An open letter to the sexual predators of the Carnatic music community

Over the past few days, we have all read many disturbing accounts of sexual harassment, abuse and assault, including from within the Carnatic music community. Many such instances in the past have been brushed under the carpet, subsequently creating a culture of silent complicity. There continues to be a deafening silence that needs to be broken. As artistes and students of music, we believe it is our responsibility to speak up and acknowledge that such unacceptable behaviour must be strongly condemned, in order to create a more equitable and safe environment for all people.

It is important to address this issue and bring to light those who have misused their position and power to exploit those at risk. We ask for due process through civil society investigations into these allegations to hold these individuals accountable, and whole-heartedly welcome those who want to come forward and share their stories. At this juncture, we also encourage and request sabhas and cultural organisations all over the world to recognise this issue and put forward proactive structural measures to address such claims and prevent future incidents. We believe that this will make the Carnatic community safer for all.

Aarathi Bharadwaj

Abhay Anil Kumar

Abhinav Seetharaman

Abhishek Balakrishnan

Abhishek Raghuram

Abhishek Ravishankar

Adarsh Ramchandran

Adhiti Rajesh

Aditya Vempaty

Aishwarya Shankar

Aishwarya Srinivas

Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath

Aisvarya Chandrasekar

Ajay Gopi

Akshay Anantapadmanabhan

Akshay Ravi

Amritha Murali

Anamika Kannan

Anantha R. Krishnan

Ananya Ashok

Anil Narasimha

Anil Srinivasan

Anirudh Athreya V.

Anirudh Venkatesh

Anisha Gururaj

Aparna M. Sridhar

Aparna Thyagarajan

Apoorva Das

Apoorva Rajesh

Aravind Bhargav

Archana Bharadwaj

Archana Venkatesan

Arthi Nadhan

Arthi Suresh

Arun Kumar V.K.

Arun Mahadevan

Arun Ramamurthy

Asha Ramesh

Ashvin Bhogendra

Ashvin Ravi

Ashwath Narayanan

Ashwin Srikant

Ashwinn Balachandran

Athrey Nadhan

Badrinath Govindarajan

Bharath Krishna D.R.

Bharathi Ramasubban

Bhavana Iyer

Bombay Jayashri

Brindha Manickavasagam

Chaitrra Sairam

Chandra Ram

Chandrasekara Sharma G.

Charumathi Raghuraman

Chinmayee Venkatraman

Chitra Lakshumanan

David Claman

Delhi Sairam

Dileep K.J.

Erode Nagaraj

Ganavya Doraiswamy

Gayatri K.

Geeta Shankar

Geetha Iyer

Ghatam S. Karthick

Gopal Ravindhran

Gopalakrishnan K.V.

Gowri Raghunandan

Guhan Venkataraman

Guruprasad N.

Hari Kappiyoor

Hariharan Ravi

Harini Rajashekar

Harsha Nagarajan

Hiranmayee S.

Hrishi Balaji

Hrishikesh Chary

Indhu Naga

Janani Ramesh

Jayanth Balasubramanian

Jayanth J.A.

Jayashree Suresh

Jerry Barr

Jyotsna Sivakumar

K. Bharat Sundar

Kamya Sankar

Karthick Narayanan

Karthik Iyer

Karun Salvady

Kaushik Sridhar

Kavi Srinivasaragavan

Kavya Kodungallur

Keerthana Sankar

Keerthi Venkataramani

Krithika Natarajan

Krithika Rajkumar

Kumar Kanthan

Kyvalya Chilla

Lakshmi Anand

Lalit Subramanian

Latika Sridhar

Lavanya Kothandaraman

Maanasa Dhotrekar

Madhav Iyengar

Maheetha Bharadwaj

Malini Mahes

Mathangi Sridharan

Medhini Ramesh

Meenakshi Sri Vempaty

Meghana Karra

Murari V.V.S.

Muthu Krishna M.

Mysore Sangeetha Dileep

Mytreyi Shastry Aravind

Nachikethan Srinivasan

Namita Shenoy

Nanditha Ravi

Narayanan Ravishankar

Neha Krishnamachary

Nikita Hariharan

Nisha Rajagopal

Nishanth Chandran

Nishanth Thiagarajan

Nithya Garg

Nyantara Narasimhan

Parameswaran Amit Ranganathan

Prasanna Rajan

Prasanna Venkataraman

Praveen Sparsh

Preetha Narayanaswamy

Prema Rangachary

Priya Darshini

Priyanka Chary

Ragavan Manian

Ragavan Sai

Rajeev M.

Rajeswari Satish

Raksha Mahalinkam

Ramachandran Suresh

Ramakrishnan L.

Ramakrishnan Murthy

Ramana Balachandran

Ramana Indrakumar

Ramesh Abhiraman

Rangashree Varadarajan

Ranjani and Gayatri

Ranjani Sivakumar Siddareddy

Ravi Srinivasan

Ravikiran G.

Ravindra Bharathy Sridharan

Rithu Rajendran

Rithvik Raja

Rohan Krishnamurthy

Rohith Jayaraman

Roopa Shastry M.

Rupa Ramanathan

Rupasri Shankar

Sai Sundar

Saigiridhar K.

Saketharaman S.

Sandeep Narayan

Sandeep Ramachandran

Sangeetha Sivakumar

Sanjeev Raja

Sanjeev V.

Sashwat Mahalingam

Sastry Vedam

Savitha Venkatapathy

Sekar Ganesan

Shakthi Shrima

Shankar Ramachandran

Shantala Subramanyam

Sharada Krishnan

Shashank Subramaniam

Shomik S. Ati

Shreya Devnath

Shreyaa Srinivasan

Shriya Srinivasan

Shruthi S. Bhat

Shruthi Subramaniam

Shyamala Ramakrishna

Siddharth Acharya

Sikkil C. Gurucharan

Sindhujha Ekambaram

Sivaganesh N

Snigdha Venkataramani

Sravya Rallapalli

Srinidhi Ramakrishna

Srinidhi Sridharan

Sriram Parthasarathy

Sriranjani Darbha

Sriranjani Santhanagopalan

Srivathsa Pasumarthi

Srivatsan Balakrishnan

Srivi Ramasubramanian

Subha Ramanan

Subha Sridharan

Subu Narayanan (Bombay Sriram)

Suchithra Balasubramanian

Sudarshan Mohan

Suraj Srinivasan

Sushma Somasekharan

Sutikshna Veeravalli

Swathi Ravichandran

Thanjavur V. Muthuraman

TM Krishna

Trivandrum V. Balaji

Triven Kannan

Varun Ganesan

Venkata Devulapalli

Venkatesh Padmanabhan

Vidhya Raghavan

Vidya Kalyanaraman

Vidya Kanthan

Vignesh Ishwar

Vignesh Krishnamurthy

Vignesh Ramanujam

Vignesh Thyagarajan

Vignesh Venkataraman

Vijay M.

Vijay Natesan

Vijay Neelakantan

Vikram Raghavan

Vilasini S.M.

Vinidhra Mani

Vishnu Srinivas

Vishvak Kumaran

Visveshwar Nagarajan

Vittal Rangan B.

Vivrd Prasanna

Yesh Subramanian

Also Read: How I discovered Karnatik music is caged by caste