Vairamuthu, the Jnanpith, and the question of merit

The choice of Vairamuthu for the Jnanpith Award 2025 has provoked a fierce debate within the Tamil literary community. The controversy revolves around four main arguments.

The loudest of these arguments is that Vairamuthu is a lyricist rather than a litterateur. The Jnanpith guidelines explicitly state that the award is for outstanding literary contributions that illuminate human values rooted in Indian philosophy, present a broad vision, and contribute new perspectives to the Indian literary canon.

Does Vairamuthu’s oeuvre meet this demand? A vast body of his works consists of film songs (over 7500) which were written to suit a specific scene, melody, or commercial demand; while they can be “literature-adjacent,” they cannot be part of a literary canon. What is more, his film songs, his critics argue, often objectify the female body, crossing from the sensual into the vulgar. Whether objectification takes away literary merit is a long-standing debate in criticism, but the fact remains that, in Vairamuthu’s songs, the objectification is often gratuitous rather than a thematic choice adding depth, and this diminishes the artistic value of the songs.

Neither does the substantial body of work Vairamuthu has produced outside cinema – novels such as Kallikaattu Ithihasam, which won the Sahitya Akademi award in 2003, and Karuvachi Kaviyam in which he treats agrarian crises – matches the high standards required for the Jnanpith Award.  As Jeyamohan rightly points out, Vairamuth’s “rural aesthetic” consists of lyrical melodrama–a cinematic mode to amplify the sentimental value of a crisis–that relies on rhetorical flourishes. In the process of this “poetic” elevation or romanticization, the village emerges as a stage for a great tragedy rather than as a living, breathing entity, as it does in the works of Poomani and Ki Ra, who are authentic chroniclers of the soil.

Secondly, the Jnanpith is no longer given for a specific outstanding literary work of an author; the entire body of work produced by them is taken into account. Vairamuthu’s work fails on this count, too, as his primary body of work consists of film songs composed for commercial purposes and pandering to commercial tastes. In fact, Vairamuthu’s fame is firmly rooted in film lyrics.

Thirdly, Jeyamohan’s language may be unrestrained (e.g. Vairamuthu is “not a poet at all” but merely a “ridiculous film lyricist”), but his argument that Vairamuthu’s work does not represent the depth of contemporary Tamil literature is valid. In selecting him for the award, the Pravara Parishad has unwittingly created a wrong impression about the Tamil literary landscape, as it did in 1975 when Akilan was selected for this award for his Chithira Pavai (a novel that represented pulp fiction with a shallow story-telling device), largely thanks to the widespread popularity it had gained during its run in Kalki magazine.

The fourth argument rests on moral grounds. Carnatic musician TM Krishna and playback singer Chinmayi Sripaada have questioned how an institution representing national cultural authority can honour an individual accused of harassment by multiple women. This shifts the focus to a broader question: Can a person’s artistic achievements be considered in isolation from their personal conduct when conferring a nation’s highest honours?

While a nomination is often influenced by popularity, the Jnanpith guidelines explicitly state that the award is for “creative literary writing” that fosters commitment to “higher values of life.” That is what makes the choice of Vairamuthu so controversial. His critics suggest that the committee’s judgement was swayed by his commercial success and political clout rather than literary standards.

 

From Hierarchy to Homogeny: The AI Takeover of Voices

“I read your message more than once before responding, as I felt it deserved that pause,” GRK’s email began. Was this truly from him? A quick check of the “From” field confirmed it was—GRK’s display name alongside the email address left no doubt.

Surprise was giving way to amusement. The tone was uncharacteristic of GRK. It carried several cultural risks in a hierarchical environment, and GRK, like many other Indians, was a quintessential product of such a culture.

I reread the line. My message “deserved that pause,” it said, as though evaluating my words. In high-power-distance cultures like the Indian social and professional environment, it is generally the superior’s role to evaluate the quality of communication, not the subordinate’s. GRK, being far below me on the professional ladder, was stepping out of line by positioning himself as a judge of my message. His implied equality was, in a sense, a break from the hierarchical culture he was raised in.

And then there was the over-familiarity of the line: “…I felt (it deserved that pause).” Professional communication in India typically remains formal and indirect. A subordinate telling his superior about his “feeling” in a certain way about the boss’s email can be seen as overstepping professional boundaries. GRK would never be one to cross those boundaries.

Next, the subordinate’s candid statement that he had to “pause” and “think” before responding. A subordinate, in a hierarchical professional environment, pausing and thinking about a superior’s message! Was he being critical of the superior’s email? Didn’t this at least suggest he was defensive?

In other words, GRK was evaluating my message which, though a positive transformation, would be perceived as presumptuous in Indian professional and social culture, where professional interactions are often dictated by rank rather than collaborative merit. If at all a subordinate shows their “deep thought,” it should be to demonstrate their diligence and respect for the superior’s expertise.

Why was GRK being so “impudently reflective” rather than respectfully thorough, as was his wont? The truth dawned on me: it wasn’t GRK speaking—it was an AI writing agent at the helm. The AI had used GRK’s prompts and delivered an email whose directness and over-familiar tone were beyond GRK’s understanding. In the pre-AI age, GRK would have written something like, “Sir, your email offered valuable insights…”

This is the case with the emails I receive from my colleagues nowadays: they are “voiceless.” In the past, their voices were distinct. GRK’s emails, for instance, were indirect and over-polite. But their characteristic quality was a huge gap between intention and expression, and the struggle was touching. PR’s emails were long-winded, and his overly formal apologies—a la Jane Austen's Mr Collins—always stood out. NB’s were lengthy, rambling, illogical, and extremely painful to read. LV was fond of obsequious vocabulary and hyperbolic praise, but his diction was distinctly different from NG’s unctuous language, which was greasy to the touch, as it were. The emails of all these colleagues shared some common qualities: they abounded in tense mixing, false inversion, double past, syntactical non sequiturs, overuse of the definite article, and weakening intensifiers, among others. But they had a touch of individuality: each email writer had a signature style that was distinct, consistent, and recognizable. You could “hear” each writer’s “voice,” and this lent a touch of authenticity to the emails.

I miss those voices now. All of them use generative AI, which “sanitizes” their overuse of “softeners” and indirectness, placing their ideas in a generic template with acceptable English. In the emails of the pre-AI age, the ideas and language were often laughable, but the writers spoke in their own voices. Even now, when they make oral presentations, I hear their voices. But when they write, they all sound uniform, indistinguishable, and intellectual. Even when they—the AI Writing Assistant, I mean—use the personal pronoun “I,” it sounds distant and impersonal.

“Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll / Who wrote like an angel and talked like poor Poll,” wrote David Garrick about Oliver Goldsmith (“Poll” was a common nickname for a parrot). While my colleagues continue to sound as they have always done when they speak, they now speak in borrowed voices when they write, sounding like Oxbridge or Ivy League scholars.

AI writing ill-fits them. Two descriptions from literary criticism come to mind. “Matthew Arnold in a sari,” remarked Gordon Bottomley, reacting to Victorian sentiment and style being awkwardly dressed in Indian themes in early Indian English poetry. “Shakuntala in skirts,” said an amused Gokak, who found the English translations of Indian poetry as stiffly Western.