The claims of equality to the heights and the repulsion to the lower sections

Here, what has to be borne in mind by the people of English nations is the social repulsion of ‘Indians’ to other ‘Indians’. It is not an imagination, but real. ‘Indians’ do have many type of repulsions for other ‘Indians’. It is not connected to race or colour. And there are legitimate reasons for this. These repulsions are felt by others also. For example, when people, whose demeanour has the feature of social suppression based on their own feudal languages and social systems, claims to be equals, a natural repulsion arises. It is a creepy feeling. It is the claim that repulses. The remedy lies in retracting the claim, and going for personal quality development. Without striving for refinement, simply saying that one is equal to a person who carries the various facets of an English refinement should not be allowed. Simply said, it is right to refute the claim. For, the claim is connected to equalising to a lower order of human existence.

Equality with the English social systems and those who practise it cannot be claimed, unless one has the mental refinement to lend the same quality of equality to those who abound the lower circles of one’s own social system.

[For example, a Thiyya man has no right to claim equality with a Brahmin, when he himself does not want the proximity of a person of caste lower to himself. In fact, only persons who have risen above all this can be allowed proximity to egalitarian English social system. Otherwise, the same negative codes will enter English.

I have seen some socially high Thiyya making jest of Brahmin’s claim to superiority. At the same time, they speak with full vehemence about persons of castes lower to Thiyyas]

Without allowing this, simply claiming equality with persons of a refined social system is nonsense. And perfectly refutable, powerfully. However if the social systems of the Asian peoples, the African Blacks and such other peoples are similar in refinement to the English systems, then there is no need to harp on equality and rights to equal dignity. For, their own social systems would be equally or more attractive. It is just because their social systems are so terrible that they all want to barge into English social systems and claim equality. They cannot bear the lower sections among themselves. They want to be with the English populations.

For instance, the Whites of South Africa kept places apart for Blacks and Whites. So what? Blacks have their own place. Make those places more attractive than the places kept apart for the Whites, by the simple means of social communication refinement. Instead of thinking on those lines, the easier route of claims to enter into the White areas simply denotes a miserably low quality Black leadership.

The trauma and the remedy

I can understand the mental trauma of being identified as a lower class. When my own children were brought up, I simply took up a stance that I am not bothered about others’ evaluation. All I did was to secure them in a social set-up in which the feudal language social system was denied entry. That did lead to many incriminating claims. There was one relative on my wife’s side who demanded the right to have my children to play with his children. Well, it was like the Blacks claiming the right for their children to play with the White children. However in my case, there was actually a terrible difference. I was quite poor at that time, living in a dilapidated house. Usually in India, people do not want their children to be with children of poorer parents.

At the other end, the local rich folks (most of the lower class employees in the Middle East) also had certain complaints. That of I not showing any exquisite interest in being with them. Usually, it is a nice thing to be known as a companion of the rich folks. However for me, rich folks with bare knowledge in English, who had never heard of British classics, did not seem quite attractive companions. 

The kaleidoscopic experiences

I think it is right for the writer of this book to state that he stands apart from the scenes when writing this book. He does not claim any particular attainments or refinements. All he states is that had he been allowed to be trained in English systems by persons of English refinement, his own personal qualities would have been great. However, he was trained or rather tormented by brutal Malayalam speaking-teachers and social content. However, there is no rancour for this. For, it is the contradictions in experiences that gave this writer a fantastic kaleidoscopic variety of experiences and insight to do a lot of writings. For that, the writer expresses his deep obligation to everyone who strove to inform him of the brutalities of a feudal language social system or position him to experience the same. For, this writing cannot be done by any person who has had the luck to live in an English ambience of exclusive refinement.

Now coming back to Wikipedia and the pages on Castes, I have to mention something more about Indian castes. As I mentioned earlier, every caste writes and rewrites their own history to be on par with the emerging social requirements. It is like the modern Blacks of Africa claiming that they were all highly educated, superbly sophisticated populaces before they were all turned into destitute by the Europeans. 

DIGRESSION

There is this information from 'Churyayi Kanaran’ [Unsigned article, Deepam, Vol. I,  No.7, Kumbham 1930, p. 20: When Churyayi Kanaran (1812-1876], a Thiyya, who went on to become a Deputy Collector at Ponnani, was appointed as Head Munshi, his Nair superiors (Sirasdars) harassed him, giving him only a mattress to work on, instead of a chair, prompting H.V. Conolly, the Collector, who had appointed him, to intervene on his behalf. Now, there are a series of issues in this information. What are they?

First, the majority people of this land couldn’t sit on chairs, until British intervention came.

Second, in British ruled areas, lower castes did get superior English education, that they could join the higher levels of bureaucracy.

Third, the pain that the relatively higher castes naturally felt. For, when they extend equality to him (who naturally would be quite well educated in English), they would be simply allowing themselves to be equated to the lower sections of the Thiyyas (lower caste). It would come upon that the lower castes persons would then be able to dare to think of them in Avan and Aval terms (lower He, Him, His, She, Her, Hers).

The fourth issue is the most terrible. It is that appointing a native in higher bureaucratic job was not a good thing for other natives of this land. For, they get distanced from English administrators.

This can be seen in the experience of C Kanaran also. When he was denied a seat, there was an English superior to help him out. However, when Kanaran is the superior, he wouldn’t find it within his scope of understanding to refute the claims of local social codes. Moreover, he himself would know and speak in feudal Malayalam. For him, the other natives could be divided into Avan/Aval (lower He, Him, She, Her, etc.) and Adheham/Avar* (higher He, Him, She, Her, etc.).  When a native man approaches him, his experience would be starkly different from his experience when he approaches an English officer. The latter would lend him dignity by the mere usage and thinking in English. The former can do anything, either defile or else ennoble him, as per his whim and wish. So, when seen in the larger context, appointing native ‘Indians’ into the administration was a tragic thing that the Crown rule did in British-India. I have seen Indians natives treated like dirt by Indian officials. The codes and triggers for this are in the Indian feudal vernaculars.

Even now in most government offices, no chairs are provided for the native people of this land by the Indian government officials. And there is no Conolly to intervene on their behalf.  

Tail piece: H.V. Conolly, the English Collector of Malabar was later cut into pieces right in front of his wife by rioters of the Mappilla Lalaha (Mappilla rioting) in south Malabar.  It may be noted that this rioting was mainly spurred by the Thiyya-convert-to-Islam Muslim. So, there is not all encompassing logic to social fury. At one end, this English man is trying to bring in correction to social negativities.  And at the other end, the very people who are actually benifiting from the same are spurred by nonsensical rhetoric to kill him.

* It may be noted in passing that all talk of English administration being disruptive, despoiling and exploitive were advanced by the Adheham/Avar 'Indians'. NOT by the Avan/Aval 'Indians'. 

END OF DIGRESSION

The tragic side of reservation

With reservation, what went wrong? People with low-class behaviour to the public became government officers and officials. Their pejorative filled communication standards became acceptable. There was no value in being refined and polite. The social system started giving value to corruption and bribes. The earlier stance of imitating British standards simply was washed away from public knowledge and remembrance.

Claiming reservation is equivalent to claiming to be mentally handicapped and that for that very reason, I should be given a higher job and right to enter into higher echelons of education. Quite obviously there is something wrong in the logic.

Now, the Nairs were also quite desperate to keep a distance from the Ezhavas. For, they were the group closest to the Ezhavas. The desperation was more caused by the crudeness of the Malayalam language in that if the lower caste individual treated them as equals or as lower, it could have its corresponding changes in the indicant word codes. This could be a very unbearable thing to happen. The unbearable-ness of this issue cannot be explained in English. Now that is also another problem. For, there is a great negativity. However, there is no means to explain it to a person who is a native-English speaker who does not live in India.

That they are not Sudras can be accepted. However, the next question that comes up would be, then who are they? They speak much about their martial history, that of a Nair Pada, a Nair army. Well, then martial means fighting. Fighting means Royal. That means, Kshathriya. They went about claiming to be Kshatriyas. It was a very funny situation. In that the Kshatriyas are really the royal families. In Kerala they are generally called Varmas.

Now in all these things what an average English reader should bear in mind is the repulsion of each group of ‘Indians’ to be identified as another ‘Indian’ group. They view the others as repulsive and want to maintain a very detailed distance from them, even in words. Now, is there anything great or powerful in being connected through words? Well, there is. Actually almost all social communication, command routes, prestige, stature, ‘respect’, concept of right and wrong, acceptability of actions and many other things are connected to what words are used, and how they connect a person to other people and institutions. If a native-English reader claims that he has understood the gist of the above line, then he or she is being very, very foolish. For he or she has not understood anything.

I have seen this type of repulsion among African Negros also. Once, I mentioned to an African Black that I knew another person who was from his race. I mentioned that man’s name. Immediately, his face went into a terrible contortion. He very vehemently said that the other person was not from his race, but from some very inferior race.  

Grey areas of human equality

For a long time, the Nairs used to claim that they were Kshatriyas. It was a desperate ploy to escape the dirtying done by lower caste people. If the higher castes like the Brahmins and the Varmas call them lower caste, there is no problem. However being categorised by the lower castes as lower caste, is a dangerous equalising. Only people from feudal language social systems can understand the terribleness of equalising. The foolish people of English nativity cannot understand that equalising is liked only upwards. For instance, the Blacks of English nations have problem only if they are not treated as equals by the native English Whites. However, if they are to be treated as equals by the lower classes of the Black nations of Africa and of the Asian nations, it would be totally another proposition. An equalising proposition which they would fight against with everything in their possession. They would have terrible complaints about this equalising.