The Music of the Melakkar

 Part 3 Melakkar and the breach of the Isai Vellalar borders.

As I mentioned in the previous article, there were two distinct aspects to the Carnatic music tradition, the vocal and the non-vocal performers, i.e. the backing instrumentalists. While both were dependent on each other, the development of one or the other was intrinsically related to the positioning of the caste to which the performer belonged. We saw in the previous article how Brahmins influenced, molded, and set a clear structure around the vocal tradition. We also saw how the public forced small changes to make the system more inclusive to other languages and traditions, over time and how the non-Brahminical castes, Tamil Nadu politics, and linguistic pressures influenced the music culture. Let’s now look at how the instrumentalists fared.

Caste conflicts – Carnatic Music

 Part 2 - Brahmins and Carnatic music

Things always look vastly different when viewed in a narrow context, with glaucomic eyes. Add to it a bit of political manipulation and the matter is blown out of proportion, people get riled up and hell breaks loose, like a perfectly serene blue sky taking on stormy hues.  That is what is going on, and if one wants to to understand how it all started, it requires a little study and understanding of the times when a broad movement demanding equal rights, took birth in erstwhile Madras. devotion.  Without any doubt, the bonds between many a royal patron, the Brahmin vocalists, and supporting musicians is the reason for the flowering of Carnatic music during the early nineteenth century and Brahmins after the fall of the Royals did nurture the art form and tried their best to keep it pristine. I am only trying to explore the strong caste undertones, in the Carnatic music scene prevalent even today in Tamil Nadu.

Caste ingress into the Musical Realm

 Case 1 – The story of Vedanayagam Sastri

There is much talk involving religion and caste in the field of Carnatic music these days, we read about musicians boycotting festivals, of musicians getting castigated for collaborating with other religions, and of the sole book which airs some of these issues. At the center of it all, is the person who wrote the book, a book which I enjoyed reading, the writer being TM Krishna and the book being ‘Sebastian and Sons’.

A music enthusiast will demur about the sad state of affairs and take objection to a certain religion trying to corner a tradition to its side, due to its interconnection to Bhakti, which they say you have to experience. I am in no way qualified to argue on such matters, and I can only take you to a period – some 200 years in the past, when a matter of caste came up and was hotly discussed for months in Madras and Tanjore. It involved a person who is once again in the news for the wrong reasons (plagiarism and comparison with Tyagaraja), an interesting man named Vedanayagam Sastri. I think you should all get to know this person, if only to get a feel of Tanjore in those days, united in music, and hugely cosmopolitan. There were Christians, Muslims, Mahrattas, Tamilians, and Telugu... just to name a few, who were brought together by music and a titular king interested in arts and science. Some years ago, V Sriram wrote a lovely article in The Hindu about that period of musical collaboration, and that is the period we will go to.