Chapter 8

Dignity of labour; and also on slavery

Dignity of Labour: Persons who go and reside in English countries suddenly turn out to have a high level of understanding about the dignity of labour. On coming back, they talk eloquently about this factor, and don an attitude of being holier than thou, to the locals, in this regard. They tell others how they are not ashamed to do any kind of job, and that in, say, the U.S.A, they have done many jobs with no feelings of shame, or indignity. That one should not be afraid or ashamed to do any job that is to one's liking, and that the real cause of the poverty in their country is the general attitude of laziness, and negative attitude to work.

This talk is all nice, and very easy to give. In this regard, one may remind oneself of the innumerable Indian leaders, instant philosophers and towering personalities who loomed large over the Indian horizon, during the British period, drowning the Indians with a barrage of moral lessons. Yet, all of these instant philosophers did miss the great point of the negativity that looms on the society, through the feudalism in the language.

I may give an illustration here. With the coming of the English, many jobs gained a respectability that was lacking in traditional India. One of these was the sales job. With a halo of English protecting them, many high calibre persons moved into this career line. And for sometime, there was a great deal of respect for this career. But then the realities took over. That is, the majority of Indians do not know English. And it was understood that English was not a necessary perquisite for selling. In fact, in many places, it would have a reverse effect. So came the non-English or semi-English sales persons. Many of them were good, no doubt. Yet, their entry completely wiped out the earlier levels maintained by the English verbal communication. They brought the communication to the level of Sar and its connected indicants. And that of deep obsequiousness.  And then sales lost its halo, and now it is not a career that many would seek willingly.

In fact, in many towns of India, it is very difficult to get salespersons of calibre. Persons with calibre end up in this field only in circumstances of dire need. And quit it at the earliest possible occasion. For, their social status gets doomed by association with a group, which is predominantly of the stooping and obsequious persons who mainly use other means for achieving their sales target, such as sycophancy, flattery and sweet talk. The professionalism that came with English has taken a beating.

Now what happens to the English nations, when a mass of feudal language speaking persons converges in an area or profession? If they are from different individual language groups, then not much of a problem. But if they are all from the same language group to the extend of even talking to each other in their native tongue, then it is a matter of grave concern. For, the first casualty would be the vanishing of the local persons from this profession. Again, this incident may be misinterpreted as an example of the snobbery of the local citizens. I will come to this issue after sometime.

There is a phenomenon that I have seen in India. Many years ago, in the state of Karnataka (erstwhile Mysore State), many local language fanatics argued for the banning of English education in the state. One of their main arguments was that English educated persons were unwilling to work. That is, English is making them conceited.

Now, this is a direct contrast of what I have just said, that English gives dignity to labour. Yet, here the exact opposite is alleged. The allegation is true. For, once a person achieves an understanding in English, a slight disinclination to stoop, bow and go to the inferior position comes about.  For, once you have seen the dignity of yourselves in the English language, it becomes impossible to allow a minor man to use lower indicant words to you. For, in the vernacular, the very fact of agreeing to work for a man means that you are agreeing to allow him to use the lower indicant words to you, and also willing to be a slight slave to him, in matters that are sometimes not connected to your job.

I remember an incident when I was in Delhi. One Punjabi* man living in a posh area had lost his money and come down financially, that he was finding it difficult to pull on. Then someone offered him a job. But he took the offer with a sense of severe foreboding. A lady who was our mutual friend told me that it is impossible for that man to work, for once he is willing to work for someone, it is equivalent to being his slave. Well, this is a slavery that is non-tangible, and without chains. It is possible that the Negro slaves of yore would not understand this type of slavery.

It is not an easy thing to be an employee of a person who thinks and functions in a feudal language.

Since I have mentioned Slavery here, I would like to digress slightly to this issue:

Slavery was an universally accepted fact all over the world till its banning in the British Empire, by Queen Victoria. It existed all over the world in most of the nations. I do not know whether there were slaves in England; but since it was a fact in continental Europe, surely its shadow must be seen in England. . Most of the ancient, fantastic monuments, and other buildings and structures, of antiquity are the creations of innumerable slaves who worked and died in dismal solitude.

India had immense slaves. Almost all the small time feudal lords, Kings, Sultans and Emperors had slaves; in fact, if one were to go into the details of who build the Taj Mahal, Red Fort* or the palaces, one cannot miss the contributions of the slaves. Yet, it is doubtful if they were in chains, or in shackles. Maybe they were in shackles, maybe not. Moreover, there were and there are innumerable sections of people, who exist literally as slaves in India. For example, in Kerala there are thousands of tribal population. And Delhi, was ruled for a long time by a group of dynasties, with a common nomenclature of Slave dynasty; (for their understanding of succession to the throne was not based on the well known principles of primogeniture*, but of a very funny variation).

For the purpose of study, we may take the tribal population of Wynad*, a hilly district in Kerala, in India. Till the advent of independence, the tribal population lived in the forests in this district. It may not be true to say that they were a completely free people. For, many were a sort of bonded labourers, working in agricultural fields of the local landlords, who maintained them with brutal suppression. It may shock even Indians, when I say that at least to about 30 years back, these landlords used to sell these bonded labourers to other landlords during a tribal festival in a Temple by name Valluvarkkavu*. Actually, this formal process was not known as selling; it was understood more as a transfer of guardianship, a term naturally with a positive connotation. The miserable men and women, darkened with years of toiling in the simmering sun, along with their equally doomed children, are accepted with no acknowledgement of their rights. 

They worked with meek obedience, and were subjected to more disturbing exploitation, with no one the least bothered. And they existed in the lowest of the indicant words and terms, with no acknowledgement of the aspect of the right to respect for the elderly and the aged. For, all persons in this group were equally termed as unfit for any cultured interaction.

At the same time, there may have been persons, among them, who subsisted purely on the benevolence of the forest. 

With the coming of independence, forests started receding further and further inside, naturally with the participation and connivance of the forest department officials. The newly cleared places became filled with settlers from the costal plains of Kerala. They rounded up all the cleared areas, so that in many places the tribal were left to fend for themselves on the roads, outside the compound walls. Many of them ended up as servants and domestic-helps with the least of rights and right to dignity. And they lived and continue to live in shocking levels of privation even in this 21st century.

Recently they tried to foster strength through united action. But the government promptly crushed it with brutal police force, in which the 'tribals' again ended up worse for the effort, with at least one person shot dead, and many others, including women and children, languishing in inhuman Indian jails, for days on end.

I went into so much detail on this factor just to compare the same situation with the Negro slaves of U.S.A. If you call a Negro a ******, it is an insult. But the words of lower indicant, used with the intention of suppressing and demeaning, that is used with ample frequency in India are far more insulting, stifling and very, very much disturbing than any other form of abuse, even of more terror than physical assault.  Yet, the Blacks of U.S.A don't even appreciate how lucky they were to be brought into an English country. For, the individuality they have now, and understanding of self-respect that they now enjoy would never have dawned on them had their forefathers been sold in slavery in any feudal language nation.

An incident to remember: I remember one incident that happened in about 1986. I was sitting in the house of one of my acquaintance, who was a person who knew English. His family members were also present. We were watching the local TV programme. On the floor were seated the local poor people of the neighbourhood who had come there for something, but on seeing the TV switched on, they had stayed. The programme was on the secondary status meted out to the Negroes in USA. My acquaintance was very vociferous about what he said was the terrible state of the Negroes, there.

But on the TV, the Negroes were seen as, more or less, dressed in the same manner as the White man, sitting and talking to him, and also addressing him in the same manner as they were being addressed. And I did not discern much inferiority complex on the face of the Negroes there.

At the same time, I was wondering of our own countrymen who were sitting on the floor beside us, their dress, their limitations of speech, and of all the other limitations, they had to bear. The funny thing about the whole affair was that during the whole time when my friend was arguing for the Negroes of USA, he himself seemed blind to the fact that the social plight of his countrymen sitting just near him were worse and that he was also practising more dehumanising social communication with them by making them all sit on the ground while we were all sitting in a royal style.

Well, I don't want to say that he should have made them sit with him, for the communication actually would only become more disturbing. Now, that is what the difference English would bring in. As far as inferiority complex is concerned, I think we would find that expression more in the Blacks of Independent African countries than in USA. (Actually I think many a Black in modern Africa would be cursing the destiny that did not choose to take their own ancestor as a slave to USA, for then they would have been US citizens now, where in spite of many problems, they are immune to the debasing vices of their native land's society.)

Back to slavery: One of the things that intrigued me much was the fact that a group of people coming in a small ship could catch people from a nation, keep them in custody for many days, and then take them across the seas to sell as if they are animals. It does not really reflect on the slave traders as on the people of that nation. And it can be a pointer to the problem in the communication program that keeps the people from uniting against the kidnappers. For, what really happened is that the natives actively collaborated with the slave traders, to capture and sell their fellowmen. I would strongly say that there would be elements in their language, which facilitated the whole sinister programme.

And another thing, that many persons do miss is that these slaves by their association with the English crowd only went up in individuality and self-respect; and not like in India, where once a person becomes branded as an untouchable, he himself would start thinking that there is something of the inferior in him. And he himself would be the first to argue for a special, and high pedestal for the higher groups in the society. And he himself would be very much disturbed if anyone from his group showed tendency for brilliance, calibre and prospects of breaking out of the mould of inferiority. For, once a person goes up in the social ladder, then even the elementary words of interaction becomes impossible to maintain beyond the limits of respectful courtesy.

And for the Black slaves, one of the most wonderful things happened, which is most probably impossible to see elsewhere in human history. That is, a whole section of the Slave Masters fellowmen went into battle to free the slaves, and gain them liberty. This also took place in an English society. For, one may understand that the man who thinks in English would discern something very wrong in the very practice of slavery; for the language program is not for the avowal of this philosophy; but for the negation of it.

And what about the abolition of slavery by Britain? Let me quote from the book British Empire and Commonwealth, written by George W.Southgate, B.A. In 1776, a motion for the abolition of the slave trade was brought forward in the House of Commons. It was not carried, and in 1787 a Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed by William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and Zachary Macaulay. Much opposition was offered to the propaganda work of the society by those whose interests would be affected. -----------------------------The planters of the West Indies subscribed large sums of money in order that opposition to the work of the society might be maintained. But humanitarian views at length prevailed, and in 1807, Great Britain passed an Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

It may be understood that this Act had the blessings of Queen Victoria also. In passing, I may pause to think to find any other Monarch who took interest in such a momentous event. For, it may safely be assumed that in many nations including India, there are more terrible things going on, which can be stopped with much less effort. But, in these nations, nobody cares, about things that don't directly concern them.

These things happen only in English nations. Just think of one example. Animal slaughter is done in India and many other nations in a most terrible manner. I have seen the butchers in the process of killing animals, like Buffalo, Bull, Cow, Chicken etc. It is done in a most crude manner. A small part of the jugular vein is cut, and a limited level of blood is allowed to flow from the wound of the terrified animal.  The animal is alive for a long time, sometimes as long as half an hour. No one in India is bothered; if at all they do take pain to speak for the alleviation of the pain in this process, most of them do it for the enjoyment of the campaign. But in English countries, where slaughter is much, much more humane, there are campaigns going on to abolish animal slaughter altogether. I would willingly claim that this is all connected to the program in the language. For, in India, where people purport a level of spirituality in their ambiance, how many persons can one find who have become vegetarian on grounds of conscience?

I will be discussing on the issue of individuality and dignity of animals, also at a later section.

Back to dignity of labour: Now I am going back to our earlier discussion on the dignity of labour. There is dignity of labour ingrained in the English language. People, who come from nations with feudal languages, would feel the full force of it, the moment they arrive in any English country. Yet, these nations need to be careful, that the feudal viruses don't infect their nation.  It may not be very obvious, and to a person who cannot understand the underlying nuances of the feudal language, this may not be very clear.

It is not possible to stop the flow of immigrants from the non-English world. For, the human resources would be very cheap, and there is need to have people to fill in the requirements of employable persons. Yet, it is a duty to the posterity that the English nations, maintain an enduring Englishness for years and years to come. For, if it ceases to be English nations, then the only place in the world where a human being has an intrinsic value, regardless of his social, financial or even official position, will be lost forever. And that would be the end of all sciences, progress, sane reaction to insane events, and can be the end of human liberty.

For gods sake, when a British man is introduced, let him talk in English, with all the ingredients of English. Let it not be a person who talks Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, Japanese, Chinese, French, German, Spanish etc. I remember an incident when I was introduced to a British national; he spoke more Bengali, than English, and his body language was more of Bengali, than English. It is not a pleasant memory for me. But at another time, I did meet a man of Gujarati ancestry, in an airport in the Middle East, who exhibited the English attributes, and pleasantly expressed his affinity for his adopted land.