Recently, there was a discussion at the Chennai International Centre on “inclusive music,” the panel consisting of Gopalkrishna Gandhi and T.M. Krishna. The discussion was quite topical because it was for his efforts at making Carnatic music ‘more inclusive’ that Krishna is supposed to have received the Magsaysay Award.
Any talk about inclusiveness implies the presence of certain exclusiveness. If so, what does Carnatic music exclude at present? Does exclusiveness refer to the content of the music (musicological and lyrical), its genre, or the structure and policies of the music organisation?
If exclusiveness is unjustly discriminatory, it, of course, needs to be straight way condemned and, if possible, eliminated.
Classicality implies adhering to certain rules and this automatically involves a certain exclusivity. If exclusiveness is based on essential quality criteria substantive to the character of the activity in question, then it is something not to be diluted if quality and the essential nature of the activity are to be preserved.
Exclusiveness essentially means restricting access. So where it is unjustified, the need is to improve the access to the activity without diluting quality-based exclusiveness. Again, access to whom or what?
In music, it could be access to certain sections of society, certain genres of music or certain languages or dialects. Let us take them one by one and discuss in the context of Carnatic music.
Whom does Carnatic music exclude at present? It is a matter of reality that the Carnatic music scene today is dominated by a certain community. The exclusion of other communities is not total but significant.
Whether this is due to socio-cultural factors or a conscious, conspiratorial exclusion of certain sections by the dominant community is difficult to prove one way or the other. If the quality of music is the only criterion being observed fairly and impartially and this results in one community dominating, then the phenomenon is due to socio-cultural factors and not any mala fide on the part of the dominant community.
One way to set this right is to try and attract children of other communities to Carnatic music by creating easy and widespread access to it and hoping that in due course a sufficient number of them would come to the top.
The other way is to follow the reservation model as in government – a certain number of musicians from other communities are deliberately pushed up into the organising and performing slots along with musicians from the dominant community without being too squeamish about quality. Most will agree that this remedy is worse than the disease.
Are languages other than Telugu and Sanskrit , and other dialects in vogue being largely excluded in Carnatic music? Historically, a lyrical foundation of such high musical quality has been laid by the Trinity in Telugu and Sanskrit that its place would remain unshakeable and irreplaceable whatever other languages are now brought in .
Quite a few beautiful Tamil and secular compositions do exist and are in vogue even now but they can only supplement and not supplant those of the Trinity.
What about dialects being used to compose Carnatic music? While they can, in theory, be included to compose, most will agree that it is unlikely to enhance the beauty of the compositions.
Even in communities where folk songs are being sung in local dialects, they are enjoyed more because of the meaning of the song than because of the beauty of the lyric.
Is inclusiveness as, or more, important than the quality and character of music? Carnatic music, as a genre, has certain traditional, well-established distinguishing qualities. Should these be changed just to appear to be more inclusive?
Should we introduce some elements of folk songs just to make Carnatic music appear more inclusive? Should every genre include some elements of other genres just to make it appear inclusive? Should not the uniqueness of any genre be preserved, or should every genre be a conglomeration of many genres?
Other genres and dialects can surely be encouraged independently without using Carnatic music as a peg or a platform. It is only when exclusion is unjust and not merit-based that we should talk of inclusiveness.
Krishna mentioned an incident in which a rasika in the audience who was smoking a beedi asked him to sing Khambodi and said that this made his audience more inclusive.
I do not know whether, if another rasika, sipping whiskey, had asked Krishna to sing Kalyani, Krishna would have considered the audience even more inclusive!
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.