Where Is The Beef ? – Examining The Southern Hinduphobe’s Latest “Atrocity” Offering

Editorial Note: IKs examine TMK’s latest offering of Hinduphobic atrocity literature. We are grateful for contributions from Kavitha and Sreejith

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Who is T M Krishna

T M Krishna or TMK as he is usually addressed as in musical circles, is considered a musical genius born into a “Tamil Brahmin family” (quoting Wikipedia here) and trained in the traditional way. He is a scion of multi-billionaire capitalists, the T.T.Krishnamachari group. known popularly as  TTK. He is as entitled as it gets, in terms of wealth, money, status and prestige, unlike hundreds of thousands of Brahmin families who barely make a living case in point: his favorite target for bashing, the brahmin priests who allegedly perpetrate casteism; archakas of lakhs of temples whose families barely make do with $1 a day. As hypocrites come, they do not come any better than TMK.  He completed his schooling from a Jiddu Krishnamurthy influenced theosophy school, which has probably laid firm foundations for his confused obfuscations, and graduated from Chennai’s Vivekananda College. These nondescript details would never reveal that he has become one of the foremost (leftist) anti-hindu voices on the Karnatic music scene. Like a Dushashana getting to work on the swaroopa of Karnatic music, on the orders of his Duryodhana-like global handlers, the unfortunately named Krishna, is at work to destroy the world of Karnatic music from the inside, as befits a truly home grown cancer. The transformation from traditional exponent to rebel to radical hinduphobic atrocity literature manufacturing asura  has been decades in the making.. .

Purva paksha – Subaltern tropes

Recently, The Hindu carried an article with excerpts from his newest book Sebastian and Sons which is the supposed story of mridangam makers. Krishna, when handling these stories and histories uses typical subalternist lenses. As always, he uses the trope of “oppressed from below to oppressor at the top” in a rigid pyramidal structure. The western subalternist method to tell stories means that the oppressed has to always otherize the oppressor, paint him in terrifying, demonic terms and only then can the oppressor be toppled. Krishna uses the motif of cow, beef and hide, an eternal bashing tool for leftists, to make his point. He starts out with the following:

“There is a general belief across the globe, and even among many Indians, that Hindus do not eat beef. Yet, there is evidence that there was considerable beef-eating in the Vedic period and later, including among brahmins.”

There is considerable controversy on this subject and there is as yet no scholarly agreement on whether beef eating was a habit in the Vedic period or whether it was a trait of the brahmins during those times or later. TMK is being dishonest when he insists that that is the truth and he may even brandish proof of such claims typically written by the eminent Marxist historians. What is undeniable (a constitutional reality , in fact) and a lived reality, experience is that the cow is a revered animal for many centuries in this land. Going by that, the respect for the cow is a marker of this civilization. Why can’t he be generous to grant that or at least nuance his statement by saying that the jury is still out on the issue of “beef in the Vedas”. A true scholar is one who accommodates different points of view where they exist, not try to force his view as the only one. “Beef in the vedas” isn’t like the rule of gravity that is true whether TMK disputes it or not. Similarly, the cow in lived experience is a sacred animal for the majority population in this country. He cannot say no.

Next he says: “Many Hindus continue to eat beef, especially among the dalit communities but not restricted to them.”

From this Livemint article of 2015, there is a stat that stands out. The entire percentage by population of Hindus consuming beef is less than 2%. So without quantifying the number of Hindus eating beef, merely saying “many Hindus” is fact free and dishonest.

While The Hindu does not talk about dalit Christians and clubs them with Hindus in general, TMK in another interview to Firstpost on the subject of his new book, refers to one of the mridangam makers as dalit Christian. What is this term, the dalit Christian? Either the person is a dalit OR a Christian. The Indian constitution does not recognize a dalit Christian. There is perhaps a further correlation to make here. Perhaps the figures of large part of SC/ST groups being beef consumers among the already small population of less than 2% Hindus consuming beef, are converts to Christianity. The historical violence of conversion, a global problem with billions of people affected over centuries, and the larger dynamics of this practice as a driver of cultural  genocide, is as expected, conveniently side-stepped by TMK. It is a common ploy among the converted SC/ST families, groups in India to hide the fact that they are converts into Christianity. If they did reveal that fact, they would no longer be beneficiaries of the affirmative action of the State reserved for SCs and STs who are counted as Hindus.

TMK, then goes on to demonize one of Karnatic classical music’s greatest mridangam artists, Palghat Mani Iyer. He stays away from making pronouncements about the artist himself but the way in which the incident is narrated makes the poor man look so dehumanized. The family of the artist, particularly his grandson has responded   stating that the  family was not informed of TMK’s true intent. They never thought that  TMK would use the anecdotes to manufacture one-sided manipulative social commentary to serve the cause of atrocity literature and to demonize a community.

Looking at it from the neutral perspective of data and facts , TMK’s moral outrage and social commentary is pretty unfounded. Is he really worried about cow slaughter?  Definitely  not. The Muslims in India kill more, 100,000 times more during their festivals. The Christian and secular meat eating, millions of times more. The balance of the entire world’s climate is being affected by beef farming. His truly puny world view that of a group (in 100s) of supposedly insidious self serving brahmins in southern india promoting cow slaughter for the perpetration of their “art”, is the cause of world environmental degradation and social  chaos and that it needs a book, is nothing but a classic example of a genre of writing that is called atrocity literature. A style that is widely used by evangelical groups to demonize and soften up a targeted community for conversion. TMK does not even address the role of the Abrahamics in the cow slaughter phenomenon. Obviously , all his outrage and courage is reserved for dharmic people.

As his “native” subjects would say : Enna Krishna , Dum irukka

Serving as a useful idiot to the Breaking India forces, as also those who power the global Islamic and Western Universalist narratives, the attempts to deflect the public opinion and discourse on the true problems of beef farming and cow slaughter in India, is one of the obvious motives of the book.

Inoculated from fact, truth, data or proof of any kind , the book is a vehicle of vituperative rhetoric based on some tenuous hand waving arguments. It is nothing but a self hating sepoy doing dirty work for his masters. Nothing much has changed in the last 300 years. The majority of the minds remain deeply colonised.

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Two more parts, forthcoming ..

Featured Image Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVyK45WmRGs