Veteran music composer from Tamil Nadu Ilaiyaraaja, who is fondly known as Maestro and Isaignaani by fans, has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the President. The announcement was made on Wednesday, July 6 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who took to social media to share a photo with the music composer. The PM spoke about the latter’s contribution to film music. “The creative genius of @ilaiyaraaja Ji has enthralled people across generations. His works beautifully reflect many emotions. What is equally inspiring is his life journey- he rose from a humble background and achieved so much. Glad that he has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha,” the tweet read.
Twelve members are nominated by the President for a term of six years. These nominees, selected on the advice of the Prime Minister, are people who have made significant achievements in the fields of arts, literature, science etc. This time four Presidential nominees have been announced and all four are from south India. Other than Ilayaraja, athlete PT Usha from Kerala, Telugu screenwriter Vijayendra Prasad and Dharmasthala president Veerendra Heggade have been nominated.
Ilaiyaraaja has been a prolific composer, lyricist, conductor and occasional singer. He has composed more than 7,000 songs in over 1,400 movies, primarily in Tamil. He has also worked in Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi cinema. Ilaiyaraaja is known for introducing western musical elements in South Indian cinema. He has received five national awards, three for best music direction and two for best background score. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan, the third and second highest civilian awards given by the government of India.
The creative genius of @ilaiyaraaja Ji has enthralled people across generations. His works beautifully reflect many emotions. What is equally inspiring is his life journey- he rose from a humble background and achieved so much. Glad that he has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha. pic.twitter.com/VH6wedLByC
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2022
Ilaiyaraaja began working in the Tamil film industry in the 70s, when he was not trained in music. However, he picked up fast, influenced by the Tamil folk genre in the early days and moving on to western influences later on. Around the same time he also showed Carnatic influences in his songs. His music became appealing to different types of listeners, preferring different genres of music. By the late 80s, he also began working on non-film albums like How To Name It. He was also not averse to technology, introducing the sequencer in the 1986 film Punnagai Mannan - a film which produced songs which are celebrated to this day.
Ilaiyaraaja was one of the first few composers to integrate western classical music into Indian folk and traditional music. He is also known to be the first composer to record film songs through computer for movies like Kamal Haasan’s 1986 action film Vikram. Some of the most popular playback singers in the country such as SP Balasubrahmanyam, Asha Bhosle, P Susheela, KJ Yesudas, KS Chithra, Malaysia Vasudevan, Kavitha Krishnamurthy, Swarnalatha, S Janaki, Shreya Ghoshal, Hariharan and others, frequently collaborated with the veteran composer.
A few months ago, Ilaiyaraaja drew flak for comparing PM Narendra Modi with BR Ambedkar, in a foreword he wrote for the book Ambedkar & Modi: Reformer’s Ideas, Performer’s Implementation. Shortly after the incident, speculations about Ilaiyaraaja being nominated for Rajya Sabha did the rounds on social media. In April, BJP Tamil Nadu President K Annamalai had told the media that they are expecting Ilaiyaraaja to be conferred with the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour.