questions that we are not used to a very important part of cultural change is discomfort is putting society in spaces where they are not used to be sometimes even physically. For example, just going to a fishing village and spending an evening is can change things offer the Fisher folk to see people who usually suspect them as being robbers and thieves and rapists, etc. To share space. So even that simple act or having conversations with the trans community, the trans community very boldly saying you guys know done shit about our lives. You have, I mean, it was incredible how I remember this question that came as part of our festival. You know, just as an example. And there was a panel discussion. This one of one part of our festival this year was about the arts celebrated by the trans community. And mainly from South India we had and there's a very, very improper question asked by an individual from the audience and no business asking the question. The question was about actually the sexual activity of a trans person and how does the trans person enjoy sex fundamentally and the way that question was answered was a very important interaction. Okay, now this is not a normal conversation that's ever going to happen. Our job is to enable this as uncomfortable as wrong it may be. These are things in fact, the person who answered the question said, I know I'm answering this question only for two reasons. One, technically it's personal. I don't need to but I'm answering it because I know many of you here who are not asking it or thinking it. Now that's where cultural change can happen. When you enable this possibility, it can be through art, it can be through music, it can be through literature, it can be just through conversations. It can also mean providing opportunities, providing spaces, challenging freedoms of spaces, freedoms of opportunities. And this disturbs, which means there's going to be shouting, screaming, etc, which is fine. Now, I think the work of disturbing is cultural work and that's what I try and do with my friends. And I do think that through a period of time, you can at least see today a lot more people having these conversations. You can see in the last three, four years whether it's Chennai, Bombay, Delhi, artists are being asked difficult questions about class, caste, gender, which was not happening 10 years ago. So that's a way in which you can move and maybe a generation to generations ahead with other changes that we bring in. Because we must remember democracy has to be constantly fought for. It slips away when we don't know it slipped away. So we have to constantly fight for it, constantly understand it. Sometimes I think we also don't understand it. And cultural activity allows you to remain fresh, to remain confused, to remain challenged. And I do hope I can continue to do that. Tim Krishna, great pleasure to have you with us at NewsClick. Thanks a lot. Thanks a ton. Thanks a ton.