Brahmins have basically hijacked Carnatic music from the Devdasi community: Chinmayi

T.M Krishna has been vocal about dismantling caste and calling out the casteism: Chinmayi

The way of teaching and imparting music education itself has so many hurdles: Chinmayi

Singer Chinmayi made a sharp attack at Carnatic musicians Ranjani Gayathri over their public statement for declining an invite by the Madras Music Academy. “They (Ranjani Gayatri) are just mixing up their personal problems and their personal dislike for the gentleman because he is asking them to dismantle the general casteism that is associated with Carnatic music. They want to be the gatekeepers of it and they want to say that only a certain caste and a community that is the Brahmin community should be ideally practising Carnatic music. And it’s not that the Brahmin community has always been practising the craft. They themselves have basically hijacked it from the Devdasi community and they started gatekeeping it saying that nobody else except us, who have any devotion and bhakti can perform this. Therefore, the way of teaching and imparting music education itself has so many hurdles,” Chinmayi said in an interview with The Wire. 

Chinmayi also backed T.M Krishna for his efforts to locate how caste privilege functions in the Carnatic music industry. “So, here T.M. Krishna has been one of the people who has been very vocal about the Tamil Brahmin community and dismantling caste and calling out the casteism and the way of treating the accompanying artists and the sub-human behaviour meted out to artists from other communities. He has been doing this for a few years,” Chinmayi added.