Chapter 9

Social homogeneity

Now let me talk about the prevalence of teaching non-English languages in schools in the English nations. Teaching of Latin, French, German etc. may have been practised because of the proximity of these lands to the British isles. And also, because of the long years of historical connection with these countries. But, with the influx of the Asian crowd, there may be a tendency to teach languages like Urdu, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali etc. just because of a misplaced sense of national pride by the immigrant population. Well, nothing much can be done about it, for it is anyone's liberty to study what he or she wants. Yet, there is no need to encourage such things at government expense. For, the teaching of these languages in schools is like putting a virus into a computer, which was running nicely. It can create deep divisions in the homogeneity of the society.

One thing in this regard, the policy makers of English nations should note is that a very significant negative factor has now appeared on the horizon. That is the arrival of satellite Television. Earlier, after a few years of domicile in an English nation, the immigrant population lose their vernacular character in an unnoticed manner. Now, right inside their bedroom, the native social environment daily comes, through the channel televisions. I can assure them that this is a threat not to be viewed with negligence. For, right inside the English nation, persons continue to imbibe the far distant feudal programs, and the same ferocious, social negativity gets activated daily.

Homogeneity: Here I would like to explain the word homogeneity.  During my stay in many places in India, I used to consistently use English as a means of communication, even though I could manage to communicate in a few Indian languages. I found that when I end up with a lot of acquaintance from the local crowd in a far away place, they don't associate me with any particular state or linguistic group. In fact, the whole group of persons who associate with me in English would be from many states and linguistic group. Yet, when they are with me, they lose their linguistic identity, and tend to become cosmopolitan.

In fact, most of the present day problems that do crop up, in India, are due to a sense of division that has that been artificially created by the dim-witted leaders who took over from the British, all in a platter. In their haste to mitigate the influence of English, which they found could give the citizens a leeway from their clutches, and also to impose Hindi on the national population, they re-structured the different states, on the basis of vernacular language. Now, if a Malayalee goes to another state, say Karnataka, there is an intense feeling of being in another land. Nobody talks English, and the affect is like being an animal, if there is no means of communication.

In a recent incident, I was going in a bus to Bangalore (Karnataka), from another state. It was night, and the journey was long. In the bus was a person from Karnataka, who was obviously of the labour class. He had a verbal fight with the person near him in the seat.  Immediately, the local person made a hue and cry, and then it transpired that the other man did not know the local vernacular of the people who were in the bus. A man's personality can be best be compared to a dumb animal, if cannot communicate. Immediately he was pushed out of the bus, right in the middle of nowhere.

Actually, in my long sojourns, in different states I have found that there is deep animosity between persons of different language groups. Yet, the assuaging factor is always the knowledge of at least a sprinkling of English.

Now, like I mentioned earlier, English does cause a level of unity and homogeneity. In this connection, I would like to take a topic from the World History.

From British History: It is a well-known fact that very rarely has England been defeated in any war; for it is said that England always wins the last battle. This was in spite of the fact that at many times in its history, it did not even have a strong standing army.

This continuous history of winning has been a hallmark of British campaigns all round the world. Yet this streak of winning luck can be traced to the language program that runs smoothly even in the face of the most unnerving danger.

When Hitler's Air Force's bombed London*, the people took to the streets, lived in bomb shelters, took up civil defence, created a harmonious flow of life in a situation, which could have really been a picture of pandemonium* and chaos, in most other places.  One can just try to visualize what would be the social scene if a similar thing had befallen a town in Kerala.

In a society, where people mentally exist in mutually competing social psychology, there would not be a harmonious unity of purpose. For many, this day would be a day of liberation, when the groups of persons, who till date had kept a distance from them as if from dirt, would be forced to acknowledge their existence. The genteel personages would be forced to exist in close quarters with those, they had considered horrific.

And then the factor of respect would come, for each spoken sentence would come up with this query. And it is the accepted adage that in the absence of distance, enchantment is lost, and in its place contempt comes. The social scene would be one of perpetual outbursts. For, everyone would like to maintain his respectability beyond anything; patriotism, principles and even the security of the society would come only last.

As an appendage to this discussion, I must add that in the English countries, one may find both physical development, as well as mental calibre existing in the same person. Yet, in India, generally persons with mental calibre keep apart from persons with physical prowess. One of the reasons for this is that once a man pursues physical fitness, he generally has to move with persons from the lower category of society. And so, they keep away. So ultimately, the society is generally is in a shape with the physical prowess in the hands of the socially inferior persons, and mental prowess in the higher classes. Actually, the middle class is more vulnerable to this problem, as they find it difficult to move with the lower class; at the same time, the higher classes have their own access to places where they can engage in activities of physical nature without having to move with the lower society.

Now, coming back to the issue of a calamity hitting the society, wherein the populace have to come and live together, these differing physical capacities would be a real factor of concern. For, the lower classes would be more able to face the problem of physical discomfort as well as to act with more efficiency in doing tasks that require physical effort. They would takeover the leadership and that too with the use of crude words and indicants, that the polished section of persons would think it is better to be bombed than to have to bear the mean words of the mean folks.  Beyond all this, it would be a time for evening-out with the higher classes. I can vouch that there would be no sense of unity. Everyone would be waiting for someone with enough authority to regiment the people, and this authority would also be a mean person. That is another tragedy of India.

Now coming back to the scene of the bombing of London, it is a fact that the people there faced the barrage of bombing because they were English; if they were Indians or some other group of people from certain other nations, that bombing would have been enough to vanish the nation into thin air. Also, the more people start speaking different languages in Britain, the more Britain would become weak. For, it may be remembered that always Britain won the last battle, not because of their numerical strength, but because of inner homogeneity that persisted through the long periods of tribulations, while the enemies withered during both the periods of triumphs and tribulations.

Now, what I have to stress here is that the English should understand the value of the wonderful software they are in possession of. And not to allow any sort of monkey tricks that can dislodge or even question the superiority of this program.

Back to Schools: Now that I have explained the bit on homogeneity that comes with English, it is only natural that I should argue that any contention by anybody to give another language a chance to enter the mainstream should be checked and blocked. It is good for everybody, including the persons who migrated from countries like India, and have become spiritually aligned with the English nation. For, once the protagonists of these feudal languages find the base and fix the roots there, then their next program would be to rope in new members for their campaign. And then they become a distinct group, with all the feudal attributes; the existence of this group would create a new address and identity for the persons who have already blended into the English society. For example, there would be persons of Chinese origin in an English country, who were living in close association with the English culture; suddenly out of the blue appears a lot of Chinese, with the feudal fittings. They would come and declare their right to associate with the earlier group of persons. Then they would start finding fault with so many things, that it becomes a source of mental tension. This would really happen only if Chinese come as a very big group and exist as a distinct ethnic group. Though it may have not happened in the case of the Chinese, many other persons from other nations like India may have experienced what I have related here.

Before proceeding further, I need to emphasis here that I am talking about a phenomenon in this book, which will exist in a very vague and indiscernible manner, for a long time. And the real cumulative affect of all small effects would be felt by the English society only in a slow manner.

Here I need to digress, and tell of a social process that took place over the years in front of my eyes, and which I did anticipate and watch it happen with a mood of uneasy foreboding.

Here I have to again revert to Kerala, of some 36 years back. It is possible that the themes that I am discussing now may not even be known to most of the present day people of Kerala. The year must be some 1966 or '67. I must be around 4 or 5 years of age. The place was a village in Malabar, that is in North Kerala.

It may be remembered that Kerala had been formed only in 1956. Malabar was the part of the erstwhile British administered Madras State, while Travancore and Cochin, were actually independent subsidiary states during the British colonial days, which ended in 1947.

I was present in a conversation between two officials, one a relatively senior and the other a clerk. They were discussing about another clerk who had been transferred from the Travancore part of Kerala. The officer was saying that he had heard that the clerk from Travancore was collecting money, on the sly, from the people for each and every official paper that he was giving to the public. Both the officer as well as the clerk expressed their surprise that such a thing could be done, and that the people could be made to do so; for, they were not having any power to taunt the people in any manner.

They, then, expressed the belief that this man was a rare case of delinquency. Or possibly the persons from the Travancore area are like this. I remember having thought how this new sort of behaviour could infect the whole crowd. It must be understood that though a limited amount of leverage was sometimes used to move official papers, in Malabar also, for something that comes as a natural right of the citizen, usually bribery couldn't be extracted.

Later, after one or two years, when I moved to the Travancore area, I found that money was freely asked and fixed for any official paper to be moved. There were no qualms about this. And the government official took it as a right of his social position to have a definite amount of money for any paper he signs on. This practice may not be identified as bribing, for the citizen is not getting anything illegal done through bribing; he is only getting his perfectly rightful papers by paying to the official what he demands.

Later when I came to Malabar, after many years, I found that this practice had become a way of life there also. And nobody was having any shock, not at all the new generation, who had grown up seeing this as a way of life.

Another thing about Malabar, I had noticed in my childhood days, was that though the officials did have a slight edge over the common man, they were not above the common man's right to question, or to communicate with at a level of equality.  All officials were addressed with the word Ningal, or its colloquial deviation of Ingal, for the word You. And the communication back was also in the same manner, if the person was not of an inferior class. When I went to Travancore area, I found that this word Ningal was not to be used to the government official or to anyone superior. Though the government official addressed the common citizen with Ningal, they were supposed to address the official, as Sar, and use this word for such usage as He, She, His, Hers, Him etc.

Now, this word really gave an advantage to the government official. There was no official rule that states that the official is superior, or that the common man is subordinate to him. Yet, if the common man tries to go in for a more equal manner of communication, the official will very obviously be disturbed and then the red tape, which is, as it is, strangling the common man, would grow more strong and his file would see the light of day only after many, many months.

Now, this affliction has caught the Malabar region also. Yet, the younger generation does not know the difference. They have grown up using this term to their teachers, and can't remember a time, when it was not so. Actually, in Malabar, the teachers were addressed as Mash for male and Teacher for female. And the word used for You was Ningal. Now, it is universally either Sar, or Madam, or Teacher for all terms such as Mr. X , or Mrs. X,  Sir, You, He, She, His, Her, Him etc.

Since independence instead of the common man's stature and dignity improving, actually it has taken a severe beating.

Now, what I wanted to bring out in this brief digression was the fact that negativity comes slowly into a society in a very indiscernible manner, and its evils affect can be understood only if one can visualize a long-term pattern of change. And most of the people are not able to decipher this change. Another thing about the coming of this type of negativity is that people become more insecure, and so, more self-centred, and they cease to bother about the comfort of others; for their only concern is that of seeing their own safety and security, in a society which is increasingly being vile.

Now, this is what I want to convey about the English world; if they are not understanding the type of negativity that abounds the world around, and thus allow it to put roots into their nation, then this slow change would come; the force of this negativity would be much, much more than the power of all the bombs that fell in Pearl Harbor. For, when the bomb fell there, a united course of action could be initiated. But when the negativity that I speak of come and attack, the affect would be bewildering and confounding, and there would be no united action; only a sort of everyone for himself policy.