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Overcoming Caste and Gender M. V. Ramana M. V. Ramana is currently at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore.

Book Name: MS: A Life in Music by T. J. S. George Publisher: Harper Collins Pages: 303 Year 2004 Price: Rs.495 ISBN: 8172235275

One of the ironies of privilege is that those who benefit from it often do not realize its presence, often denying its very existence. But to those bereft of that privilege, its effects are almost impossible to escape. In the world of Carnatic music, there are at least two important sources of privilege – caste and gender. The life of M.S.Subbulakshmi (MS, henceforth), according to her biographer and journalist T. J. S. George, is that of a person who started off disadvantaged on both counts but converted herself in essence into a member of the uppermost caste and redefined the role of women in Carnatic music.

The book under review is certainly an unusual addition to the genre of Carnatic biography. (There is some question about whether such a genre exists at all; most books dealing with Carnatic music personalities are best described as hagiographies.) Its unusualness starts with its dedication to three great musicians: Veena Dhanam, Bangalore Nagaratnamma, and Balasaraswathi, who are described as “exemplars of…an exploited caste’s yearning for dignity and women musicians’ struggle for equality”. Just for choosing these two issues as its “running themes” the book deserves some applause. It continues in its unusualness by quoting intellectuals like Edward Said and M. N. Srinivas. By drawing upon this larger literature and its insights, George has produced some perceptive social history and cultural commentary.

These are, however, secondary attributes. George’s original intention seems to have been to produce a detailed biography of MS and he has succeeded admirably in this task. He divides the life of MS into three distinct segments. The first was her early life when she was more or less fully governed by her mother, the vainika Madurai Shanmugavadivu. The second phase was her brief but illustrious career in the movies, which ended with her acting as the saint Meerabai in Meera. That last movie, carefully chosen by Sadasivam, who had married MS during this second phase, allowed MS to be promoted as an exemplar of Bhakti. The Bhakti image then encompassed the third phase of her life, which saw “an inheritor of the entertainment tradition develop into a proponent of the bhakti tradition.”

(For an example of MS’s devotional music, listen to:
http://www.sawf.org/audio/kalyani/mss.ram
in V. N. Muthukumar and M. V. Ramana, Kalyani http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit01282002/musicarts1.asp )

From left: Veena Shanmugavadivu (mother of MS), Radha, MS Subbulakshmi, Lakshmi Srinivasan, Vadivambal (sister of MS) and Kamala.

It is in this last segment that MS attained great fame, partly due to Sadasivam’s use of two highly “reliable assets” – “political influence and the Mylapore Brahmin network”. If MS has a certain public image today, it is largely if not completely due to Sadasivam. Hence, it is only right that George’s book is as much a biography of Sadasivam as it is of MS. And it was Sadasivam, according to the book, who ensured that MS also went through the processes of Brahminization and Sanskritization that have been identified as central to the current understanding of how caste operates in modern India.

These processes were originally suggested by the eminent sociologist M. N. Srinivas. Sanskritization, according to Srinivas, “is the process by which a ‘low’ Hindu caste, or tribal or other group, changes its customs, ritual, ideology, and way of life in the direction of a high, and frequently, ‘twice born’ caste”. It is this process that George observes in MS: “From the emulation of the branded madisar saree to devotional rituals all over the land, Sanskritization was at work in the case of Subbulakshmi, helping in converting prestige to rank”. George notes, however, that “Sanskritization, as Srinivas conceived it, was a group process representing an entire community’s desire for social upliftment.” MS “was not part of a community-wide group movement for higher recognition in the social hierarchy.”

M.N. Srinivas

While he notes this key difference, George does not quite address its implications. For one, the upward movement of an individual within a system structured by caste does not even benefit the rest of that individual’s community. Further, by being held out as a paragon of “Brahmin qualities” and being adopted as de facto Brahmin, MS could not even be a role model for others of her mother’s caste. Despite the attention given in the book to MS’s transformation in terms of caste, it does not explore the currently indigent fate of others of devadasi lineage. And finally, the book does not discuss how MS dealt with members of other castes. Did she follow any of the discriminatory practices that many members of the Brahmin community are known to follow? (Sadasivam, for example, offered financial support for the education of several young people - but only if they were Brahmin and male.)

There is another aspect of Sanskritization that George does not address. According to Srinivas, “the mobility associated with Sanskritization…does not lead to any structural change. That is, a caste moves up, above its neighbours, and another comes down, but all this takes place in an essentially stable hierarchical order. The system itself does not change.” While the position of women in Carnatic music may have changed (though still far from ideal) as a result of the likes of MS, the position of lower caste performers in Carnatic music still remains problematic.

Even without the thesis about Brahminization and Sanskritization, George’s book can be read as a good and honest biography, one that goes into many little known facts about the life of MS and Sadasivam. The author has to be commended for this, especially when some of these facts have been the subject of speculative gossip.

One example where the speculative gossip actually has been shown to be largely true is the “charmed relationship” between MS and G. N. Balasubramaniam (GNB), that great musician rightly described by George as “a phenomenon” who “brought to his art…an intellectual bent of mind”. George reveals how MS, even while living with Sadasivam, became besotted with GNB when they both acted in Shakuntalai and wrote him several love letters, many of which have been quoted in the book. The affair ended only when Sadasivam married MS in a rush in 1940, soon after his first wife’s death.

G. N. Balasubramaniam and M. S. Subbulakshmi in Shakuntala

Where gossip has been shown to be mere speculation is in the case of Sadasivam’s first wife – Apithakuchambal (Apitha). If one person were to be conspicuously absent from the hundreds of articles that have appeared about MS and Sadasivam, it is she. Before reading this book I have never seen her name in print. If not as the woman whose place MS took, Apitha deserves to be known as at least the mother of Radha and Vijaya. The author should be commended for unearthing at least a little information about the unfortunate life of someone “turned into an unperson, a nonentity”. George’s recounting of the events between 1936, when MS moved in with Sadasivam, and 1939, when Apitha died, a depressed and bitter woman, will hopefully put an end to various rumours about Sadasivam’s role in Apitha’s death. (George’s account agrees with what I have heard from Apitha’s relatives.)

Throughout the book, the picture that emerges of MS is that of a simple, child-like woman, attached only to her music and her family and unaffected by power and money. That this is close to the public’s image of her should be gratifying to all MS fans. Despite the biographer’s investigative efforts, no skeletons emerge from hidden closets (unless one is puritanical enough to consider the letters that MS wrote to GNB a source of embarrassment). Sadasivam’s image also closely matches with his public persona.

No book can be without its defects. In this case, it derives from the author’s limited understanding of Carnatic music and not being sufficiently familiar with the history of the music form. To his credit, the author has consulted with several knowledgeable people and put together an adequate package. But he is clearly at a loss when it comes to evaluating the finer points of MS’s music. The defect is not a major one, though, because the primary focus of the book is the career trajectory of MS rather than, say, a musicological analysis of her alapanas in Begada or Vachaspati. Despite this lacuna, the book stands out as a first class biography of a leading Carnatic musician, not to mention her companion for much of her life. By situating this biography within a larger context, he has also produced a sociologically informed view of some aspects of the Carnatic music world. Two for the price of one, as it were.

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