We react to symbols at an emotional level, not at an intellectual level: T.M. Krishna

Renowned Carnatic singer and author, T.M. Krishna, on Saturday said that the idea for his latest book, We, The People of India: Decoding a Nation’s Symbols, came about seven or eight years ago, when he began singing “the unsung verses” of Indian national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, and began asking himself “What does singing an anthem mean to me?” after being deeply moved by it.

In conversation with Suhrith Parthasarathy at The Hindu Lit For Life, Mr. Krishna said, “We now sing only one verse. But I started singing the other verses, or what you would call, the unsung verses. That was the real trigger, because I was deeply moved by what those verses said, and they were not part of what we sing as an anthem. So the question, what does singing an anthem mean to me, or singing those lines mean to me, was something that should start at a very personal level.”

Mr. Krishna pointed out that most of our lives are spent responding to symbols. “(When) you walk on the street, see a temple and you do a namaskaram, you respond to a symbol. So our entire life, in many ways, is symbolic. Just recently, I was seeing the flag out of my hotel room in Hyderabad, and it was gorgeously fluttering, and it did something to me. Is it memory? Is it indoctrination? So, you’re responding at an emotional level. The thing about symbolism is it’s often an emotional activity. It’s not an intellectual activity.”

He further spoke about the changing meaning of symbols over time, using the example of King Ashoka’s Sarnath.

“Take the Sarnath (Lion capital of India): when Ashoka (The Great) had put it out there, its entire connotation, meaning and relevance was entirely different. When it is rediscovered and made into a national emblem, its meaning and connotation and relevance is entirely different. There is an agenda during that time, 1947 to 1951, when you’re trying to build a new nation, you want this to symbolise something so you capture from the past, and you imbue it with what you believe should be the ethics of this new republic. But, we should also ask, do they mean the same things to us today? And the answer is, they do not.”

Mr. Krishna said that it is important to “grapple” with the fact that symbols doesn’t mean the same.

“There is also the question of in that shift, in that change in that reconfiguration of meaning that we all do, we have to ask why we are doing it, what is happening to us as a society in the process. For example, when the new parliament is good and you have on the new parliament, you have the same Capital. Is it the same? No, it is not the same Capital. But why is it different? Why does this seem to be very angry? Why does this seem to be pouncing at people? So I think these are important things to investigate for us as citizens of this country. And, also go to the past and see where are we moving, what are we capturing, what are we losing? We have to look at that.”

Mr. Parthasarathy said that Mr. Krishna’s latest work is also a “book on ethics”.

“At one level, it’s a carefully researched historical account of the nation’s symbols, starting from the national flag onto the national anthem, in contradistinction with the national song, the emblem, the motto and the preamble to the Constitution, but it is also a ruminative exploration of how these symbols have travelled with us, how they’ve sort of helped shape the nation, how they continue to help shape the nation, how they’re sometimes at odds, perhaps, with what we might consider as the idea of India as a constitutional republic. It is also a book on ethics, on how we organize ourselves as a society, the kind of life that we live and the kind of lives that we really ought to aspire to live.”

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Published – January 17, 2026 09:18 pm IST