I was born to the Thiyya community. This is a community belonging to North Malabar. It is a lower caste, that used to exist somewhere in the middle of the Malabar caste hierarchy. Though currently it is equated with the Ezhava community of South Kerala, actually some 30 years back, this connection was not mentioned. This connection was created and later emphasised to aid the political ambitions of certain caste based politicians.
The Thiyya community is actually a lower caste, serf-like community of individuals. Most of them used to have the looks of subordinated, low confidence, contorted physical expressions. However, in my very younger years, like say 2 or 3 years age, I was impressed by the superior looks of certain of my relatives. They were from Tellicherry, a small town in Cannanore district of Kerala.
I would not have believed that I was from a lower caste, if I had been so told at that time. My parents, especially my mother who belonged to Tellicherry seemed to have very superior attributes.
I did not discern any inferiority complex as such at that time among the few Thiyya persons that were related to me, in Tellicherry. At the same time, there was also a group of servant class persons (of the same caste) who served the family and were addressed as Thiyyan, Thiyyathi etc. They had starkly different facial expressions, especially of an inferior social group. However in my own family links also the majority were not of the higher-income persons.
It took me some time to understand that the superior looking Thiyyas and the other inferior expression bearing Thiyyas were actually of the same caste.
Tints of the British rule
Later as I grew up, I was to find that the facial expression of the majority Thiyyas were of the inferior quality, cruder type. Later when I lived in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, in South Kerala, in the year 1980, I did hear of the talk of the British-bloodedThiyya officers. For, when the Malabar part of Madras state was amalgamated with the state of Travancore-Cochin to form Kerala, many officers from Malabar opted for Kerala service and became Kerala state government officers. Many of them belonged to the Thiyya caste. They were good in English and honest in public affairs to a fault. It may be mentioned that the Travancore-Cochin states were independent kingdoms, where corrupt officialdom was a living reality during the times of British rule in British-India. While corruption among the officer class in British ruled Malabar was a non-existent theme.
The officers who came to south Kerala bore a markedly different physical and facial personality. Even my own mother was mentioned as a Brahmin lady, even though she was not Brahmin in any sense of the word. Moreover, I do not think that she had any typical Brahmin personality, either in mind or in physical features.
It took me years to connect the change of physical and mental personality to the British rule in Malabar. Even though the British were rarely in Malabar in terms of numbers, the mental impact of the British rule was very much felt in such areas as Cannanore and Tellichery. First was the removal of the political superiority of the Brahmin and Kshatryiya (kingly families) castes. Below these two castes came the Nairs, who were the serving castes of the two superior castes. The Thiyya caste had been deprived of many political rights as well as social freedoms that the two superior castes had. The Nair caste also did enjoy rights due to their close proximity to the two superior castes.
The very replacement of the higher political positions by the British was a mental elevation for the Thiyya. Along with this, was the establishment of English primary and higher schools. Then came the Brennen College, which during the British times was, unlike now, a reputed institution. These educational institutions gave the lower caste Thiyyas an historical opportunity to get English education at more or less free cost.
This had its social tragedies. For the higher castes were naturally in great mental trauma at this social development. For, if they were to send their children to the local English schools, their children would have to sit with the crude lower caste children. This issue more or less sieved out the higher castes from the opportunity for English education.
As the inputs of English slowly entered into the Thiyya social domain, they were to get infused by the social codes of English. Along this was the fact that they were not subordinated by lower level Malayalam codes to higher castes. Later, when the public service opportunities came up, the English educated Thiyya individuals got for the first time in recorded history the chance to become part of the government machinery. Yet, it may be mentioned in passing that even though the British gave the English educated Thiyyas a chance to break out of their slavish existence, they on their own did not concede any such concessions to persons who existed on the lower side of the society. Many of them saw their social elevation as due to their own intellectual superiority. No mention of British contribution was ever seen cited.
Coded treachery
Later in typical Indian attribute of treachery and ungratefulness, many of them tried to become social leaders by riding high on the uneducated pedestrian movement called the Indian Freedom Struggle. Even my own mothers father did try to attain to leadership through this means, but he was not able to hold on in the mad scramble among the Strugglers, as it became known that any Tom, Dick and Harry could become political leaders in the new found political system based on a nutty idea called democracy; in which persons with no quality, intellect, ideas, imagination, foresight and zero English knowledge came to replace the supremely refined British period of rule.
I understood that the change in physical attributes could be associated with the codes of language. The fact that English was entirely different from the local Malayalam was quite evident to me from a very early age. Later as I came across Indian kids born or bred in English atmospheres, I more or less came to see the same physical change in them that I had seen in a small section of the Thiyyas in Tellicherry. As to the Thiyyas in Tellichery, their physical attributes quite fast were seen to return back to their traditional looks, as time distanced their descendants from the British times.
Later, much later in the year 1989, I set out to write my book on feudal languages. After many corrections and additions, around the year 2000, I published this book online under the title: March of the Evil Empires: English verses the feudal languages. In my own family only my daughter, then aged around 6 was aware of this book.
A curious contemplation
For a long time, I had been contemplating on the issue of what would be the effect of bringing up a local child in perfect English conditions. It was not a theme of educating a local child in English, but from providing a perfect English environment, in which no local language codes were allowed to enter.
There were plenty of English educated children and persons in India. It is true that there is a qualitative change visible in them, as compared to persons who have not had any English experience. However these persons were still affected by the local language codes. For example, if the child knows Malayalam, he or she would still be affected by the words Nee (lower you), Avan, Oan (lower he), Aval, aol (lower she), and such words as Chakken, Payyan, (lower words signifying lad), Pennu (lower word for girl, woman), Eda, Edi (suppressive words of You), and many such things. Moreover, he or she would be bearing the burden of having to prop up certain others using such superior words as Sar, Adheham, Avar, Ningal. Here, it would be the self inflicted crushing that these words lend as he or she uses such words to place others in positions of superiority.
A dilemma
I did not see the possibility of doing such an experiment. However when I married, I was faced with a terrible dilemma. My wife was from a family with totally no English in their intellect. It was a terrible situation. In her family, everything was powerfully ordained in a tight-fitting string of hierarchy. If I were to place myself comfortably in a position assigned for me, it was smooth sailing. But the terribly low intellectual quality of the persons involved, and the low class persons who would come to boss over me socially and intellectually gave me the creeps.
Along with this issue were the terrible sly moves inside my own family to see that I was ensnared into the depths of low level, yet powerful social and familial strings.
I disliked seeing anyone being dragged down to the depths of the filth of local social strings. It was then that I decided to enforce the rule that the child should be taught only English, and spoken to only in English. And moreover, I took care to see that no one referred to her with the lower words of You, She etc. and words as Edi and such were forbidden.
Everyone were quite happy, for it was a situation wherein everyone around could improve their own English. And I must admit that very fast, there were a lot of people all around talking more or less workable English.
Maybe many of them took the whole thing as a passing fad of mine. I am sure they did not perfectly foresee the issues correctly. When I was bringing up the child in English, I was more or less snapping off the various powerful strings of domination that spring forth from the various corners of the familial tree. Person who clothe themselves as uncles, aunts, cousins, and other kinfolk all wait for such newcomers to place their props on. It is through these props placed on willing subordinates that they garner their social and familial leadership.
When the communication links are replaced by English, the links that come to exist between the various persons are devoid of any hint of subordination or domination. It was a very powerful assertion of independence.
Redrafting a spouse
Now there is something more to be mentioned about this. When I married my wife, she was a totally uneducated girl. Though fair in complexion, the aura of an uneducated village girl was there in her total features. Even her Malayalam was of the uneducated variety. However, in terms of formal education, she had gone through her college graduation education. Yet, she couldnt pass. In terms of worldly knowledge, geographical information, English reading and such, she was an absolute zero. I think she came across a copy of the Reader Digest for the first time after her marriage. Even though her graduation subject was English, I dont think that she had any idea as to what was an English classical novel.
In my own household, even though the sly idea of bringing a servant to the household to take care of my parent was there among my sisters and brother, I was not aware of it. But then the moment she came into my house, I was aware that this was the underlying intention of all those present.
Even my younger brother tried to address her with a Nee. But I stoutly did not allow this. This determination was to cost me heavily; but I strove to bear the brunt.
I was quite adamant about bringing up the mental stature of my wife. So to her also, I strove to use higher indicant words. So, instead of using the word Aval (lower she) to her, I always used the words Avar (higher she). It was seen as a mad mans posture by the others around me, who couldnt bear the upsetting of social positions that I was proposing through the use of word codes.
In the end what happened was that she was given a higher than usual status. Moreover, the fact that my parent had been a senior official of the state government, coupled with the fact that one of my sisters was a teacher in an elite national engineering college, another sister a paediatrician and my brother working in The Times of India, wandering all around the place notifying this fact, all created a higher being feeling in my wife; when she was to accompany any of her own family relatives; or was accosted by them.
As to me, I was always travelling all round the state attending to my own business.
The house we lived was palatial in comparison to her family house of that time.
I strove to teach her English speaking, and desperately tried to make her take to reading English. She used to gloss over the pages of the Readers Digest in a blank manner. As to classical books, I did not take pain to make her read. When I first tried to make her speak in English, she simply told in a offensive manner: My father is not an Englishman.
This statement was probably promoted by her instilled duty of loyalty to her familial traditions, which she wanted to place on record as she was willingly moved ahead to ditch it. Moreover, the constant indoctrination by my own family members that I was a non-entity, as well as the sudden superiority of articulation that English afforded her could all have aided in her assertive mention of her non-English parentage.
{Another thing that I may take up later was the horoscope content of hers and a peculiar personality contradiction in her. For, I have some experience to sense that ones life codes may be hinted at in ones horoscope. Very powerfully at that.}
