The Swati Tirunal – S Balachander imbroglio
The serene and melodious Carnatic music scene at Madras suddenly
found itself in a cacophonic conundrum, when a doyen among them - Veena S Balachander,
decided to throw a heap of mud on the face of one of the greatest musical
exponents, the Swati Tirunal Maharaja of Travancore, grandly announcing that the
latter was no great poet, that he never existed and that the Maharaja’s work
was in reality, a hoax, plagiarized from other musicians his court. Accusations
flew thick and quick, and battle lines were quickly drawn. Perhaps it was
getting a little too cozy and dull in the hallowed corridors of the 1980’s
Madras music academy, Carnatic music aficionados were soon avidly following
the scandal in the press, for here was a new controversy, which they could now discuss
animatedly, sans ragas and meter. Let’s take a look.
Padma Bhushan S Balachander (1927-1990), the self-proclaimed
genius and Veena Virtuoso, on the other hand, was a lot of things as well, he
was a filmmaker, an actor, dancer, singer and poet, who made his mark and
dazzled listeners with new techniques of Veena strumming. A flamboyant
character, Balachander believed that he had been blessed and ordained to take
the music of the gods and the Vedas to lowly earthlings. Nobody taught him, his
traditional skill came from kelvi gnjanam (by keen listening), and he
hated fusion music sans purity as well as jugalbandis (instrumental duets), remaining
friends only with his treasured Veena. Ever a supporter of tradition, he
attacked anything new in the music field, but above all, he was an eccentric who
ended up creating a style of his own which some called the Balachander school
or the Balachander Bani. As a popular veena player, he tried to bring the
Vainika to the same level as the vocalist and got the instrument to mimic the
vocals, not just provide supporting tones, getting experts opining that he
singlehandedly brought the revered Veena to the fore as a solo instrument not
inferior to the vocalist. But naturally, he had following him, after several
awards to boot, a large number of ardent admirers, and strong critics. Above
all he also held another self-professed role, that of the watchdog of ethics in
the musical world, making his colleagues and comrades wary and occasionally
fuming at his rabble-rousing and attention-seeking gimmicks.
But what erupted into a huge scandal was the furor created
by Balachander’s salvo at the long dead, and revered Swati Tirunal. What did he
hope to achieve other than some press? We will understand all this as we
continue on with this interesting story. To get there, we have to see how Swati
Tirunal got under the skin of Balachander.
Without getting into too much background, we should start
with Sethu Parvathi Bayi, otherwise known as the Junior Rani of Travancore and
the mother of the young king Chithira Tirunal Balarama Varma. Though her reign and her relationship with the
Dewan Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer as well as the many years of troubled governance at
Travancore have been recounted in other articles, we now focus on one of her great
qualities. She was very fond of music, and wanted to regularize its teaching in
Travancore. After the king was installed on the throne in 1930 and Sir CP
became the Dewan in 1936-37, it was Sethu Parvathi’s aim to bring in the
compositions of Swati Tirunal into the teaching syllabus and popularize his
music. With Sir CP’s support, she got Muthaih Bhagavathar appointed as the
principal of the Swati Tirunal Music academy.
A team went through many of the old records,
unearthed many compositions of her ancestor, Swati Tirunal, published them in
swara lipi, and polished the music in them. The original sopanam style was done
away with on some of them and the compositions were reset into a traditional
Carnatic style, from what I could understand. The person who later assisted
Muthiah was none other than Semmangudi Sreenivasa Iyer, relocating to
Travancore in 1940. The twosome would resurrect Swati compositions, try them
out with Parvathi Bayi, and after her approval would formalize and popularize them
through the school and through concerts. Soon enough, most of them became popular
and well-known Swati Tirunal compositions.
The Swati Tirunal Music academy paralleled the Madras music
academy in quality and fame, the music festival became popular and practicing musicians
took note. In 1940, the theme at Madras was Swati Tirunal’s compositions and in
1943, the Madras music academy celebrated the birth anniversary of the late
King and composer. The MMA also found in the Travancore royal house and Sethu Parvathi
Bayi, a reliable patron.
Days went by, Sir CP left Travancore, Semmangudi was
advancing in age, and in 1963, he was replaced by GN Balasubramaniam. Around
that time, a book extolling the virtues of the King composer, was published by
S Venkita Subramanya Iyer titled ‘Swati Tirunal and
His Music’ introducing the composer to the larger public. Though he had mainly praise
for the king in the book, he did voice some doubts concerning some works of
Parameswara Bhagavathar and Irayimman Thampi which he thought were wrongly
attributed to Swati Tirunal. He also alluded that the Raja may have been
assisted on some of the Telugu works by the Tanjavur quartet, but summarized in
the end that the great Raja was more than a musician and perhaps more talented
than the revered Tanjavur trilogy of Thyagaraja, Dikshitar, and Sastry.
In 1981, Semmangudi, then the vice president of the MMA,
published a book on Swati Tirunal extolling his virtues and especially his
skill as a composer, under the auspices of the NBT, the national book trust.
In 1982, KP Sivanandam (with his brother Kitappa), a
descendant of the Tanjore quartet family and a Veena player of repute, gave a
press interview and published an article where he claimed that many of Swati compositions
belonged to Vadivelu, had been translated and formally attributed to the King
after adding his mudra Padmanabha. Sivanandam then claimed that the works published
by Semmangudi had all been picked up from palm leaves possessed by his family. Following
this messy press tirade, Sivanandam was ostracized by the MMA and he was no
longer invited for any event.
These were the events that triggered fury in the mind of
Balachander. He had after hearing about the scandal, met Sivanandam and studied
the case. Deciding that Sivanandam was right, he sent out an open letter as he
usually did, to the press, stating that people like Semmangud would soon
project that all English and French compositions in the world were also done by
Swati Tirunal and that this was an evil propaganda scheme of the Travancore
Royal house. But he did not directly state that the king Swati Tirunal plagiarized
Vadivelu’s work, he was only unhappy that Swati Tirunal was placed on the same
pedestal as the trinity. He also wanted Swati’s portrait (actually painted by his
brother Rajam) placed side by side with the trinity, removed from the MMA hall and
relocated elsewhere.
The MMA and the Travancore royals ignored Balachander,
infuriating him. At Travancore, critics remarked that the accusers were peeved,
only because they had not been invited to perform in Travancore. Stronger
counter-arguments came from RB Nayar and S Natarajan who took apart Sivanandam
and Balachander, implying that Vadivelu and his brothers were refugees in the
first place, and would have taken back copies of their palace work (the cadjun
granthas) in retirement. They added that Sivanandam had tried to sell some of
those palm leaves to the palace for a massive sum, but since the deal did not work
out, were disappointed and took umbrage.
Though Balachander received some personal letters of
support, his request for a formal investigation by an MMA expert committee,
reached nowhere. His arguments were that a book by an expert like Semmangudi
cemented Swati’s place falsely recreating history, and that the Travancore
palace had provided no corroboration for the originality of Swati’s work,
whereas Sivanandam had indeed produced some palm leaves. He also argued that it
was simply impossible for Swati to create 400 compositions in slightly over a
decade, with calculations to argue it. Demanding that the Semmangudi book be
withdrawn from circulation, he listed his 20 questions on the issue which required
urgent answers. When he was again ignored by the authorities, he published a
booklet in 1985, with all the incriminating information he had collected, sending
it to all and sundry, including the president and prime minister of India.
Balachander was by now a man possessed, and stated- The
musical image of Swati Tirunal is a mere product of sheer propaganda, a hoax, a
myth, a fraud, a planned deception, a fabricated lie perpetrated in this our
generation, before our very eyes and ears! The time has arrived to put a stop
to this madness, and halt the frenzy forever and to universally expose the
sordid and shameful, gigantic scheme of royal and regal proportion.
Semmangudi told the press that Balachander was going
bonkers. Balasaraswati who was supporting Sivanandam (many of the prominent
Bharat Natyam dancers of that time had studied in the Quartet’s schools) faded away
quietly, and Sivanandam too disappeared for a while, only to surface and pick
up a Sangeetha Kalanidhi award from the very MMA which had ostracized him. He
no longer sported the previous accusatory attitude. Balachander of course
plodded on, in his staunch belief and conviction that his rabbit had 4 horns. He
teamed up with a proficient Malayali lawyer named Vijayaraghavan and started to
analyze old records to establish errors in the name, date of birth of the
Maharaja, his years of rule, and so on. But what he did not quite realize was
that he was getting lost in the myriad conventions and culture of Travancore concerning
naming, calendars, inheritance, relationships and what not.
His major blunder was his next act of declaring that a king
named Swati Tirunal never existed. A big press conference was called, in which
Balachander spoke for hours and hours, accusing and abusing all and sundry.
Pretty soon he was the only one left listening to his voice. The other
detractors were gone, so also the cause, and the case itself, got virtually
closed by the investigator’s own actions. The Vainka and the lawyer did not
give up, they filed a writ petition in 1989 in the Madras high court. Attempts
to rally other singers to their side did not work (he even tried hard to get MS
Subbalakshmi stop singing Swati songs, but she would not accede). He was, as
they said, the last man standing.
All in all, in this egoistic battle, Balachander wasted
years and years of his time and a substantial amount of his savings, earning
nothing but ridicule in the end. Finally, the stress caught up with him and the
brilliant musician passed away in 1990, at Bhilai. After his death, the writ petition
was withdrawn by his family, since as an expert S Satyanarayan had provided
reasonable clarification on behalf of the NBT which accepted that some of the
hyperbole by Semmangudi had been erroneous. The scandal died a natural death
though some aspersions on the MMA getting swayed by Travancore patrons,
remained. The public felt that money and power could bend rules and averred that
the royalty of Travancore had both.
Many answers to Balachander’s questions were finally published
16 years after he passed away, when Dr RP Raja took it upon himself to delve
into the issue, perusing a huge number of sources. Let’s see what he had to
say.
Understanding the musical scene in Kerala is not so easy,
especially since the style of Sopanam, Attakatha and Harikatha are quite
different from other South Indian music forms. I had covered this in a separate
article, and you can trace therein, the music developed in the region. Needless
to state, that the style was used in Travancore by both Swati and his uncle
Irayimman thampi. Carnatic music had spread from Vijayanagara to all the
neighboring kingdoms, not just Tanjore. Musicians moved to all the regional
patrons, and while the Serforji’s were the largest patrons, musicians were also
working in Travancore and Ettayapuram, just to name two prominent locales. The
biggest problem of the Swati Tirunal music legacy is the fact that as a king,
he never had disciples and so his work did not pass down orally, as such. That
the court had a large musical and dance ensemble is well known and their
collective output spearheaded by the genius Swati Tirunal was, over a couple of
decades is perhaps what we should be looking at.
His mastery over languages is attested by a contemporary
writer, T Shungooni Menon, who testifies that he was fluent in Sanskrit,
English, Tamil, Malayalam, so also, Mahratta, Persian, Hindustani and Telugu. I
can only comment that one is usually fluent enough in other languages if only to
translate and transcribe, not think in. Even though one’s mother tongue is
Malayalam, we publish in English because it has a global readership. Similarly,
in the case of musical pieces, perhaps Tamil, Kannada and Telugu were
important, so also Sanskrit and Swati Tirunal published pieces in those languages.
The granthas which recorded the efforts were copied and passed on to many
members of the team, and surely Vadivelu as one of his closest confidantes
would have possessed a working draft. A group working with multiple languages
in the palace, may have relied on Sanskrit as a common medium, though copies in
other languages would have also been used.
Dr Raja establishes that the first published collection of
86 compositions came out as the 1853 treatise Utsava Varna Prabandham. The next
11 came out in Shungoony Menon’s ‘History of Travancore’ published in 1878. The
1917 work Balamritham by Ranganatha Iyer, provides notations for 125 works of the
King (interestingly his father excelled as a leading musician in the Kings
court). Discounting 15 of the songs, which had already been mentioned in
previous works, the Balamritham lists 110 more of his works.
The writer who saw the original script, handwriting in the
cadjun leaves was one Chidambara Vadhyar, who set out to find important
documents from the heap of granthas lying about in the palace library and list
them in his 1916 work. He testifies to seeing himself, about 23 leaves with
compositions signed off as Ka Ra – the king’s signature in Telegu and receiving
in all, 311 works eventually, copies from various sources. Anyway, as a result
of all this, the authorship of some 472 works, can be attributed to Swati Tirunal.
From a language point of view, the vast majority were in Sanskrit, followed by
over 50 in Manipravalam, and just a few in Telugu, Kannada, and Hindustani, with
some musical pieces (Tillanas) and narratives to complete. All of the pieces
mention the Raaga used. However what Dr
Raja does not quite detail is if or all of the cadjun leaf collections still
exist in the palace, or clarify if those collections were analyzed and
transcribed and were used in the polishing efforts by Semmangudi and Muthiah. HM
Vaidyalingam who assisted his father Muthiah, stated that they painstakingly
collected the many songs from elderly people (Mullamoodu Bhagavathar
descendants) who remembered them.
While one can thus trace the authorship of the many sahityas
as above, how about the Dhatu or the musical part to establish that he was a
Vaggeyakara? This is identified with the large amount of Swaraksharas (letters
coinciding with notes, thus embedding music in the text) in Swati’s
compositions, which only a musically proficient person can do. It also proves
that others did not set his sahitya or text to music, separately. Palace
accounts testify Swati Tirunal purchasing a violin and a Maddalam and having a
Swarabath constructed, so it is presumed he could play those instruments.
The use of the signature Padmanabha by multiple persons was
another argument that Balachander did not quite follow. The Trippadi danam
concept itself may have been unfamiliar to him, for the Travancore royals had
surrendered the entire kingdom and possessions to Lord Padmanabha. So, the
felicitation of the lord in all the songs and its use as a mudra may have been
followed by the entire group working on the pieces and especially, both Iriymman
Thampi and Swati Tirunal.
It is sometimes difficult to imagine how Swati found time to
balance his musical talents and the administrative demands, as a king. At the
same time, it can be understood that there was a larger unit at work, just like
the music industry today. Surely the many composers and musicians met and
collaborated, they discussed ideas and brought out finished work, attributed usually
as was the practice, to their patron (any patrons prerogative), the monarch. That
is the only way such a large number of compositions of brilliance could be
completed in a short period. I don’t believe there was any competition or a
need to bring in special protection for their intellectual property. The music
was created and used as palace recreational music and temple music, never spread
out for general public consumption.
In the Tanjavur scene, it was a competitive situation and
with three or more schools competing for royal patronage and fame, it was more
important using mudras as well as the methodology of publishing music, albeit orally.
Nevertheless, even in those Tanjavur schools, with a Guru and his pupils, there
are always elements of work completed by the Shishya on behalf of his guru. Also,
there was a wider listening audience in Tanjore, compared to Travancore, with
public performances more common.
The Vadivelu descendants do possess a trove of cadjun granthas
inherited from the quartet, and it is clear that the Travancore Royals were possibly
interested in perusing them, but not to paying large sums in acquiring them. If
the family wanted to establish alternate authorship, they would have done it by
now, for the leaves are still around in the residence. Also, Sivanandam’s claim
that those works were Vadivelu’s compositions translated with the new mudra Padmanabha
added in, does not hold water simply because I feel it is not feasible to
insert swarakhsharas into such versions at exactly the right places when translating,
it can only be composed so in the original language of composition.
It is quite possible that Sethu Parvathi Bayi used her power,
connections and influence to back the promotion of the Swati Tirunal legacy, and
surely it was a just and proper cause, for musical experts agree that the work so
promoted was of fine quality, just as students agree that they are challenging,
and the audience who found and still find them, melodious and sonorous. That is
the big picture, the rest, these silly attacks are ‘noise’ which one must learn
to filter out. Charisma, personability and power promote popularity, whether
you like it or not. But in the end, though we have a song with a name and a
signature, what remains and are repeatedly performed, are mellifluous musical pieces
that withstand the test of time.
References
New light on Swati Tirunal – Dr R P Raja
Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India - Amanda J. Weidman
Demystifying Swati Turinal – Dr Achuth Shankar S Nair (Journal of MMA – Vol 80, 2009)
Rare sources of information on Swati Tirunal – Dr Achuth Shankar S Nair
