Chapter 16

Hatred for Britain and USA

Now this brings us to a strange topic: Why is there so much hatred for the English nations? And that too mainly against Britain and America. Both of whom are the champions of human liberty and have contributed to human development as no other nation has in the whole known history of mankind.

It is mighty possible that the reader would think that I am a very funny man indeed, to try to put this factor also into the realm of feudalism in languages. Let me tell you the multitude of reasons, all of which are working overtime to build up an anti-British, and anti-American ideology in many nations all round the world.

Let us start with India, where I get to know the everyday happenings. In all schools, right from primary school onwards, all history and social studies books declaim the viciousness of the British, who 'looted* the country, which had actually been 'a very rich country' before they came. And, the story goes that even now the continuing colonialist, imperialistic policies of this nation, is the cause of all poverty in this country.

The NCERT*, which publishes the student's books strictly, stick to the policy of the government, in this regard. And many persons who don the title of Professors and Historians, with callous insincerity write books, the veracity of which, they themselves would doubt. Nothing much is taught to the children about the vile deeds of the Indian Kings, and Emperors who had, more or less, fleeced the common folk of India, since time immemorial. And enslaved the people to build memorials and monuments to sustain their pompous glory.

There are regular debates, talks and seminars in this nation about the freedom struggle, and how the great leaders suffered in jails, to achieve freedom. The students compete in bringing out stories to fit into their imagination, and perpetuate the myth, of a very brutal race, which goes around plundering the poor nations. The children imagine of the great leaders languishing in jails, with brute Englishmen booting them, as and when they want. Nothing much is said at this stage that at least one leader had a nice siesta, wherein he had the time to copy and rewrite history in a very nice language. The Jalianwalabagh massacre* is again and again reminded to the children.

The children imagine of a regular struggle* right from 1919 to 1947, somewhat in the same intensity as now happens in Kashmir or in Sri. Lanka. Nothing is asked, about what the strugglers were doing between 1919 and 1930, and between 1930 and 1942. Also, nothing is said about the fact that in 1947 Britain gave up all its colonies in the world, not just India. Nothing much is taught about the petty levels of power-play indulged by the great leaders to subdue each other. No mention is made of the names of the thousands of government employees, Magistrates and others, who had allegedly pillared the British, and are claimed to have resigned from their posts heeding the call for allegiance to the cause of the Second Civil Disobedience Movement.

Nothing much is said about the fact that after Independence, though most of the great technological developments have come to India, majority of the people do not have access to any of it. And that the government officials are looting the whole nation. And also that all the children of the great freedom fighters, Military Officers, Political leaders are all trying to escape to the English world including Britain. While the common befooled Indians can continue to live in India, enjoying the peerless freedom, these people have created for them.

It would have been most appropriate of the British to take a plebiscite in all colonies, to get an understanding of how the general populace really viewed them. For, there will be a lot of persons, who really do not belong to the organised minority who are most vociferous, who may really have an opinion different from that of the mob that rule the streets.  Even in Hong Kong, the British should have done a plebiscite, before leaving, so as to get a record for posterity, as to the real feelings of the common people in Hong Kong.

In many ways, this loose talk affects the Americans also. I remember a time many years ago in the late sixties, when the Maida (wheat derivative food produce), which was called American Mavu in Malayalam, supplied by CARE*, was devoured by millions of children and later the same children being highly articulate in anti-American propaganda.

In many ways, it is a very easy way out for these brave people. For, even though the local official taunts them, and bullies them, they utter no word against them. But a distant America to blame for ills is a very attractive target, more so because it can do them no harm. But if anyone does dare to talk anything with assertiveness to a local petty official, then everyone would get a rare understanding of the official's power, which may effectively be seen as much more powerful than America's.

Apart from all this, I have seen a very strange phenomenon. I was once living in a place with very violent anti-American feelings. The society was highly segmented in a very feudal manner. The lower guys were addressed consistently with very powerful lower indicant words, yet they were more respectful to those who did it stolidly. It was very obvious to me that the lower sections are kept in a sort of mental subjugation by the higher sections, yet the lower sections only had mutual animosity among themselves, and in all such disputes, the higher guys were the mediators.

In spite of this very obvious suppression that the lower section were enjoying, there was always a continuing theme in the air that the poverty and privation that they were suffering from, were due to the devious designs of the developed nations like Britain, America etc. In all meetings and speeches, which obviously were organised by the higher sections, this was a ringing theme. Yet, nobody from among the lower section could understand that the improvement for the lower sections should start in their immediate social set-up. Nor, was there anyone of calibre enough to understand this paradox, and to ask for its obliteration.

Another very significant group, who can really be called the villains of the piece, are the Newspaper correspondents, editors, and surely the management. Almost all Indian newspapers give a running commentary to the lower class people of how vile the West is. Actually, here it may be stated that the common man is a bit confused about What is West?, as this term is used in connection with so many things starting with America, Britain, West Europe, East Europe, the White people etc. To the common man, the West is a place of vile social and political behaviour.

Now before embarking on more dissertations on this theme, I would like to narrate a conversation with a senior official of a very significant Malayalam Newspaper. This paper, like most other Malayalam papers, is running a campaign to influence the people not to learn English. And also that the English nations are a group of villains in this world. The theme of Mother tongue being equivalent to Maternity, Maternal love, Breast milk etc. is eulogised.

I asked this man in a very friendly mood, when his paper is campaigning so much for the stopping of English as a medium of instruction, how come most of the children of his management are studying in International Schools. He gave a wry smile and answered me, as if it was the best funny question, he had heard for a long time. He said, 'This is all marketing techniques. If all the people start learning English, then our Newspaper's readership would go down. The English newspapers would stand to gain. Malayalees are our captive market. It is our intension that they should remain so, forever. You see, man, we have very good marketing people, who decides what the Malayalee should think!'

I have narrated this incident to relate how there is a level of duplicity in the attitude of the Media, who otherwise don an attire of holier-than-thou. Yet, the people of Kerala who read the Malayalam papers take every word they write, as authentic as the scriptures. In fact, there is, now-a-days, a sort of unintelligent uniformity of thinking and opinions from the very North of Kerala, to the far South. Every morning the Newspapers set the standards in all thought process. Be it on cloning, on Gulf War, on President Clinton's indiscretions, on all things, there are instant experts who can, at the drop of a hat, come out with a sort of standard slurring comments on anything to do with the English West.

I really cannot understand why the Newspapermen should don on such a hate campaign, instead of educating the people. Maybe it is the easiest thing to do. For, the whole government machinery is spending Millions of rupees to inculcate the Hate-English program to the children of the weaker sections. So, to join in the campaign is the easiest thing to do.

In this regard, I would like to put in an allegory here. Hindi Cinema runs all over the country in India. In many aspects of perfection, other than the amount of money spent on its making, many other language films can compete with them. How come only Hindi films have this quality of national appeal? The reason lies in a fact, which no one remembers. The central government in its haste to obliterate English is spending Millions of rupees every year to compulsorily teach Hindi to all the students all round the country. The dividend of this spending is collected by the Hindi filmmakers, in a most easy manner.

Likewise, the anti-British, anti-American campaign at government expense is what fuels the antipathy.

I have seen a few Newspapermen at reasonably close quarters. I found one very funny aspiration of theirs. They address their seniors by the term Sir, or Sar. Even within a reasonable difference of seniority, they rarely do get on first name terms. Very few of them do have the nerve to address their slightly higher bosses with a Mr. or Mrs. prefixed to their names. Yet, they are all in a state of desperation to do so to all outsiders, of higher social or official position. But, in many cases, it is not easy to do so. Some of the persons, who go on international circuits, see the freedom of communication of the English Newspapermen, compare it mentally with their own level of subjugation, and go into frenzied resentment. Not at their own fellow journalists, but at the Englishmen, who they claim do keep a very cunning distance from them.

Well, this problem of keeping aloof by the Englishman might be true, and it can be hurting. Yet, everyone does this, here. Here, there are many persons of varying social levels that Indians can never tolerate to be with.

When they go the Middle Eastern countries like UAE etc. they feel it very much, as the foreign workers there, are living in marked racial basis, in a manner which may not be visible in any English country. The persons who come first are the citizens of the English countries, then comes the persons from South Africa, and possibly of the West European countries, then the Asian workers. And among them, itself the Indian contingent is, more or less, at the bottom. Many of the higher-level Indians, working there, view the lower working class Indians with visible disdain. One of the main reasons for this is the very understanding of the local citizens as to who are attractive and who are not.

Many higher educated Indians here grudge the fact that many of the native English speakers, with lesser formal qualifications, enjoy better social status, in these nations. Yet, they themselves do not want to identify themselves with their lower class fellow citizens. One of the main negativity, which nobody bothers to think about, is that if the Asians are given better positions, they would naturally bring in a feudal set-up, in which many of their fellow citizens would still exist in lower, inarticulate levels. At the same time, when the English speaker is kept on a pedestal, he cannot maintain such a level with his fellowmen, unless they move in Asian circles.

In a way, this mental situation works out in a very strange manner. The Indian senior person wants admission into English social and professional circles, but at the same time, he would dread it very much if Indians of lower levels accost him socially. And the local Arab, who is the rightful citizen there, being an Asian, knows to keep his distance from the feudal social layers in the Asian communities.

Here, I would like to mention another thing. Once, a man from the Asian continent becomes very fluent in English, and goes to live abroad in an English country with ample money, he would like to distance himself mentally, not necessarily socially, from the vernacular speaking, feudal cultured natives of his own nation. Yet, being an Asian, with a lot of thought process in the vernacular language, and a very identifiable physical appearance connected to the thought process, which is more of less accentuated by various expressions of facial muscles, and poses and gestures, and poises, he may not be able to barge into the English social circles. So, he is in a neither-here-nor-there situation. This experience would not be felt by someone of Asian ancestry but born and brought up in the English nation. Naturally, resentment might develop in the persons mind. At the same time, he may involuntarily repudiate all attempts to place him in an Asian context. Even any association with such terms as Asian, Brown, Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Commonwealth citizen, Third World* citizen etc. could cause him to start and react with a bitter ferocity. He would like to smash up the English media/society who brands him with what he is willing and striving to forgo. Here the emotions would be a bit mixed-up, and in reality, one wouldn't know whom he is fighting against. The English natives who see him as different from them, or his native fellowmen whose antecedents he is not willing to bear on himself. And then naturally, the question of who should be his partner in his fight for his rightful place comes up.

And in the context of the Media, one fanciful thing may be mentioned here: One watches the BBC. One finds all their correspondents of varying colour, complexion, breed and nativity, speaking to the various world leaders, with a rare quality of equality and dignity. They address senior politicians in English nations, towering bureaucrats in feudal Asians countries, revolutionaries, guerrilla leaders, and even the common man with the same level of dignity and assertiveness. It may shock many Englishmen when I say this, the very common words used like Mr., Mrs, and Miss are anathema and unmentionable by an Indian, to a leader, a bureaucrat, Minister or Prime Minister. So one can imagine the frustration, persons of calibre can have, when they have to function among a group of nitwits. And naturally, when talking in the vernacular, the words for You, He, She etc. they use to the leaders and others, tend to belittle themselves.

Now, it is possible that many Media-men do have a level of jealousy or antipathy for the English, who they perceive to be of, more or less, equal calibre, yet are enjoying a mighty fine time. But the cure for this is in striving for the removal of the original cause of the subjugating atmosphere, and not in going for another binge of deceitful writing.

Now, what surprises me, is this: Most of the locally famous Indian Media-men write and talk so much antipathetic themes on the English, both British, as well as American. Yet, at the drop of a hat, they are on tour to these very countries. I always do wonder what kind of national security is going on there, if persons with very evident antipathy are allowed in, again, at the drop of a hat.

One of the main tactics used by the Media in Kerala, and also in many other places, is to instigate the Muslim antagonism. Actually, America was seen as a pro-Muslim country, for many years, in India. For, during the Indo-Pak war of 1972*, when Pakistan was divided into two countries by a very shrewd and well-planned political game by India, a severely demoralised Pakistan was saved by American support. A timely display of American power by the Seventh Fleet in the Bay of Bengal saved the day for them. Moreover, in the Kashmir issue, where a freedom struggle is going on for more than fifty years, America had taken a consistently pro-freedom fighters line. It may be mentioned that though no Indian Media dares to take up the brutal violation of human rights going there, they are very much daring to talk about American 'vices in many places 'on which they harp on in a parrot-like manner without any understanding or originality.

Moreover, when the British-American forces saved the Bosnian Muslims from a sure route to extinction, very little mention was seen in the Kerala Media on the real issues. Only a theme on the brutal attack by the British-American forces was regularly reported. That the attack was to save Muslims, from the genocide committed by their Christian fellow citizens was very rarely mentioned. In this case, the fact that the British-American combine was attacking a Christian group to save a Muslim group was rarely mentioned in Kerala; if at all it was mentioned, it was not done in a noticeably significant manner.

There is great antipathy for the British and Americans in Kerala, and the Media is one of the main culprits. Yet, I have noticed that many Muslims who worked in low level jobs in British firms in the Middle East, saying that they really were lucky to work in English firms. One man even declared to me that his friends, who came from such experience, came back with a lot of positive personality changes.

And another thing that has to be noted is that the small nations like UAE, Bahrain, Muscat etc. are militarily very feeble and by geographical area unnoticeable. Their very existence depends on the support and protection given to them by the British and Americans. In the absence of this support, not only Iraq, but also all the neighbouring countries, including, Iran, Pakistan and India would have eyed these states with watering mouths. And if there had been no American intervention during the Kuwait invasion by Iraq, then by now, not only Kuwait, but also the whole lot of nations in that region would have been gobbled by the bigger nations around. In fact, once the norms of secure gobbling had been set, it would have been a mad rush to devour the oil rich nations.

Another thing is about the general impressions about the English nations. The general impression is that the English nations are very morally loose. There is no family life. One man's wife goes off and sleeps with another man. Children have sex with their friends. Divorce is a common event over there.

Actually, none of the speakers of these comments do have an idea of the real situation in this regard in their own country. When I was in Delhi, I saw many boards giving advertisements about instant abortion for Rs.500/-. In Bombay, the rates were Rs.90/-. The claim was that one can do it and go home in two hours time. I don't know much about the actualities of these things.

A person from India would think, "Oh, my god, just imagine my child having sex with those children!" The fact is that no Indian can bear to think of his children having not only sex, but also so many more acceptable interactions with so many Indians. Here one of the major differences with a child from India and that from an English nation is that the Indian child exists in the indicant level of servants, and other lower level personalities. And the factor of who is using the lower indicant words to the child also matters. If it is a great officer, who is his father or uncle, it is one situation. If it is his father or uncle who is a lower level worker, then again it is a different situation. For, a man who is in the lower indicant level under a low paid, low indicant worker, addressing a dignified girl with a lower indicant level word would be most distressing.

The English child exists in a neutral indicant level, in a social level of dignified equality with all the other citizens of that country of whatever age. Moving around intimately with such a lower indicant Indian man, and being under him, in lower indicant words, naturally is not the same as moving in intimate circles with an English youngster. Actually, the protagonist in Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, does exactly this unpardonable thing. She went in for a physical relation with a lower caste. In this relationship, she would not be the superior person, the society want to visualise as; instead she is the person, this lower caste man would address with the lower indicant words. The author does not take this abominable factor into consideration, when addressing the terribleness of the society. For, what has happened is not what happens in English. The incident is different, and the affects are also different; and pondering over an incident in a feudal language setting from an English language premises would not give any answers.

In feudal countries, including India, there would be a sort of social impenetrability. That is, one from a higher social group cannot mix with and understand the undercurrents in a socially lower group. (This factor is there even in the case of children). So, when the experts from India do give any statistical information, it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, for most experts on social themes are persons who have very vague idea about realities, being as there are forced to move only in circles where they are given a seat of reverence.

I remember an Indian-American Professor of Economics coming to Delhi, and after a seminar or something to that effect with the Indian Economics Academicians, declaring :If these be economists, then I am a BharathaNatyam* dancer.  I narrate this, without comments.

In a seminar of Engineers, which took place in the Institution of Engineers Hall in Trivandrum, Kerala many years ago, I did hear a story related by a famous academician. He was pronouncing on the fact that in India there were a lot of persons getting PhDs, and Doctorates, on the basis of research work with no originality. In fact, he was slightly alluding to the fact that the whole academic and allied systems of India needed a real overhaul, and to the meaningless of all these shallow research works, and PhDs.

The story he related is this: Once he was sitting in an airport lounge. Next to him sat a man. On having to communicate with him, he was told that he was a doctor. Since the man did not exhibit any brainy looks, he asked him what sort of a doctor he was.  The other man replied, that he had done research on the effect of alcohol on ants; and thus had got his doctorate. Then he asked him, about the procedure of this strange research.

On hearing of the procedure, the narrator told us in the audience: He took a glass of Whisky in his one hand. He took an ant in the other and placed it on the Microscope slide. Then, (here the narrator used his curled thumb to indicant the motion) in one gulp drank the whisky, and peered straight into the microscope's eyepiece. What he then observed was his thesis. This story also I relate without comments. At least, it is a nice story.

As for the case of divorce, and many other negative attributes in America, let us all understand that every year this country is being bombarded by tens of thousands of immigrants, both legal as well as illegal. The nation is absorbing the impact. Yet, there will be terrible emotional issues, which the nation cannot address. No other country in the world can do this. This much it is bearing, because it is an English-speaking nation. For, if it was a nation with a feudal language, then there would be heated feelings along the line, which could cause terrible social problems.

The negative attributes of America are in the limelight because the media highlights it to fool the common folks, in the feudal nations. Most of these common people have no inkling about the sorry state of their own nation. Their travel parameters are very small, and the reading materials they have access to are of limited ambit. Moreover, the visual media that they see is mostly of the native vernacular variety, which more or less gives a more intense indoctrination in this same direction. And naturally, the English media goes on to compete with it, in meanness.

But, here in passing I should mention that America is still the nation, through which the rest of the English nations, including Britain, can get infected with the international viruses. For, what ultimately becomes reality in America is a resultant of the reaction of the world feudal programs on an English social framework. And naturally, for the rest of the English nations, there might be a factor of infatuation about what is seen in America. Yet, this enchantment is fraught with danger, for what is happening in the USA is that of an English nation going through uncharted waters, with inimical elements getting inside, many becoming benevolent, and some still remaining malevolent. I am not talking about the terrorist factor here; what I am pointing to is the fact that a lot of persons who have very good, and financially strong bases in their native nations, coming to America, to just enjoy and exploit the exquisite freedom there, with no sense of commitment to the underlying philosophy of liberation that exists there, via English language. And as such, it remains the duty of British to maintain their understanding of the superiority of their heritage, that is still the machine that fuels all English nations, including USA. And to believe at the psychic level that Britain still remains not only the stabilising and guiding force that lights the path of English nations, but also the spiritual element that lends the sense of maturity in all understandings. For, this is a nation that contains an intense heritage of intelligent social, historical, and technical experience. The posterity in this nation should understand this and maintain their natural superiority in human qualities that history has bestowed on them, for the benefit of mankind.