New Delhi: V. Srinivasan, the grandson of legendary singer M.S. Subbulakshmi, has filed a petition in the Madras High Court, seeking to not only bar the Madras Music Academy from conferring the Sangita Kalanidhi M.S. Subbulakshmi Award on T.M. Krishna but also presenting the award in her name altogether, citing her will.
The Sangita Kalanidhi Award, presented by the Madras Music Academy, is widely considered the highest honour in the Carnatic music world. The recipient is awarded a gold medal and a citation, and presides over the Music Academy’s annual conference and concerts. Since 2005, this has been accompanied by the Sangita Kalanidhi M.S. Subbulakshmi Award, a cash prize sponsored by The Hindu that is given to the Music Academy’s Sangita Kalanidhi recipient.
According to petition by MS Subbulakshmi’s grandson, the legendary singer’s will explicitly states there should be no trust, foundation, or memorial in her name after her passing.
“It is my earnest desire and mandate that, after my demise, no trust, foundation, memorial, statue, or bust be created in my name or memory, nor any funds, donations, or contributions be collected for these purposes using my name. The only exception pertains to mementos, souvenirs, or awards given to me, as I believe such initiatives are not in line with our culture,” the will reads, according to the petition.
This stipulation in the will is a key part of the petition.
“We don’t want this award to be given to anybody because that would be against the spirit of her will,” said a member of Subbulakshmi’s family while speaking to ThePrint.
The petition also clearly stated that the will’s executor, S. Nagarajan, a chartered accountant, had the will under his custody and that Srinivasan was made aware of the will by his mother, Radha Viswanathan. Viswanathan, Subbulakshmi’s stepdaughter, is another well-known Indian Carnatic vocalist, who, the petition said, had “no knowledge about the contents of the will until recently”.
“It is submitted that the Sangita Kalanidhi M.S. Subbulakshmi Award is specifically against the mandate of late Subbulakshmi, in whose honour the memorial award is being annually presented,” the petition stated.
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Petition questions conferment of award to T.M. Krishna
On 14 August, this year, Srinivasan filed a civil suit against the Madras Music Academy, The Hindu Group, The Hindu, and T.M. Krishna after sending them legal notices in April, ThePrint has learnt.
The court will now hear Srinvasan’s petition on 30 October.
The Hindu responded to the legal suit in May, whereas the Madras Music Academy responded with a counter-affidavit. ThePrint has accessed copies of both.
The Hindu clarified in its response that the award and the selection of the awardee is the “prerogative of the Music Academy”, and it has no role in that.
“The Hindu bestows Sangita Kalanidhi M.S. Subbulakshmi Award on the Sangita Kalanidhi awardee chosen by the Music Academy at the inauguration of its annual music festival. This has been the tradition every year from 2005 onwards,” it said.
The response emphasised that the academy gave out the award in memory and honour of the legendary singer. Neither have donations or contributions been solicited or collected for it nor have any funds been created for it, The Hindu clarified. It called the demands made by Srinivasan “wholly unfair, unjust and unwarranted”.
On the other hand, in a counter-affidavit filed on 9 September last month, the Music Academy said it had no role in selecting the recipient of the Sangita Kalanidhi M.S. Subbulakshmi Award. The award, it noted, has been in “full public gaze” since its inception in 2005, with no objections raised by Subbulakshmi’s family for nearly two decades.
The Sangita Kalanidhi being awarded to T.M. Krishna—a polarising figure in this milieu due to his activism and criticisms of the Carnatic music establishment over social issues such as caste discrimination—had triggered a controversy earlier this year, with several senior artists denouncing Krishna, criticising the academy for its decision and even returning awards in protest.
Krishna has previously been criticised for his comments on Subbulakshmi. He had discussed her Devadasi lineage in a 2015 article in The Caravan, writing that her personal life was marked by tragedy and she felt compelled to detach herself from her origins to conform to the archetype of the “ideal Brahmin woman”. He faced a backlash after repeating these comments in a 2017 speech.
Srinivasan’s petition expressed the family’s “shock” and “disbelief” upon learning that the award was going to Krishna. It said the family struggles to understand how the music academy, which was “dear to their matriarch”, could honour someone who had questioned her credibility in the Carnatic music world. The petition also accused T.M. Krishna of “shaming her (Subbulakshmi’s) good name.”
The conferment of the award to a person who has done nothing but trivialised Subbulakshmi’s achievements by making it seem as though the achievements were about embracing Brahmanism is simply unacceptable to Srinivasan and the family, the petition says.
In its response, the Music Academy dismissed the petition as “absurd”, “misleading”, and “entirely false”, arguing that Shrinivasan has no legal standing to challenge the award just because he finds an awardee personally unacceptable.
The academy also declined to address Krishna’s statements about M.S. Subbulakshmi, calling them “irrelevant” and unrelated to the academy or the award itself.
The academy also said that it has learnt that Srinivasan participated in the inauguration of an auditorium—named after the late singer—at a school in Greater Noida. It criticised Srinivasan for “selective outrage”, pointing out that various awards, fellowships, and music halls have been established under Subbulakshmi’s name, with her family not objecting to those.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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