Well, the Supreme Court of Calcutta was not like the Vigilance Department of Kerala, but really meant business. And it brought in the rule of law in this geographical area, which now comprises of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. 

Before moving away from the Supreme Court of India, I need to mention this item. Even though the British administrators brought in modern jurisprudence, Courts, appeals, and various other things for inserting the concept of equality here, the ‘Indian’ side of the picture actually used this only as an appendage to bring in more inequality. 

In the small towns and village of this nation, I was slightly aware of the concept of the advocate-clerk being a powerful ‘respected’ personality to the lower class of people. In my childhood, I couldn’t really understand how this could be. 

Later when I grew up, I became quite aware of the terrible side of Indian advocates. They functioned absolutely in the feudal language side. The seniors placed their juniors not in an English communication position, but forcibly brought in the vernacular to place their juniors as Nee and Avan. This made the senior advocate a sort of ‘Gandhi’. The social structure would then resemble the one that must have existed in Sabarmathi ashram. Then Aap – thu link or the Saar – nee link. 

This was extended to the advocate-clerks also. 

Now, to the vast majority of deemed lower social class people, the senior advocate, the junior advocate as well as their clerks used the same kind of suppressive usages. However the lower classes are used to it. They either do not feel any discomfort in it, or else they simply bear it. However, I understood the impact only once when I was in a very strange position in the year 1992 and experienced it. It is a very powerful impact. For, there is not much one can do about it. At that time, I was in a very terrible financial condition, with a lot of family members playing truant on both sides, both pro and anti. The funny thing was that the seeming supportive side also did not want to see me use my full intellectual acumen, which they felt would supersede them. They were quite careful in introducing me as a subordinate person. In many ways, these supporters also are one’s own enemies. 

Now, when the advocate’s junior uses lower indicant words based on negative introduction, one can’t react. For they hold the route to deriving judicial support. So, the judiciary in fact acts as an appendage for them to subordinate other ordinary people. For, without this appendage, I do not think that any person would condone another youngster addressing him or her with a lower indicant. So, in the ultimate count, the British-made Indian judiciary was like a garland in the monkey’s hand, when it was run by ‘Indians’. 

As to my own experience at that time, it was a series of quite curious experiences, rich in the powerful inputs it gave me about the working of the Indian judiciary, and its charmless ‘officers’ (the advocates) of the Court. However, I can’t go into those things here, for it may send the word count in this book spiralling high. 

As to the incident in Jallianwalabagh, it brought in a feeling in the place that the British-Indian government meant business. No one could go for rioting and attacking people who were living peacefully in the town. The fact that it was innocent people who died has to be tied on the local native leadership, who more or less wanted martyrs for moving on the pathway of leadership.  

When Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards, there was rioting in Delhi against the Sikhs. Many Sikhs were killed, burnt alive, molested and raped. {Even a famous Hindi film star stood accused of urging the people to attack the Sikhs}. A part of the fury can be connected to an undercurrent of enmity and repulsion that the others have for Sikhs. This type of feelings are not visible outside, and cannot be seen through the skin deep veneer of affability and ‘respect’ each group shows to the other in a perfunctory manner.

Well, the British officials were duty bound to protect the law and order of the city when rioting started way back in the 1919s. However, they had only the ‘Indian’ soldiers with them. Not the British army. If it was British soldiers that they had with them, they would have dealt with the issue at a different level. When one moves with people of dubious refinement, a part of the negativity diffuses into one.

*It must be mentioned here that even though the term ‘Indian’ is used about the Ghurkha soldiers, they are not actually part of India. They belong by nativity to Nepal.

To satiate an itch

I remember an incident. My mother, after retirement, was approached by some young men to become the principal of a tutorial college in the village, which they had started. Later one of these young men joined the police as a constable. One day he came to our house after his training was over. When speaking of the various incidences in the training programme, he spoke of one urge. Everyone wanted to beat someone as part of the training. They said that they fingers were having a continuing itch for that, and it had to be satiated. They mentioned this to their trainer, a head constable. He told them to wait, as they couldn’t catch any man they fancied, and bash him up. 

During the election date, they were posted in an election booth in Cannanore district. During the election, one decrepit looking young man tried to cast a fake vote and was caught. The head constable did a summery questioning of his credentials and antecedents, and assured himself that he could be beaten without anyone creating any issues. He was taken to their camp and then a few of the trainee constables were given the go to satiate their craving. They abused and beat him up soundly, amid his shocked remonstrance. The constable told us that it was a very thrilling incident, which gave them the full understanding of what they were capable of and could get away with. 

The English-speaking officer class of bygone days

It is here that I would like to bring back my memories of the English-speaking officer-class that I had seen in my childhood days. They were a quality apart. They took pride in getting things done. To be unable to do a thing, to have to refuse a layman’s request, to have to send him back etc. were seen as inefficiency on their part. Moreover, since they could speak to their colleagues, superiors and subordinates in English, there was no block to communicating with them to get things done. This is essentially a very solid proof of what English can do positively. And what feudal languages can do negatively.

There is this issue with low quality persons arriving on jobs that require higher quality persons. Lower quality persons are feudal and use pejorative words to persons who they perceive as low class. Moreover, their very demeanour demands ‘respect’ at a higher level. They do not know English. 

The catch in the situation 

Now this is the same issue that has happened to the ‘Indian’ bureaucracy that the British had created in ‘India’. They had created an officialdom that has to be manned by persons who are good in English. However, after the formation of India, this wonderful creation was handed over to the control and maintenance of persons who should have been nothing more than security staff and something similar. Every behaviour and attitude and personnel looks are of that standard now. Now, who suffers? Well, ultimately it is the people. However, they do not understand this. For, they are maintained at a low level by current day education. So, if recruitment standards go up, they will not be able to become a government employee. In the new ambience, wherein feudal language speakers man the offices, a government job is everything. Without a government job, people are just **** in front of the government officials. 

So it is a Catch 22 situation. Yet, the fact remains that only a very percentage of the population get government jobs. The others silently suffer the terrible attitude of the government staff. However, there is this thing to be mentioned. With the computerisation of much government paperwork, the tedium of dealing with government officials has come down for the ordinary persons. Yet, the troubling possibilities are always there. For, the feeling that the public servant is a public master is what the government officials radiate. 

The fact is like what happened in the MindSpace BPO centre. Even though the arriving persons are good in English refinement, do radiate that personality and can communicate with an easy affableness, the other side, the security staff donning the front office counter, is unable to react at that level. So, since she is in the dominant position, it is her standards that come into position. She sets the ambience and the work structure in the area. 

The same way, in an Indian government office, even when people arrive with quaint refinement, the low-class official cannot react at that level. All he or she is bothered about is a mental competition. To see that the layman who arrives shows obsequious respect. Nothing else matters. It is in this achievement that he or she will find satiation. Doing a good job and such things have no relevance in this terrible preoccupation with getting respect.I can only say that the God save the English nations where such persons from feudal language nations arrive and get into positions of authority. It will be like the security female sitting at the front office counter.

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