Shubha Mudgal

This article was first published in the Times of India, Mumbai in 2003.

This has been a difficult and violent year for India, with communal violence and terrorist strikes taking centre stage. Perhaps that is why not many have noticed that despite a lot of tall talk about preserving and promoting our glorious and ancient traditions, current government policies regarding art and culture have dealt a severe blow to Indian classical music and arts. For over half a century now, All India Radio was one of the only agencies to steadfastly broadcast Indian classical music, thereby providing regular performance opportunities to virtually thousands of musicians across the vast length and breadth of the country, and giving the nation’s music lovers a chance to listen to Indian classical and folk music every single day of their lives. With the advent of television, the state run Doordarshan also became the only television channel to lend support to Indian classical music and the traditional performing arts. However, this commitment to Indian classical music and arts will soon become a part of All India Radio and Doordarshan’s past policies, as both seem poised and ready to finally abandon all and any support to Indian classical arts. Why pretend any longer with meaningless talk of “sanskriti” and “parampara” when budget allocations for classical music have seen a steady and cruel whittling and chopping, and are now down to a meagre few thousand rupees a month for both North Indian and Carnatic classical music at most radio stations? Musicians confirm that recordings, broadcasts and telecasts of classical and traditional music are becoming scarce with each passing day. Countrywide, the slogan now is “Down with Indian Classical Music and let’s see the revenue rising with whatever brings in money”. Worse still is AIR’s reported intention of recording classical music only when the musician brings in a sponsor for the programme! So if you now want to be heard performing classical music on AIR, formerly a bastion for classical music, you don’t need to audition as in the good old days when strict screening made it possible for only the most deserving to perform on AIR; and neither do you need to bother with riyaaz any longer. All you need to do is to go out and find a sponsor and AIR will be ready to broadcast your music. It is going to be that easy, and sadly, no one seems to care or bother to protest.

Naturally, this has not stopped Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj from paying the customary lip service to Indian culture.