Carnatic music is under siege — not from foreign invaders this time, but from Critical Race Theory imported directly from American universities.
Dr. Avanthi Meduri, performance studies scholar with over two decades at NYU, UCLA, Northwestern and Roehampton, presents a forensic analysis of how Western wokeism — specifically Critical Race Theory — entered Indian performing arts through Carnatic musician T. M. Krishna’s social justice activism. She explains how CRT moved from being one perspective in South Asia and ethnomusicology departments to the perspective — a monoculture enforced through peer pressure, funding, and institutional gatekeeping. The controversy around Krishna’s remarks about M. S. Subbalakshmi’s award, now in the Supreme Court via V. Srinivasan’s petition, is the flashpoint — but the underlying dynamics have been building for decades.
Her call to audiences is precise: demand facts, not rhetorical authority. The “vokerati” — her term — distort facts to maintain their cultural power. Indian performing arts survived invasions and colonisation because they were truth-preserving capsules. That same transmission is now at risk from an ideology that has made victimhood narratives its permanent operating system.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Avanthi Meduri is a globally recognized scholar of Performance Studies, dancer, and playwright. With a PhD from NYU and training in Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam, and Kuchipudi, she now consults independently in Bengaluru. Her work, including Talking Dance History, blends biography and cultural history.