American Civil War, Two Museums and Two Perspectives

America was willed into existence, as Americans are fond of saying, with the 'Declaration' that 'all men are created equal'. A nation, so born, was also mired in hypocrisy by not just refusing to end slavery but by enshrining it in the constitution. It is mild to call it hypocrisy, it is America's shame and America's original sin. However we might dress it up as "expedient arrangement" or that "the promise was what enabled the country to end slavery, eventually", it remains a dark chapter that continues to cast a shadow, two centuries later, on America.

Nearly a century after America went to war with itself, and nearly two centuries after the founding, Martin Luther King Jr scolded the country that the promise of equality, a promissory note, came returned,"marked insufficient funds".

Last year as I toured the Nazi museums of Berlin I wondered why does America not have a single museum that would match Germany's 'Topography of terror' museum. That museum is constructed right where the Gestapo headquarters used to stand. The museum not only bares the horrors of the Nazi regime but also puts to rest myths about the Nazi regime such as Hitler resurrecting German economy and the lies about lack of direct involvement of Nazi higher officials in Holocaust. Several of Berlin's museums were constructed solely to cleanse a nation of its sin. The goal is to ensure 'never again'. America should learn this lesson from Germany and learn it with urgency.

As Hillary Clinton saw her hopes to be President evaporate in wintry Iowa and New Hampshire her husband Bill Clinton became unhinged. After a brutal, ill advised, contest in South Carlina where Obama defeated Hillary handily Bill Clinton told a reporter "well, Jesse Jackson won South Carolina when he ran". The entire black community erupted in anger. That remark was interpreted, unfairly, as suggesting that Barack Obama, like, Jesse Jackson, another black aspirant to the Oval office, cannot go beyond a traditional stronghold like South Carolina. When rumors surfaced that Bill Clinton wanted Obama to 'wait' his turn the resentment in black community crossed boundary. Black voters interpreted the 'wait your turn' comment as "the time has not yet come for a black President". Racial politics still tears into America.

The pivotal moment of 2008 primaries was when news of Obama's pastor cursing 'God damn America' emerged. Obama's campaign went into a tail spin. A largely sympathetic press then helped Obama tamp that story down aided by a mediocre speech on race relations. Commentators helpfully quoted MLK Jr that "sunday morning 10 AM is the most segregated hour in America". MLK Jr was talking about the fact that black and white churches where, well, 'black' and 'white'.

I visited "The Museum of the Confederacy" and "Civil War Museum" in Richmond recently. The Confederacy Museum, thankfully, was not outright racist but it showed a remarkable blindness to America's shame. We have to note that both museums only deal with the war as their central theme. Slavery is an incidental topic in one and a side note in the other.

The first exhibit in the Confederacy Museum was titled "Why Secession, Why War". The exhibit explains that the leaders of the Confederacy acted because "they believed that the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S.President threatened the South's interests. Lincoln's Republican Party championed a high tariff and federally subsidized internal improvements-economic policies that the South had long resisted-and opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories". The exhibit concluded saying that Abraham Lincoln wanted the South to fire the first shot and start the war. A third exhibit speaking about the firing at Fort Sumter ends with "Abraham Lincoln had succeeded in maneuvering the Confederacy into firing the first shot of the war".

The exhibit "Why did they fight" said the South thought it was embarking on a second revolution to protect constitutional rights and that 'among these rights was the right to own slaves-a right sanctioned by Constitution and by custom-even though the vast majority of Confederate soldiers did not own slaves".

The most curious exhibit was about refuting the rumor that Jefferson Davies, President of the Confederacy, tried to escape wearing his wife's clothing. The museum carefully and most emphatically disproves that rumor.

The museum hews close to a typical narrative in the South that the war was all about rights, that slavery was not the prime mover, that after all slavery was indeed a right under the constitution (and sanctified by subsequent Supreme Court ruling as in Dred Scott). The museum is titled "The museum of the Confederacy". But it has nothing about life in the Confederacy and is only about the Confederate view point regarding the Civil War.

A sad exhibit was the one titled 'Fraternization' that spoke of how soldiers of the Union and Confederacy who were butchering each other would still get together to relax, share food and even trade. It reminded of a poem by T.Hood that speaks for a soldier who remembers his opponents and wonders if they had met in bar that they would have shared a drink. Civil War historian Drew Gilpin Faust in 'Republic of suffering' estimated the US lost nearly 1/6th of its population.

My next museum was the 'Civil War Museum' at Tredegar near Richmond. This is a more intellectually honest museum. This museum traces the history of the conflict through the two key issues of slavery and economic structures. The agrarian South was dependent on slavery for its labor. Industrialized North, by virtue of industrialization, needed free men. As a college student I had read Nehru's 'Glimpses of World History' wherein Nehru quotes Lincoln showing that freeing slaves was not the primary aim of the war. Lincoln only desired to keep the union. Emancipation was a by product of the war. In fact if Lincoln had declared Emancipation as the goal, it can be fairly said, many in the Union army would not have gone to war.

Through out the war slaves were defined as property by both the Union and the Confederacy. Wartime customs of confiscating enemy 'property' was used to liberate slaves in conquered territory. Lincoln hated slavery but never believed that blacks and whites were equal.

At a place where visitors could write their thoughts on a stickie paper a visitor wrote "African kings helped white traders in getting slaves. Where would those slaves be in life if they had lived in Africa". Pre-eminent Afro-American Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates Jr wrote an oped in New York Times about a much less spoken part of slavery. White slave traders would dock their ships in the port and wait for slaves to be brought by local kings from the inland. This is a controversial part in the slavery debate akin to the role of the 'Judenrat' (Jewish Councils) in Holocaust. But that a person in 2013 America could ask indirectly "did they not have a better life by being brought to USA, albeit as slaves" is what is appalling.

I read Margaret Mitchell's 'Gone with the wind' when I had not yet read much about slavery in USA. I did not think much about the glorification of the South's way of life much. Only when I read Malcolm X's biography by Alex Haley the political angle of the book struck me. Malcolm X, a vagabond when the movie was released, watched it in Harlem (of all places). Not knowing much about the movie he went to the theater and he was startled that he was the only person in a Harlem theater watching 'Gone with the wind". Mitchell glorifies the South and makes it appear that slaves were treated like human beings, even almost equals, with great care and concern by their masters.

Henry Louis Gates edited a nice collection of writings by slaves titled 'Slave narratives'. It is a moving collection of writing. When children are torn from their parents and sold into slavery it is hard not to shed a tear. Young girl children were abused. Education was denied. Even unto the modern era the lynchings, Jim Crow, KKK all tell a very sordid saga. KKK was born out of the civil war.

Both museums concentrate mostly on just how the war went. Neither museum delve into any aftermath in considerable measure. Drew Gilpin Faust in her book would focus on how the war completely remade gender relationships and redefined role of women in society. The museums barely scrape such an effect.

On civil rights I've a note to add. It is a misconception that racism is only by whites against blacks. Racism is usually intertwined with what a race feels perceives as threats to its economic prospects. Black mayor of Washington DC recently made very objectionable comments about stores owned by Asians in DC. When Asian basketball player Jeremy Lin became a sensation he was mocked by blacks chanting 'go back to your books'. During the recent 50th anniversary of MLK Jr's immortal 'March on Washington' a columnist recalled the pivotal role played by Bayard Rustin, a little spoken of civil rights hero. MLK Jr shunned him because Bayard Rustin was a homo-sexual. When Obama made the decision to support gays in military he had to placate Afro-American pastors. Black churches are stridently anti-gay rights. Ever since the formation of Israel Jewish Americans and Blacks have parted way with anti-semitism taking roots among black churches. When Obama's estranged, disavowed, pastor Jeremiah wright was asked if he made peace with the President he said "them Jews will not allow me". Obama's then chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, was a Jew.

America, on tax payer money, has to construct two museums. One for slavery and another to tell the story of civil rights. This will be America's atonement. This should be Barack Obama's calling. I wish he undertakes it as his first post-Presidential task. This will go a long way in educating millions about the basic decency to respect all as human beings. America needs to face up to its shameful past unflinchingly as Germany does. Only such an honesty will make this great country greater still.

Lalgudi Jayaraman and Lakshmi Devnath: Virtuoso Performer and Mediocre Biographer.

One of the best decisions Steve Jobs took in his life was the choice of his biographer. Jobs chose Walter Isaacson, former editor of Time magazine and author of two best selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Einstein. Isaacson asked Jobs, if, by choosing him, Jobs saw himself in the league of Franklin and Einstein. Nobel laureate V.S.Naipaul chose bestselling author Patrick French to write his biography. Churchill distrusting others to do justice to World War II and his role decided to write it himself. Of course, self-servingly.

Lalgudi Jayaraman, or just 'Lalgudi' to his legions of fans, who lacked any formal education, 'allowed' Lakshmi Devnath to be his biographer. Devnath's biography, decent, by half, may very well remain the only biography of a man who took his music across the globe and thrilled millions. That is sad.

When a biographer starts by saying how she admired the subject and refers to the subject as 'uncle' ('mama') a reader like me hesitates. Only my eagerness to learn about a man that many referred to as 'genius' compelled me to plod on. Devnath claims that she has been objective and that Lalgudi or his family did not interfere in any way with her book. They did not have to.

The biography is a labor of love and it shows. In a very unique gesture Devnath has made out a CD with Lalgudi's recordings to illustrate key points she makes. The book helpfully notes, without too much intrusion, places where the reader can pause and sample the recording. The choice of English as a language is made solely to reach a wider audience else this book would have probably benefited more by being written in Tamil. A very helpful glossary of Tamil words, for both vernacular usage and music terms, is nicely compiled. That the author is ill at ease in English is apparent when she writes "she was kind to the core and strict to the hilt". As proof of Gopala Iyer's (father of Lalgudi) abilities beyond music we are offered a summary, "he sawed with precision, nailed with mastery and glued with finesse". Reading 'coachile vandhirukkaaaar' is grating to my senses instead of "கோச்சு வண்டியிலே வந்திருக்கார்" or 'vango' instead of 'வாங்கோ'. 

Lalgudi amongst all musicians has the rare privilege of claiming to descend from a direct disciple of Thyagaraja, the most revered amongst the Carnatic music trinity. The introduction of the violin to Carnatic music and such a rare musical heritage opens up many avenues for a skilled biographer to write a magisterial sweep of music history alongside the subject person. Devnath barely manages to race past the musical and biographical heritage.

The greatest disservice a biographer can do to a man millions called genius is to attribute his genius to astrology and make it appear that he was destined to be great. Devnath gushes about Lalgudi's horoscope and how his impending greatness was foretold. This obsession with unscientific mystery strikes a jarring note  when Kandasamy Bhagavathar dies of cancer despite his wife's 'knowledge of indigenous medicine and mystic powers'.

In my past blogs on music I've written about how Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner were widely read and how their intellectual pursuits impacted their creativity. When Lalgudi's teacher punished him by caning his fingers Gopal Iyer stopped his son from going to school. Most Carnatic musicians have little or no education until recent times. Even then it is a cursory education. T.M. Krishna has a degree in accounting and, by his own admission, 'dabbles in reading'. Gopal Iyer arranged private tutor to teach Math, English, Telugu and Sanksrit. Telugu and Sanksrit, we are told, 'would help understand the meaning of the songs'. It did not even strike the biographer as odd that Gopal Iyer did not think it fit to tutor his son in Tamil. He probably thought there was nothing worthwhile in Tamil to be taught requiring a tutor. That brings to mind a sore controversy about the Tamil music versus carnatic music shenanigans.

Music and caste are intertwined in an unholy nexus in India (as in America too), especially in Carnatic music. Gopal Iyer takes Jayaraman to listen to a performance in a Mariamman temple. Devnath lists the artistes. All of them are from the 'Pillai' caste. Not a single Brahmin because its the Mariamman temple. The very next paragraph details the artistes at a function in the temple at Srirangam. All are Brahmin artistes. Not a single non-Brahmin. Devnath, probably Brahmin herself, does not bat an eyelid at this dichotomy.

Carnatic music is vocal music with no tradition, for decades, of having accompanying instruments especially one like the violin. The place of instruments and its players in a performance is a still debated one. As violin evolved to be more than 'just' an accompaniment Jayaraman wanted to see violin solo performances. This rubbed vocalists and other, hitherto, solo instrument players like veena players.

Madurai Mani for whom Lalgudi used to accompany ensured that only the vocalist had a mike. Semmangudi, the ever irascible vocalist, would push away the mikes in front of a violinist. Jayaraman's own protege singer T.N. Seshagopalan took to the print and snidely complained that the violinist does not 'his' place. Veena Balachander confronted Jayaraman that his demand for solo performances was upsetting veena players. Brahmins, the chief practitioners of carnatic music, are famously vigilant about caste hierarchies and owe their social pre-eminence to a rigid caste structure entrenched in the name of tradition. It is little wonder that such practitioners were livid about upsetting 'tradition'. Check this link about Semmangudi (http://www.carnaticcorner.com/articles/semmangudi.html). A young Semmangudi is performing with accompaniments but only he and the violinist have the mike. An older Semmangudi then performs with mikes for mridangam and the violinist too.

Jayaraman ruffled many a feather with his venu (flute)-veena-violin concerts. Apparently he even composed music for such concerts. It is this composing that is often spoke of by his admirers as setting him apart from other violinists who were only virtuosos. That and the unique and legendary 'Lalgudi Bani' (Lalgudi way of playing) are collectively referred to as his genius. Devnath does a decent explanation of those.

The only place in the biography where Devnath attempts objectivity and balance is in giving quotes from those who did not think high of Lalgudi's compositions. But the biographer rescues her 'uncle' by rounding off with counter quotes and gentle brushing away of criticisms.

A biographer with wider knowledge of music would have used this to illustrate the differences with Western classical and bring out how western classical, written for instruments by a composer, contrasts with a vocal tradition. I'll not be surprised if Devnath thinks there is no music beyond carnatic music. A non-Brahmin author might have taken a broader view.

Indians enjoy the recognition that Indian philosophy, literature and music receive from Westerners, that too Whites. I've only heard of Beatles swooning over Ravi Shankar or Yehudi Menuhin swooning over Lalgudi or U Thant introducing MS at the UN. We never hear of John Coltrane or the Jazz musicians interacting with Indian music.

Lalgudi was very warmly introduced by Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin instructs his audience not to judge carnatic music with their customary paradigms. He gently lectures that in carnatic music the instrument 'follows' the singing. Carnatic musicians who performed abroad were often feted back home. They had grand send off's and equally grand welcome back functions like conquering caesars. Often such functions were organized by Sabhas. Strangely none of these Sabhas thought it fit to invite a Zubin Mehta or Leonard Bernstein to India. Smugness. No carnatic musician would have done what Menuhin did for Lalgudi. Indians only love to boast of what they taught the world. Never interested in learning.

The carnatic music world is incestuous with a clique like mentality. Music Academy and The Hindu (a newspaper of dubious quality but loved by Brahmins on par with their worship of carnatic music) have an unholy nexus. Brahmin controlled news magazines and their so called critics formed a relationship with sabhas and performers. There was (and is) no professional critic. The Music Academy itself has a clique mentality.

Devnath dwells, justifiably, on the politics of the 'Sangeetha Kalanidhi' award fracas. Jayaraman had taken great efforts to renovate the house of Thyagaraja and organize annual festivals in his honor. Inaugurating a Thyagaraja Aradhana G.K.Moopanar addressed Semmangudi, MS, Lalgudi etc with the prefix 'Sangeetha Kalanidhi'. Semmangudi barked on the stage "he is not one". Besmirched thus Lalgudi next day visited Semmangudi and told him that even if given he would not accept the title 'Sangeetha Kalanidhi'. Photocopies of press clippings with English translations give these pages a racy flavor.

Carnatic music has always been accused of reeking with casteism. Thats a blog for another day. I was surprised to learn that the Kanchi Mutt had taken ownership of the homes of the musical trinity. Carnatic music and Hinduism are inseparable. They need not be torn asunder but when music is sheltered under religion it does not augur well. Compiling the Pancharatna Kritis of Thyagaraja Lalgudi, Devnath writes, takes the help of Kanchi's mutt's then reigning pontiff Chandrasekarendra Swamigal. That pontiff would not even see a non-Brahmin. In a famous rendezvous with Gandhi Chandrasekarendra pleaded "dont destroy hinduism" referring to Gandhi's attempts  to eradicate untouchability.

Lakshmi Devnath herself bares her biases ever so subtly. She is scrupulous in quoting the names, even an Assistant Collector, of whose quotes she is using or whose views she is sharing in relation to Lalgudi. Striving to drive home the point that everyone in the Lalgudi lineage, including Guruswany Iyer (grand uncle of Lalgudi who died young) is musically talented Devnath reaches to 'a book'. In the 'compilation of notable vidwans of this period, published as part of a book, talks about Guruswamy Iyer'. 'Guriswamy dyer sings well in strict adherence to rules. He is also an excellent vidwan'. Devnath, not accidentally, annotates the reference in the 'notes' as the book written by Nadar Christian Abraham Pandithar (possibly backward community then). Pandithar's book 'Karnamirtha Sagaram' is considered a definitive text and well researched material on the origins of Carnatic music. Contemporary Tamil writer Jeyamohan wrote of how Pandithar, being Christian, was studiously eclipsed by the Brahmin establishment. Even the Dravidian parties that emphasized non-Brahmin influence in music chose to ignore Pandithar because he was a Nadar Christian and not an 'Isai vellalar' the caste of Karunanidhi.

Devnath ignoring the caste dimensions in the Pillai versus Brahmin artistes depending on the kind of God in a temple is a telling lapse. Quite interestingly another book by Devnath, titled 'A class apart', is about Rashmi Parthasarathy. Mrs Parthasarathy, naturally, a Brahmin, is feted as an 'educationist'. She is no such thing in reality. The PSBB schools are notorious for their Hindutva emphasis and blatant promotion of Brahminism in the name of promoting Indian culture. I am sure Devnath would recoil with horror before writing of Thulasi Vandayar who is running a well regarded arts college in a villlage, without a penny in donations, for decades. If Mrs Parthasarathy is an educationist then so are Jeppiar and Wodayar, two bootleg manufacturers turned 'educationists'.

As I closed the book I certainly knew of key events in Lalgudi's life. The controversies, particularly the solo performance issue, were illustrative if the reader has prior thoughts in that regard else it was only gossip. A biography must delve into the mind of a subject and recreate the life in a composite manner, including a portrait of the era, for the reader. Lalgudi still remains distant to me. I still do not know the man. The book did leave a respectable impression of Lalgudi in my mind. But I am afraid the lack of an intellectual flavor could also be because the subject person lacked it too. Here is no Wagner wondering about why not use Buddhism. No Beethoven flinging a condemnation at an emperor. A biography of Ilayaraja might have more drama in it. Raja, as film musician, had more freedom to experiment and push the horizons of what people thought of as music. Lalgudi born into a family steeped into music for generations takes to it like fish takes to water. Raja hailed from a very low caste with no musical heritage. Sadly Devnath succeeds in a way she did not perhaps want to succeed. If the reader thinks at the end 'great man. Admirable principles and decent man. Yet, we can only admire that instead of frittering away his advantages he built on it'.

Jobs commenting on what he thought as the reason for his famous rival's, Bill Gates's, reason for not being as creative as himself said "if only Bill had dropped acid in college or went off to an ashram". Lalgudi the ever obedient, eager to please, role model son scaled heights on the shoulders of a storied family and capitalized on a very stratified art form that prided itself on 'connections'. Maybe someday a better biographer will do better justice to a talent that readers could understand better.

Radhakrishnan, Stalin and Mathimaran's Hatred.

September 5th is celebrated as 'Teachers Day' in India commemorating, philosopher-statesman, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's birthday. A recent trend in Tamil Nadu, amongst vitriolic Brahmin haters like Suba. Veerapandian and Mathimaaran (a blogger), is to write derisive blogs about Radhakrishnan questioning whether Sep 5th should be celebrated as Teachers Day. Sep 5th also happens to be the birthday of Tamil freedom fighter V.O.Chidambaram Pillai. Mathimaran asks mischievously if Sep 5th is celebrated for Radhakrishnan because he is a Brahmin and is VOC forgotten because he is non-Brahmin.

This year Mathimaran spewed venom in reaction to a column that appeared, in a non-Brahmin owned favorite of DK/DMK rag sheet (Dinathanthi). The columnist had cited an anecdote about Radhakrishnan consoling a sick Joseph Stalin. The columnist wrote, 'Stalin, a man who instilled fear world was moved and said "you are the first person to treat me as a human being"'.

That Stalin was referred to as a monster irritates Mathimaran beyond words. He proceeded to cast aspersion on the anecdote, not based on counter evidence, but purely on conjectures. Mathimaran bristles that Stalin, loved within the communist party and by all Russians, had thousands who would give their life for the leader and that Stalin was in no emotional need of being consoled by a reactionary Brahmin. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Mathimaran alleges, is nothing but a reactionary Brahmin who shored up support for Hindu philosophy and legitimized it in the eyes of the West.

There are two biographies of Radhakrishnan. One, by K.Satchidananda Murty and another by his own son S.Gopal. Both Murty and Gopal's accounts agree on most details but it is Gopal, the historian that he is, gives the more accurate account.

Radhakrishnan had an interview with Stalin in 1952. India had just then resolved the unification issue of Princely states. Stalin advised Radhakrishnan on how to implement socialism in India. Referring to the landlords Stalin said "liquidate, Mr Ambassador". Stalin prefaced it with a gesture of chopping. At the end of the interview Stalin comes over to Radhakrishnan and Radhakrishnan, as is his practice pats Stalin on his cheek. Later Radhakrishnan would do the same to Mao. This is where the accounts slightly diverge only to conclude identically.

In Gopal's account Radhakrishnan expressed hope that Stalin too, like Asoka, may have a change of heart and become a man of peace. He then quotes Christ about gaining the world while losing the soul. Stalin responded 'I too was a student of theology once'. Later Pavlov, the interpreter, told Radhakrishnan that after he had left Stalin remarked "he is the only man who treats me not as a monster but as a human being".

In Murty's account Radhkrishnan recounts the said remark as if Stalin said in his presence. Essentially the remark stays in both accounts.

I'd choose Gopal's account simply because he was a scrupulous historian who wrote an unsparing biography of his illustrious father. Gopal's biography starts with an explosive paragraph where he not only casts aspersion on the fact that Sep 5th was his father's birthday but more importantly asserts that his father might have the illegitimate offspring of his grandmother and another learned man not his grandfather. The tryst was supposedly arranged by Radhakrishnan's own uncle (brother of his mother). Gopal also does not shy away from the fact that Radhakrishnan was a philanderer who had marital affairs with many including his servant. Gopal's integrity in writing about his father is something that Mathimaran can never imagine possible. I'd love to hear from Mathimaran the dalliances of his mentor E.V.Ramasamy Naicker.

Radhakrishnan, chosen to be Spalding professor of Eastern studies in Oxford, did not just peddle 'Hindu' philosophy. He gave Indian philosophy a legitimacy as a philosophical discipline rescuing it from its religious confines. With his encyclopedic understanding of Western philosophy Radhakrishnan helped the West understand that the Upanishad is not theology but philosophy. He was invited to lecture at the finest universities in the world. To drive it home let's be clear that Kanchi Kamakoti Chandrasekarandra Swamigal would never be invited to be Spalding professor.

Indian Philosophy, or 'Hindu Philosophy', is a treasure of a great civilization. Only intellectual boors like EVR and Mathimaran would prattle about throwing it away. No westerner would throw away Plato, because he was undemocratic or Aristotle, because he was Alexander's teacher. Nietzsche's philosophy was hijacked by the Nazis but Nietzsche is still taught in the West. As much as I admire and laud Radhakrishnan for his expositions of Indian philosophy I am well aware of how Indian philosophy is straitjacketed as Hindu philosophy and twisted to fit Hindutva political agendas today.

Responding to Radhakrishnan's claim that Hinduism has survived for thousand years despite opposition EVR, Mathimaran quotes, is supposed to have asked "the cockroach too survives for a millennia shall we now revere the cockroach". As a tool of rhetoric its passable logic. But the choice of the cockroach analogy only illustrates, at a Freudian level, EVR's vituperative hatred of Hinduism. What if the same was asked of his Dravidian exceptionalism?

V.O.Chidambaram Pillai is an illustrious son of India and one of our bravest freedom fighters. The man chose to sink his wealth and challenge the very root of British power, maritime supremacy. After his gruesome incarceration he died in penury a broken man. I heartily agree that his memory should be commemorated. To be frank too, but for SubaVi and Mathimaran I'd not have known that Sep 5th was VOC's birthday too. I knew of Radhakrishnan's birthday just as I knew of Nehru's birthday (Nov 14th) because those days are holidays for school. I, just like millions others, did not learn of their birthdays because they were Brahmins.

Suba.Vi and Mathimaran crying for VOC is like the wolf crying for the sheep. VOC, a rich upper caste man, was a devout Hindu who spent his last years translating Bhagvad Gita and other Hindu texts into Tamil. If in a hypothetical world VOC was being celebrated these same people would shout from rooftops that VOC was a Hindutva in the nationalist clothing. Of course they would then extend it to their usual hate filled speeches of Brahmin-Bania dominance.

It is a tragic fact in India that many, many illustrious freedom fighters other than Nehru were completely overshadowed because, at Delhi, the Nehru clan holds power. In Tamil Nadu other than lip service to VOC and Kamaraj the Dravidian politics has scrupulously, out of hatred for the freedom movement, has overshadowed the immense sacrifices of our great sons and daughters. Most Tamils learned to love VOC only because legendary matinee idol Sivaji Ganesan made a biopic of him. I've read that VOC's son met and thanked Sivaji for that. Later Sivaji also funded a memorial for VOC.

Speak of Rajaji and Mathimaaran will froth at his mouth about 'Kula Kalvi' (hereditary education) without any acknowledgement of the fact that Rajaji was a freedom fighter and organized the famed Vedaranyam Salt march.

Speak of Bharathi, a poet who resurrected and revolutionized Tamil poetry, Mathimaran and his ilk will prattle about his caste and his Hindutva with no mention of him as a reformer and a person who dreamed of a unified India where all live in harmony.

Every year Suba.Vi and his fellow DK/DMK leaders visit the cemeteries of Annathurai and EVR on their birth anniversaries. I've never seen them honor VOC. So, dear Mathimaran, please save your manufactured outrage, you are outdoing Sivaji in acting though.

Mathimaran also bristled about Stalin and his concern to reform the world. Where am I to begin with that. I can start with Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 'Gulag Archipelago' but then such things are beyond Mathimaran's non-existent gray matter to understand.

Only hatred for a race can provoke somebody to write such a shameful blog. Hatred was the motivator and guiding principle. If Mathimaran had proved that such an anecdote was a fabrication I've no issues. But when conjecturing, propelled by hatred, masquerades as counter evidence we have to call him out.

In closing I'd say Radhakrishnan's birthday is worthy of being celebrated as Teachers Day even if the Stalin anecdote was fabricated (which it is not).


References:

1. Mathimaran's blog http://mathimaran.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/stalin-ambedkar-periyae-675/

2. Radhakrishnan: His Life and Ideas By K. Satchidananda Murty, Ashok Vohra page 125.

3. Radhakrishnan: A biography by Sarvepalli Gopal. Page 252.

4. செப்டம்பர் 5 - யாருடைய பிறந்த நாள்? - http://subaveeblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/5.html

Attenborough's and S.Ramakrishnan's Gandhi: An Exercise In Mediocrity And Deification

In my last blog I had referred to Attenborough's movie 'Gandhi' as 'third rated'. A friend asked me why I said so about a movie that's considered an epic and one which the Oscars, in 1983, rewarded with 8 awards including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Picture.

Attenborough's Gandhi took India and the world by storm. In a then rare move the Indian government waived entertainment tax thus making the tickets more affordable. Indians watched it by the millions, schools arranged movie trips. I too watched it as 10 year old. I don't remember much of what I felt or understood as a 10 year old. My only memories were that any Indian who watched it was awestruck by the grand scale and by the fact that a British actor, albeit of Indian heritage, essayed the role of a most loved Indian with such aplomb and justice.

Nearly 15 years later I happened to read Salman Rushdie's collection of essays titled 'Imaginary Homelands'. The passage that remains stuck in my mind was:

"Deification is an Indian disease....I was asked more than once in India recently, 'why should an Englishman want to deify Gandhi?' And why, one might add, should the American Academy wish to help him, by presenting, like votive offerings in a temple eight glittering statuettes to a film that is inadequate as biography, appalling as history, and often laughably crude as a film?"

Then I watched 'Gandhi' again. By now my sensibilities and ideas on aesthetics had evolved from a 10 year old (hopefully). I've watched the movie many times after reading Rushdie and I am firmly convinced that it remains a mediocre movie that presents a cardboard version of the most complex leader in modern times.

Mulling over wanting to write a reply for my friend I binge watched Attenborough's 'Gandhi', Shyam Benegal's 'The Making of the Mahatma' and a movie about Hitler's last days in his bunker 'Downfall'. I was driving to the local library to get a copy of Rushdie's book to refresh my memory and a thought struck me "the movie centers around Gandhi obsessively with Nehru, Patel and Jinnah as just very peripheral characters. No mention of Bose or Ambedkar who famously crossed swords with Gandhi ideologically. No mention of Tagore. No mention of Gandhi as a reformer". With that thought I re-read Rushdie's essay 'Attenborough's Gandhi'. There it was. Maybe I remembered those points unconsciously.

Rushdie specifically takes issue with the portrayal of Nehru as some starry eyed blind 'acolyte'. Referring to Nehru's well publicized ideological differences with him Gandhi, memorably, said "you will speak my language when I am gone". Nehru, never spoke Gandhi's language, particularly, on economic ideas for development. Nehru even records his displeasure of how Gandhi engineers his election as President of Congress in 1930.

Attenborough presents, not just, a simplified version of Gandhi's protests but grotesquely dumbs down pivotal events to compressed scenes. The worst offense was in portraying the Dandi March. There is no sensitive portrayal of how Gandhi arrived at that decision, his periods of torment while searching for his 'inner voice', the letter to Irwin announcing before hand the details of the protest as is required of a Satyagrahi in his opinion, the planning and the drama of the march itself. Rather we just see two scenes of Gandhi marching and lifting a handful of salt.

The movie keeps a relentless focus on just events connected with Independence struggle completely ignoring Gandhi's role as a reformer of Hinduism. Gandhi's fast unto death protesting the Communal Award and the Poona Pact with Ambedkar sounded the death knell for a centuries old ignominy of Hinduism, untouchability.

The viewer never gets a glimpse of the many levels on which Gandhi tried to make a difference. Disgusted with prevalent unhygienic aspects of Indian life Gandhi would teach villagers how to construct a clean toilet with simple steps. He would write incessantly on those topics.

The Gandhi-Bose feud brought out the best and worst of Gandhi. Gandhi won the ideological war and for that we can thank his sagacity. Yet, when Bose defeated, Gandhi's nominee for Congress President, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Gandhi was petulant. He said "Pattabhi's defeat is my defeat" and proceeded to make life difficult for Bose in Congress. Bose later left and forged his own ill-advised path to securing India's independence with Hitler's help. Tagore, who gave Gandhi the title of 'Mahatma', often sparred with Gandhi's strident nationalism. Adding in the Bose and Tagore characters would have given color to the many hues in India's Independence struggle.

Attenborough is no Martin Scorsese and therefore one cannot expect scenes of Gandhi carrying out his Brahmacharya experiments. Given his funding problems over decades and the fact that the movie was part funded by Indian government one can easily guess that Attenborough, even if he wanted, could not have portrayed those like Martin Scorsese does in his screen adaptation of Kazantzakis's 'The Last Temptation of Christ'.

One of the laughable parts of the movie is where Gandhi per-functionarily adds, in a speech, "Hindus and Muslims must stay united. We must weed out untouchability". That's it. No scenes to flesh out those key battles of what he thought was more important than even overthrow of the Colonial master.

A controversy that erupted about the movie was the fact that a British actor was chosen to play the greatest Indian. I've read elsewhere that Attenborough took Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah around and finally dumped him much to the latter's chagrin. I've watched Naseeruddin Shah perform a sensitive portrayal of Gandhi in a stage play, 'Gandhi vs Mahatma', about Gandhi's troubled relationship with his eldest son Harilal. Rushdie consider's Ben Kingsley's Oscar as the only one that was deserving.

Shyam Benegal who was assistant director to Attenborough later produced a more focused biopic 'The Making of the Mahatma' centered around Gandhi's 21 years in South Africa between 1893-1914. Benegal gives a relatively nuanced version of Gandhi. Here we see Gandhi's son accusing, justifiably, that Gandhi was a bad parent. We see Kasturba fighting over Gandhi's newfound fads like living in poverty inspired by John Ruskin's 'Unto the last'. This movie only shines by contrast. Even here we see Gandhi being portrayed in a muscular and as a very powerful speaker who uses strong gestures. Here too we do not Gandhi himself groping towards Civil Disobedience. Gandhi was an avid reader and communicator. It is pathetic that his intellectual development, not shown in the movie, but is known only on the surface, by people, about how he borrows ideas from Thoreau and Tolstoy.

Compared to these movies the movie on Hitler was far more nuanced. We see Hitler descending into manic depressiveness as the end nears. We see him delusional and still retaining his evil side asking Albert Speer to destroy all of Germany in a scorched earth policy so that the invaders get nothing. Never mind the human cost. It is probably easy to portray sheer unalloyed evil with no iota of any redeeming feature than portraying a man like Gandhi who, to borrow Shakespeare's words, had the 'elements of nature mixed' in him.

Life, as the cliche goes, is stranger than fiction. Gandhi's life is a treasure house of contradictions, humanism, dictatorial, obsessive, drama, etc for a sensitive and cerebral fiction writer. Yet, this is where S.Ramakrishnan, noted contemporary writer and screen play writer, disappointed me most. His recent story about Gandhi narrates how women see Gandhi through the character of a woman, in an orthodox family, running off to meet Gandhi and being punished by her husband for that. The story is littered with another deified version of Gandhi with a cardboard like characterization. (http://www.sramakrishnan.com/?p=3437).

Gandhi's relationship with women is the most complex one, even beyond the by now oft mentioned experiments. In the morning as he walks for exercise when he comes across fellow women ashramites he would ask "sisters, did you have good bowel movements". Women would compete with each other to be seen as his confidant and being called to be his 'walking sticks'. Gandhi thought of himself as half woman. He once dreamt of himself being a mother to the world with breasts overflowing with milk. His relationship with Madeleine Slade, named Mirabehn by him, needs no embellishment for drama. He advised newly Jayaprakash Narayan to be celibate until India achieves freedom. He maintained that for those who conquer lust truly even the sexual organs will look different. Gandhi was also not averse to being naked in the ashram in the course of getting a mudpack treatment or just plainly having a bath.

With all that material what we get from S.Ra is a very benign saintly Gandhi. A cliche served up as literature. I don't remember who wrote the play 'Mahatma versus Gandhi'. It is a good attempt to portray a complex individual.

Gandhi has been ill served by the likes of Attenborough and S.Ramakrishnan. I admire Gandhi not because he was a re-incarnation or a saint. Far from it. Gandhi remains an admirable person to be studied because he was a human being who tried, everyday, to be a better human being than anybody else. 

Gandhi And The Failure Of Indian Education

Hating, misrepresenting, misunderstanding and mostly not understanding Gandhi is the latest fad in India. It is fashionable to say that the British left India because they were exhausted by War and could no longer control India from afar and India's independence had nothing to do with Gandhi. It is easy to ridicule 'Satyagraha' as an inefficient and impractical instrument of protest against powers unlike British and like Hitler or Rajapakse. From the political left and the right the man who comes in for equal hate and ridicule is Gandhi. Ferreting quotes without context for a man who lived to 79 and wrote or spoke voluminously over 50 of those years is easy. Ascribing conspiratorial motives for Gandhi 'selecting' Nehru over the more popular and duly elected 'Patel' is a national pastime. To cap it all is Gandhi's own shameful brahmacharya experiments are taken and made out to look like the man did nothing in his life other than sleep with women. Then there is the contentious Poona pact with Ambedkar that can be mined for selective re-telling to portray, of all people, Gandhi as a reactionary Hindu who was disinterested in the upliftment of the Untouchables, the Dalits, or 'Harijans' as he called them.

Yet, Gandhi is revered in the West. Louis Fischer, William Shirer, George Orwell, Stanley Wolpert, MLK Jr, Richard Attenborough, Time Magazine editorial committee and legions of other intellectuals across a political spectrum. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner included Gandhi alongside music composer Igor Stravinsky amongst a list of people he chose to study 'creativity'. Joseph Lelyveld in his biography marvels at the untouchability tour by Gandhi when he collected a princely sum to be devoted to projects for Dalits. Lelyveld wonders why no one speaks of it in India today.

The chief culprit is Indian education. Our school textbooks have deified Gandhi without humanizing him. As much as American textbooks may not speak of Jefferson fathering a child with his slave I do not expect Indian textbooks to speak of the Brahmacharya experiments. But every fault of Indian education is brought out clearly in how little or how wrongly Indians have understood Gandhi. That applies both to his detractors and to many admirers.

In response to the draconian Rowlatt act of 1919 Gandhi called upon Indians to observe a 'day of prayer' and remain in their homes. It was called 'hartal' (in Hindi). Tamil Nadu's insipid 'Equitable Education' textbook for 10th grade deals with this in 3 sentences: "In order to face the revolutionary movement in a successful manner, the British government passed the Rowlatt Act in 1919. It empowered the British Government to arrest any one without warrant and imprisoned without trial. The Indians under the leadership of Gandhiki opposed it. There was country wide hartal on April 6th 1919".

Classic Indian textbook. In order to encourage higher pass percentage a pivotal event is reduced to 3 badly written sentences. There is no detail on whether the protest succeeded, why such a protest was novel, no sense of wonderment or appreciation for what a one time tongue tied lawyer achieved in a country that spoke 30 languages and hundreds of dialects with so many religions and castes.

I understood the greatness of that 'hartal' from Larry Collin's and Dominique Lapierre's 'Freedom at Midnight' and from the third rate movie 'Gandhi' by Richard Attenborough. Gandhi and his people face an oppressor that was an Empire across continents. An impoverished people who last rebellion was a sham and a total failure had to find a way to tell their oppressor that they did not like a law. Gandhi, with no government propaganda machinery, asked Indians to do a simple act. 'Remain indoors'. It was a genius of creativity because only Gandhi thought of way for Indians to express their displeasure without hurting their rulers physically and opening the possibility of being hurt in return. The movie will show the Viceroy receiving reports of India, one fifth of humanity, coming to stand still. Napoleon and Alexander did not wield such power.

The same textbook then deals with Dandi march in a shameful manner. In 3 very short paragraphs, the most pivotal event of the most glorious freedom movement in all of human history is dismissed off. Within those 3 short paragraphs of just two-three lines each the student learns the dates and the distance covered. I am sure that students would hunch over and try to learn by rote memorizing the dates and the distance.

Overlooking the Great Depression Time Magazine exulted in declaring Gandhi as 'Person of the Year' in January 1931 for the Salt March. Collins and Lapierre reconstructed how a frail 61 year old man with a bamboo staff in his hand 'shook the pillars of the Empire' and 'dominated the world press'. Nehru, the Harrow-Candridge educated aristocrat, when he hears of the Salt March at first demurs. Later seeing its success he feels humbled before a man who had searched for his 'inner voice' to identify a suitable struggle to protest. Most western commentators have marveled at Gandhi's genius for choosing to protest the salt tax as it touched a commodity used by all Indians in as basic a function as cooking food. Even today it is ranked as one of the most successful protests in the quest for justice by a people in all history.

Irwin thought Gandhi will walk to Dandi in a little noticed event and what he got was newsreels of a half-naked fakir challenging an Empire where the sun never set. Gandhi included Dalits in his march much to the chagrin of upper caste Congress members. In every town that he crossed he insisted on staying in the poorest hut. Every penny of funds collected was accounted for no expense was too little to be scrutinized for impropriety. Only children and vainglorious adults will be thrilled reading about Alexander crossing into India or Ceasar crossing the Rubicon. No march by any army in history has left humanity a better place like Dandi March.

New York Times's report Webb Miller filed his immortal report of the Dharasana Salt March that told the world what it was to be Satyagrahi. At Dharasana, in one of the beautifully filmed scenes in the movie 'Gandhi', we see stoic satyagrahis walking up to receive mortally wounding blows without raising a single finger to strike back. Miller wrote "not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend of the blows. They went down like ten-pins'. C.E.M. Joad, writing for an anthology in honor of Gandhi's 75th birthday, said 'Gandhi's greatest success was in inspiring men and women to allow themselves to be beaten to pulp without raising a single finger in defense". In an age when suicide bombers are spoken of admiringly I think of those brave satyagrahis. A suicide bomber needs courage for just a minute and does not live with the consequences. Those satyagrahis were mostly poor and could not even afford hospitalization costs for the injuries suffered. Most injuries were life altering too. Gandhi, unlike Prabakaran and Arafat, led by example.

When Gandhi visited Liverpool factories the workers, mostly women, mobbed him affectionately. Here is the man who, by his boycott of their products, was causing them misery and unemployment. Yet, those workers understood Gandhi better than any modern Indian citizen. They knew and understood who Gandhi was fighting against. Many Indians would look at the photograph and glide by without pausing to wonder if any rebel in all history has ever been so affectionately received by those who were affected by a rebellion.

The 10th grade textbook remains shamefully silent on the horrendous riots during partition. It was the greatest migration undertaken by a people, again, to use an overused word phrase now, in all of human history. India was torn asunder and a civil war situation prevailed. Collins and Lapierre detail harrowing events like a train arriving from Pakistan with all its occupants killed and on the walls of the train was scrawled 'gift to Nehru and Patel'. Yasmin Khan's book 'The great partition' is a compelling read and is without the sensationalism of Collins and Lapierre.

West Bengal that had seen thousands of Hindu's killed on Jinnah's 'Direct action day' was ready to reap vengeance. With millions of muslim lives at stake and no police or military force to spare Mountbatten and Nehru appeal to the only man who can achieve what no military could have done. Gandhi undertook his fast unto death. He remained the only force between hordes of murderous thugs and quivering Muslims afraid for their lives. No man as leader has ever used his personal charisma to such a use saving thousands of lives. It is this act that Ambedkar, with personal animus, called 'blackmail with body as political tool'. If Bengal's riots had gone on unchecked India would have splintered in no time. Yet Indians write that an exhausted oppressor just ceased to oppress and India was born. Ever since Christ was crucified by his own people never was a man who led his people to freedom so disrespected.

Meena Kandasamy, a so called 'activist', raised shackles in a college event by quoting Gandhi's letter to South African authorities protesting against clubbing Indians together with 'kafirs', as he referred to blacks. The letters are actually in the 'Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi'. Little do we realize that Gandhi, just like Lincoln, was not born a liberator. Its a life's journey that he undertook. Also we do not even notice the fact that Gandhi arrives in South Africa in 1893, aged just 24. Just, 24 years old. He leaves South Africa in 1914 aged, just 44 years. In an age and time when worldly knowledge and experiences were limited he was maturing into a leader. Let us not forget that Thomas Jefferson, aged just 33 in 1776, declared 'all men are created equal' while holding slaves. Lincoln never believed that blacks were 'equals' to whites. In a nation where learning history is so shoddy Meena Kandasamys proliferate and prosper.

While Indian speaker Thamizhachi sought to discredit Gandhi slanderously American professor Howard Gardner exults that Gandhi was probably the greatest leader in a 1000 years. Watch "http://youtu.be/RgH5ep6iEfU" .

Is Gardner naive? Would Gardner not know about Gandhi's warts? Why did William Shirer, a man who understood Hitler before most did, think Gandhi towered above his warts like being dictatorial at times or titular even? Did Lelyveld not know about his Brahmacharya experiments? Nothing has been a better stick to beat Gandhi with than his patently shameful Brahmacharya experiments with women associates. Sudhir Kakar wrote that several women were mentally affected. It was Nirmal Bose's 'My days with Gandhi' that laid bare the details of those experiments for the first time. Collins and Lapierre too dwell on it for some length. What no one has accused Gandhi was of molesting or abuse. Nirmal Bose's book paints a more complex picture. I reject attempts to whitewash this part of Gandhi but I equally reject attempts  to portray him like a Casanova. The experiments were consensual amongst adults who freely consented. This part of Gandhi's life is the most taxing on any person who admires him. Yet, it is this part that clearly calls for a perspective rooted in a historical appreciation of the man's life as a whole.

In a way we can extend the failure of Indians to understand historical personalities due to shoddy education to Nehru too. Nehru is easily ridiculed for Kashmir, being soft on Pakistan, of course his affairs with Edwina and others, focusing on heavy industries and more. Nehru was Washington and Jefferson combined. No man since Nehru has worried about educating Indians as he did. In an age when politicians send their children to English convents while asking others to study in mother-toungue  we should worship a Cambridge alumnus for trying to create the equivalent of Harvard and MIT in India.

Nehru nurtured the nascent institutions of government with a democratic zeal that was almost herculean in proportions. As Prime Minister he was insistent on attending the question hour in the parliament. He wrote incessantly to state CM's educating them on every matter conceivable as relevant to shaping a country. His writings run to 50 volumes and is still incomplete. The steady leadership of Nehru in the turbulent early 17 years was instrumental in cementing India as a country. Even his economic policy, which I disagree with, was actually in tune with the times. Harry Truman and FDR were to the left of Nehru on economics.

Indians, thanks to such shoddy education, lack the intellectual discipline to understand a life as complex and varied as that of Gandhi's. We don't even know how to mentally reconstruct events and understand their historical nature. In an education that focuses on dates and data without context a race to score marks ensures that the mind is incapable of contemplation and understanding complexity.

A recent discussion on Facebook summarizes this blog.

The photo on the right (of Gandhi) is fake

Here is Subhash Bose walking past a guard of honor by the army he raised. On the side is Gandhi in a dancing pose with a white lady, a fake photo. The question was "who did more for Indian freedom?" Bose, in his hatred for British, thought Hitler and the Japanese were nothing worse if not better. One shudders to think a what if about Hitler winning the war. Such is the level of historical perspectives amongst Indians.

An American school textbook I read had a chapter on Gandhi. At the end a question was posed as a debate exercise "would India have won freedom earlier if Gandhi had adopted violent means of protest". I'd point them to Gandhi's own writings of Satyagraha as a strategy and Orwell's essay on Gandhi where Orwell is skeptical if Gandhian methods would work against Hitler. Gandhi did advice Churchill to hand over the British Isles to Hitler and convert him by 'soul force'. Thankfully Churchill did not listen. At the same time lets not forget how MLK Jr adored Gandhi and found in Gandhi a mentor for the Civil Rights struggle. Indians cheekily ask "can Gandhi's method work against tyrants". They dont have the knowledge of world history to ask "could Kurdish people have adopted MLK Jr's methods against Saddam".

Gandhi and Nehru should be rescued from Indian education and re-introduced to Indians through Western presentation. Irony.


Suggested Reading:

1. Gandhi: A Biography -- Louis Fischer
2. Freedom at Midnight - Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.
3. Gandhi: 75th Birthday Anthology by S.Radhakrishnan
4.Gandhi - 8 volumes by D.G. Tendulkar
5. Gandhi: A memoir - William Shirer
6. The great Partition - Yasmeen Khan
8. Creativity - Howard Gardner
9. Gandhi - Stanley Wolpert
10. 'Great Soul' - Joseph Lelyveld.

11. My earlier blog "Thamizhachi Thangapandiyan's Slander on Gandhi"

  http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/thamizhachi-thangapandiyans-slander-on.html

Ilayaraja's 'How To Name It':Perils Of Music Sans Philosophy

As school children we all learn Newton's laws of motion. Towards the end of the schooling we learn the higher concepts of quantum physics including the famous Heisenberg's 'uncertainty principle. Little do we, both American and Indian school children, realize that what we think of as just math and science is much more than that. Biographer James Gleick in 'Isaac Newton' explains how Newton was inspired his reading of Aristotle. Newton had hundreds of volumes in personal including Francis Bacon's 'Novum Organum' and Aristotle's 'Nichomachean Ethics'. Germany was the cradle of modern physics and the shadow of Immanuel Kant was long and deep. Einstein had read Kant as a school boy. Paul Dirac read John Stuart Mill in school. We learn the mathematical principles of the probability theories and little do we realize that Laplace was a philosopher of the first rate. Leibniz was more a philosopher than a mathematician. Likewise Henri Poincare.

It is a mistaken notion, particularly amongst Indians, that philosophy is some abstruse time wasting avocation with no relation to the immediate. That is largely true of Indian philosophy which was more concerned about ethics and could not help being more a theology than philosophy. When quantum physics upended the Newtonian deterministic model of universe chaos ruled the roost. While I learned the physics of those theories my curriculum did not prepare me for pondering on the significance of those theories. When quantum physics said that the observer impacts what is observed it opened a can of philosophical worms. If the observer impacts what is observed then the observations are 'tainted' and that means its not 'objective'. If objectivity dies then so does a lot. If truth becomes subjective then everything becomes relative. And all that is just scraping the surface. The point being there is nothing in our lives without philosophy.

Indians enjoy music in 3 levels. One, and this is the large majority, as film music. Two, as an esoteric activity where losing one's self in a kind of trance. Three, as a background noise to our daily chores like driving. The last is common to other people. Indians are not accustomed to the idea that books can foment revolutions and create wars. "So you are the woman who started the war" said Lincoln when he met Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of 'Uncle Tom's cabin'. Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of scientific revolutions' caused a stir in America. European history is replete with authors instigating movements and revolutions. As much as literature was seen as ivory tower activity so also music is seen as only an activity to lull the senses or to tickle it momentarily. That music, as an art form, can be political and philosophical is something many Indians fail to realize or appreciate.

Why do I expect a Tamil film musician or a Carnatic musician to study literature and philosophy? Is it unfair? Is it some sort of snobbery. No and No. 

Lets take a contemporary example from Tamil Nadu. One can talk about Jeyamohan's collection of stories 'Aram' (அறம்) like one speaks of a sequence of events with no deeper pondering. One can narrate the story of a boy dependent on his relatives for food (சோற்றுக் கணக்கு) as "a boy went to live with his relatives...". 'Justice' has become a central theme, a philosophical prism, for Jeyamohan in his thoughts and writings. If a teacher or reviewer talks of those stories drawing on Indian philosophy, psychology, Ayn Rand, Aristotle and Plato the discussion is elevated. Can we reduce 'Anna Karenina' to an extra-marital affair? We expect and relish philosophy in fiction. Can we reduce 'Pather Panchali' to just a sorry tale of poverty? We explore with joy the multi layered meanings. Yet, when it comes to music we are glad to stop with talk of technology, the notes, the raga, the gamakam (inflection), harmony and other details.

Pianist Rafal Blechacz, replying to a question on what is his personal process of learning a new piece, said "it’s also very important for me to study other things and subjects. It can’t always be just music. A few years ago, I began studying philosophy, especially that of aesthetics. I very much concentrate on the books about interpretation, about freedom in the arts, etc. For example, there’s a very interesting Polish philosopher, Roman Ingarden, a student of the famous German philosopher, Edmund Husserl. Ingarden wrote a small book about the identity of a musical work, which includes many thoughts on interpretation, etc. I’m currently writing a small book on logic and the metaphysics of music, and I use many examples from Bach, and a lot of Chopin, of course".

Legendary Venezuelan musician and conductor Gustavo Dudamel was asked by a reporter on books he is currently reading. Dudamel said he was reading "short stories by the Argentine writer Julio Cortazar". At Dudamel's office, the reporter spots books by Aristotle, Nietzche, books on history and more. Why does Dudamel have to read history? Time magazine declared Dudamel as one of the world's 100 most influential people and wrote that while performing Shostakovich's symphony No.10 he tries to make the violins sound more biting and caustic because the symphony portrays the dark days of Stalinist terror. Dudamel had read the history of the purges and Shostakovich's own dread of being hauled of to a gulag. Note, Dudamel is a Venezuelan reading up on Russian history in order to perform a symphony. He also reads Greek and German philosophers in addition to an Argentine short story book.

America's most famous school for music and dance, Juilliard, lays a heavy stress of liberal arts for a student of any discipline. A dance student has to take 18 credits in liberal arts. The liberal arts curriculum includes a study of civil rights struggle in America, European history, elective language courses in foreign languages, ethics, history of Renaissance and more. If one peruses the library catalogue of Madras Music Academy its not surprising to see that almost all books that talk about music beyond raaga, gamakam etc is by westerners.

The American education system, like its European counterpart, lays a heavy stress on liberal arts curriculum, called 'core curriculum', for all disciplines. Whether one chooses to be a doctor or a civil engineer or a sociologist the college curriculum includes studying classics and history. One is not thought of as a graduate unless one has had a peek into the classics. This has been proven to widen a student's ability to think outside the box. It stimulates a fresh approach to a beaten down problem, it helps create new paradigms and new perspectives. When a musician, composer or virtuoso, reflects on Aristotle's poetics it is impossible not to gain a new vision towards what he creates.

If a Polish pianist can learn from Greek philospohy why not T.M.Krishna? It is the inability to learn from beyond the borders and beyond the realm of music that keeps carnatic musicians in a parochial paradigm. The little that T.M.Krishna speaks about ideas on archiving etc are mere nibbling at the edges. Its pathetic that these middling ideas are presented to an audience under the title 'leadership'. 

Ilayaraja rode to fame on a wave of new Tamil cinema that was spearheaded by K.Balachander, Bharathiraja, Balu Mahendra, Mahendran and others. Those directors presented Raja with interesting 'situations' to compose music for. Bharathiraja took Tamil movies from the stifling sets to the dusty roads of villages. Scoring music for a movie set in a village similar to where he spent his childhood Raja, himself new on the scene, provided refreshing scores. In less than ten years Raja became titular, arrogant and insufferable. Almost all the top directors left him. Only directors like his own brother and Raj Kiran were left. Raja's music became jaded. While at the top Raja released his first, and an industry first probably, non-filmi music album that was purely about music. The album titled 'How to name it' to signify the fusion of east and west was a roaring success. I've listened to it and lost myself in my teens when I did not know better. Today I consider it a work of singular mediocrity.

Raja, who took the Trinity college music exams, was schooled in Western Classical unlike his predecessors. Raja's acumen as a student is unassailable. For a boy, from an impoverished family in a remote village in India, to learn and apply Bach's fugue techniques is just brilliant. The titles track 'how to name it', 'I met Bach in my house' show touches of brilliance in technique and flashes of imagination.  The track 'Chamber welcomes Thiagaraja' is passable. 'Study for violin' has a piano and violin in a counterpoint or fugue like question-answer structure for a mere minute and half. The rest is pure drivel with the tracks 'Don't compare' and 'Do Anything' taking the prize for mediocrity. Those tracks show a man who remains imprisoned within Tamil film music format and unable to reach beyond.

The album exposes the shallowness of Raja's music. This is not a man who can dream of a grand theme. He had not educated himself for that. Even the idea of a fusion music is not original. Ravi Shankar was the grand daddy of fusion music. Raja's fame rests on how he brought freshness to Tamil film music by the skillful, some would say 'genius', melding of Western Classical with Carnatic. Most of those songs however have wonderful music for just the prelude and interlude with the tabla holding up the melody for the most part when verses are sung.

Raja has no intellectual ability to conceptualize what is art. Before his worshippers bare their fangs at me, note that I am not deriding his ability to create music. When a good director gives him a challenging situation like Balachander asking for a music without descending notes (avarohanam) Raja rises to the occasion. Left on his own he flounders for ideas. Without a conceptual unifying theme that progress to present an idea the music falls flat as a composition. 'How to name it' reflects the confusion of the artist. Art can portray confusion. A music or poetry or painting can reflect the chaos in the world. That is an artist's conception of how he sees the world. But the art form itself cannot be a jumble of ideas. Even if one conceded that what is Raja confused about? Is it some existential dilemma of 'to be or not to be'? No.

Sir Neville Mariner was approached by Milos Forman to compose music for his grandiose fictional story of Mozart based on Peter Shaeffer's play 'Amadeus'. Sir Mariner insisted that the film's music be only from Mozart and Salieri and that the music will not be mutilated. He insisted that the film be scripted around the music. Only Ilayaraja, consumed with his own arrogance and egotism, could make Tamil Nadu's greatest modern poet Bharathi sing the lyrics of a third rate film lyricist in the biopic 'Bharathi'. Raja, no Mariner himself, did not have any idea of art or music as art that can be used to tell the story of one of India's greatest poet. It should be noted that Raja's fans often credit him with shoring up a sloppy movie with his music and that he often gave better music than what the directors were even capable of imagining. Raja's fans gush that he often instructs directors on the placement of songs etc. With that in mind I'd not hesitate to say that only a person like Raja can malign Bharathi because he had no philosophy in him. Devotion to exotic nihilist sadhus like Ramana Maharishi is not philosophy. In a way I'd say that worshipping Ramana Maharishi affected Raja's worldview in addition to the otherworldly nature of Carnatic music.

Just as broader Indian education system needs to be reformed so should music education in India be reformed. We should stop asking "why should a Carnatic musician read Shakespeare or Aristotle". Nothing but good can come from reading those. I'd add that India, the land of Upanishads and Dhammapada, lost its vigor for philosophy and that is one of the reasons for the rootless and rudderless nature of its intellectual trends. As we produce technicians in Engineering colleges so also we are producing technicians in music.

References:

Juilliard's liberal arts curriculum : http://catalog.juilliard.edu/preview_entity.php?catoid=17&ent_oid=1850'

'The Great American University' by Jonathan Cole (Former Provost of Columbia University).

America's Broken Political System

I read Jeffrey Archer's novel 'First among equals' as a schoolboy. I was fascinated by the two party system, the debates, the shadow ministry etc. After 14 years in USA I still would say that fascination is almost intact albeit a bit jaded.

The world's richest and ancient democratic country has a broken political system. At more than 250 years old USA is an ancient democracy that is still functioning based on rules drawn up in the 18th century. That does lot of credit to the prescience of the founding fathers. And the system is now broken. The last presidential election saw both candidates raise and spend a billion dollars each. If we include congressional races the figure reaches an astronomical 6 Billion dollars. That does not bode well for a democracy.

The Bush V Gore election was America's most shameful moment in modern political history. That the worlds most mature and richest democracy was deciding its President in the Supreme Court remains a shame. The world came to know of America's convoluted electoral college system for presidential elections.

The electoral college was devised for a different era with different fears in mind. The founders, as much as they were democratic in outlook, feared mobocracy more. The electoral college was devised to be a cooling chamber. Members of the electoral college can actually vote any way they want and not according to how their state voted. Strangely that has not happened to the extent that the ayaram-gaya-ram culture of India.

Democratic presidential candidates today have a great advantage because two of the largest states, NY and CA, are decidedly democratic thus contributing a large chunk of electoral college votes. Then add MA, NJ, IL etc. The votes for the republican candidate in a state like NY and CA are totally wasted. Likewise democratic votes in Texas. It is time to scrap the electoral college and go for a direct election where every voter feels his vote counts for something.

The two party system is a blessing and a curse. Coming from India where coalitions are stitched in naked bartering I do like the two party system. The two party system however stifles diversity of ideological shades within the party. It is common for primary candidates to not just hew to party lines but make a fetish of how far they can swing to the right (as in the case of GOP) or to the left (as in the case of Democrats). Centrist candidates are labeled 'weasels' pushed out.

Joe Lieberman (D), senator from CT, was defeated in the 2004 primaries because he was seen as too hawkish by an increasingly left wing Democratic primary voters. Lieberman ran as independent and snubbed the Democratic primary voters by winning. When Sarah Palin, a dilettante posing as revolutionary, stirred trouble for GOP candidate Lisa Murkowski the latter ran as independent. And according to Alaska rules her name could not be on the ballot rather for an independent the name haS to be written down on the ballot by voters. Imagine voters writing a name like "Murkowski'. She then included the spelling of her name as a chant in her election rallies. She won. But look at the mess that a democracy like the US is when it comes to elections.

The electoral rules governing primaries and how a voter can take part is not uniform. In fact primaries are held according to a myriad rules resulting in wildly varying forms. We have open primaries where a republican can take part in a democratic primary and vice versa, then there are closed primaries where only respective party voters can voters, there are 'beauty contests' where the primary does not count, then there is the famous Texas two-step which is a primary and a caucus combined together and finally the hopelessly outdated caucuses themselves.

In 2008 Barack Obama stormed to a historic victory in Iowa caucuses where Hillary finished a humiliating third. Hillary went on to lose almost all the caucusing sates. She later grumbled that the structure of a caucus is inherently unfavorable to her voters. Caucuses with its speeches and confabulations are long drawn out where Hillary's voters, mostly seniors, could not compete with the youth driven energetic voter base of Obama.  Obama in turn lost many large states by decisive margins to Hillary. Obama lost CA, MA, PA, NY. In the notorious Texas 2 step Obama won the caucus and Hillary won the primary.

The Democrats awarded delegates by representative percentage in each primary. Hence Hillary did not have any big advantage after winning NY and CA on super tuesday. Obama has to thank Jesse Jackson for that. Due that method it was a long drawn bitter fight to accumulate the required delegates to clinch the nomination. In 2012 GOP made that mistake and Romney lost precious time.

Now add to the woes USA's outdated election machinery. Even India has gone completely electronic. America hung its head in shame during the Florida recount fiasco. The word 'hanging chad' became a joke.

The primary system for non-presidential elections is equally muddled and its not dynamic. A primary is meant for a party to choose whom they think is best suited to represent their philosophy. I agree that independents should not be allowed to vote in a party primary. However an independent voter must be afforded some mechanism to ensure who he/she thinks is best to be contesting. An independent voter is now relegated to be able to influence outcome only during the general election where he has to choose between two options that were selected by others.

The debates are a sham. Presidential debates are governed by agreements that two parties agree to. The agreement is based on what powerful lawyers argue on behalf of each candidate. The debate formats are so scripted that there is no spontaneity. The time is so restrictive that one hears only recycled talking points. The debates during primary season are a joke. In Presidential primary debates there are 10 or even more candidates in the initial stage. Its a pickle for TV companies to be restrictive. If they are too restrictive and exclude candidates who perform poor in opinion polls then it would be a disservice to a candidate like John Huntsman. If the TV companies are lenient then we get Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, Michelle Bachmann.

Money and American elections are a vexing topic. Until the Supreme court ruled in the much maligned Citizens United Vs FEC corporate spending was highly regulated. We should note that only corporate spending was regulated. Unions had a free hand in not just raising cash but also in the more important contribution of foot soldiers. Unions favor democrats by a whopping margin. In 2008 unions outspent all the cash spent all corporations put together. Thanks to US Supreme court ruling the playing field was opened for all to spend.

Both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich remained in contention against Romney only because they each had a billionaire backing them up. Though Romney was winning primaries Santorum and Gingrich, with no broad based fund raising success, remained an irritant because their patrons had deep pockets.

I am all for regulating campaign spending but it should be done without favor to unions. Incidentally we should note that in 2008 facing a vastly underfunded opponent Barack Obama broke his promise to accept state funding, and thereby the restrictions that come with it. Obama is the first candidate to refuse state funding since the rules were put in place in the aftermath of Watergate.

If elections are a mess then governing is even worse. Gridlock in Washington DC is a topic that gives many the headache. When the US was formed the small states feared being steam rolled by the large states in the Congress because the number of representatives is proportional to population. A compromise was stuck. The senate, the upper body in the bicameral legislature, would have just 2 senators from each state irrespective of size. Hence Delaware and California have 2 senators each. Senators have sweeping powers to hold up bills, deny presidential appointees confirmations etc. Many house bills die in the senate. That is good and bad.

Congressional districts are highly gerrymandered. Today the number of congressional seats that can be called swing seats is far dwindling. Thats bad for democracy.

Do I despair for American democracy? Not yet. An erstwhile friend, a member of Tamil Sangams, incensed by my many criticisms of Tamil society and India asked me "what about a senate candidate in US who made despicable comments on rape". Her question was "why don't you condemn those as eagerly as you condemn failings in India". I told her that this blog was already work in progress. But to answer her question that candidate (actually two, Rick Atkins and Richard Mourdock, both GOP) lost their leading positions and were trumped in the hustings thanks to their barbaric remark. What more can I ask of a democracy?

As a student of philosophy and history I am not a big enthusiast of philosopher kings. Ordinary men make mistakes but if the system weeds them out and continuously reforms itself I am ok with it. This is the system which converted Robert Byrd, a KKK member, into a great senator.

As much as Washington DC is gridlocked the local governments are vibrant and that is the hope for America's resiliency. As the Economist magazine pointed out, America is being re-invented at the local level.

The 24 hour news cycle is also contributing to the vitiated political climate. Richard Mourdock, GOP senate candidate, said on CNN "compromise is when they (Dems) agree with us". Sarah Palin crowed, mindful that it will be replayed in TV a lot, "we are not the party of no. We are the party of hell no". Obama for his part loved to scold everyone he thinks is his opponent on national live TV.

Urgent reforms are needed to make America a more vibrant democracy. Reform the presidential election, campaign finance, lobbying, gerrymandering, filibuster rules and transparency in legislations.