An observation on bureaucracy

I think it would be correct to insert this observation that I had of bureaucracy when I was a youngster. The Malabar English speaking officers were elegant. The clerks were crude in Travancore. I think that the clerks in Malabar were not so crude to the higher members of the public. May be that is just a childhood observation of mine which may not be tenable. Yet, it must be borne in mind that Malabar Malayalam was cruder to the young and socially weak than Travancore Malayalam.

However, there is this observation which I would vouch for. The English speaking and at-home-in-English officer class that moved to the Travancore areas after Malabar was amalgamated with Travancore and Cochin to form Kerala was a class apart from the crude featured clerks and peons, of both places. It is not that the clerks and peons were not good or that the officer class were morally good. It was just a matter of social structure.

The officer class generally resorted to English in a most natural manner. They could and did switch to English to tide over the cumbersome barriers to dignified communication between themselves. However, the clerks were totally of a Malayalam-speaking group. There were clerks who were good in English. But then, they functioned in a social environment in which English couldn’t be used in common communication.

Since Malayalam was their language of communication, their stances were also Malayalam. They used the word ‘Saar’ as a serviceable substitute for YOU for addressing superiors, and as He and She and as His and Her/Hers for the same group. Moreover, they used these words and at rare occasions the word ‘Maadam’ also as an suffix to the ‘respected’ female senior’s name. Even though this communication system would seem quite simple, the fact was that it was encumbered with heavy chains of hierarchy and requirements of obsequiousness versus respect codes. Persons who went to government offices would have to face the stony faces and stiff facial features of the clerks who had to subordinate the members of the public to extract the ‘Saar’ and ‘Maadam’ from them. However, the at-home-in-English officer class generally did not require such things and were quite fast in their actions. This was true about the Malabar class of officers. However the Travancore version of officers was not of this kind.

The English speaking officer class had totally different facial features from that of the clerks. This was true even in the case of School AEOs (Assistant Educational Officers) etc. However the clerks had a feeling that it was just a matter of position that seemed to give a different aura to the officer class who spoke English.

This group of Malabar based English-speaking officer class was a vanishing breed of officers. With the demise of the British rule, the direct recruitment to the officer levels, based on an English-based selection system went into disuse. The clerks in many departments heavily lobbied to stop this direct recruitment that they claimed was blocking their avenues for promotion. When this came about, there was a total change of demeanour of the officer class in all aspects. Persons who had the mental as well as physical demeanour of the peons and clerks soon started appearing as the officers. They were quite poor in English. I do not mean here Spoken-English version, but the profound version of English.

Soon the whole quality of the government departments went through a total change. There was no more feeling that the public service was to serve the public. There was an adamant stance that the public was the servants of the government employees. This was openly mentioned and these officers and clerks became a powerful group that wanted to suppress the common man. Words such as Avan, Aval, Avattakal etc. were openly mentioned among themselves, about the public who had to deal with the ‘officers’. However, it must be admitted that even during the earlier years, the powerful local Malayalam speaking petty officials like the village ‘officer*’ etc. used to use such terrible lower indicant words like Nee (Inhi), Avan (Oan), Aval (Oal), Chekkan, Pennu etc. right in front of the common person who was thus being despoiled. There was not much the British officials could do about this, as they were sort of cut off from many crude realities of the ‘Indian’ social scene by the impermeable nature of the social system. This impermeable nature of the ‘Indian’ social system was actually mentioned by such pioneering British Colonial officers as Henry Sleeman, who was the person who dared to tackle the Thuggee menace on the North ‘Indian’ Highways in those earlier centuries of East India Company rule. RECOMMENDED READING: 1. Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official 2. A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude in 1849-1850. Both by William Henry Sleeman

NOTE:* Village ‘officer’ is not an ‘officer’ but really a low level official in charge of the village office in various panchayats.

I had a very curious experience once when I was in Delhi, sitting in the Kerala Government House there.

I was sitting in a cabin of junior ‘officer’ with a formidable designation, in Kerala House in Delhi. The year was 1999. The ‘officer’ was not in his seat. However, near me was seated another man, who had the demeanour and stature of a peon or clerk of my own childhood days. Not of the officer class of those times. He mentioned something to me, and I replied. However, when my words included the word Ningal (polite You), he immediately seemed to go into a mental fortress. He simply said ‘I am the MD of _ _ _ _’. He was the MD of a particular marketing department of the Kerala government. The sense he conveyed was just this: ‘I am an MD. You need to address me as Saar. The word Ningal should not be used towards me’. Well, I can’t find fault with him. For, he was just like the security female who occupied the Front Office counter in the BPO Call Centre*. He was using the word Ningal to me. I shouldn’t use it back to him. Now, it is not his fault. The fault lies with the language software.

There is also the question of how come such persons of low quality demeanour should not be allowed to become officers in the government. For, he has a right to be an ‘officer’, just as anyone else. The answer to this is like this: He has a right to be anything he likes and can be. Like a soldier in the Indian army has every right to aspire to become an officer. At the same time, the others in the society (as in the army) also have a right to have quality persons as officers. For, if low quality, people-snubbing persons gets into positions of power, it is they, the people, who would have to bear their suppression. This was what the British governing class actually saved the common man from. However, they did not give an opportunity to this same common man to become an officer also unless he or she was of agreeable refinement. 

So-called Independence (formation of India) and its real affects

First Travancore bureaucracy was filled with corruption and bribery. It was simply not a crime to harass the public in order to gather bribes. It took a few decades for this culture to diffuse into Malabar officialdom.

I must now control my desire to write more about this theme. For, it is connected to another writing I have planned in my mind, that of the Real History of Kerala and also of India.

A code to stamp out corruption

However, since I have spoken about corruption, I think I will input a few points just to clear my mind of the pulsating tides of thoughts in this regard.

In recent times, there have been concerted efforts by many persons to come out with a campaign to stamp out corruption. {I believe that at least some of them were marketed by spending huge sums of money. For, without this spending no Indian media will report these things. Otherwise a small public meeting in Delhi would remain a small event and no one would hear about it}.

However these slender efforts will not stamp out corruption. At best it may be able to put a case against a few persons. And to write more laws on the already existing laws against corruption. And make them totally unreadable and useless.

Actually there is no need for such terrible laws or the need to stamp out corruption with an iron hand. All that is required is a social ambience that doesn’t need corruption.

This I understood from my early observations on the Malabar officials who came from the British systems of recruitment. All of them were quite elegant in English and more or less maintained an English social environment amongst themselves. There was no spur in them to take bribes, even though the salaries were quite meagre by current-day standards. From my much focused observations on them, it was seen that they were not bothered by the indicant words of feudal respect for the rich versus the pejorative words for the poor. They had their own social relationships amongst the officer class wherein an English ambience was maintained.

However, the next generation of officials were from the Malayalam communication systems. In that system, all social and official powers were connected to Malayalam higher indicant words. And the best route to be on the higher indicant words was to have money.

Now that is only a part of the story. The second part is that money is required to keep oneself above and away from the common ‘Indians’ who the vernacular mentality official class see with disdain.

Actually this is the major spur for garnering money through bribes. Now, look at England. The citizens are not viewed with disdain by any section of the society. In fact, the very definition of being an Englishman is a welcome feeling. However as immigrant populations from feudal language nations start filling in, there will be an issue of native citizens moving off. For, they do not feel comfortable with the feudal-language-speaking immigrants. Even though this ‘White flight’ may be described as a racial issue, the real reason is that the same repulsiveness that the official classes had for the common man in the feudal language nations would just be replicating itself in England. The exact negativity that stimulates repulsion is actually in the feudal language speakers, and not in the native English folks.

Now look at South Africa. The Blacks have the political and bureaucratic power. Here itself there is something to be explained. When the Whites had bureaucracy in their hands, it is not power that would exude from that system, but efficiency. However the moment the feudal-language-speaking Blacks takeover the officialdom, then it becomes a powerhouse. In spite of sitting inside a powerhouse, the black officialdom is not happy. They would want to be more distant from the other blacks, who they would view with disdain. They would opt for bribes to get a footing out of their social contact. And to possibly send their children to the US or UK.

The White officials also would be forced to take bribes in the new social scenario. For, they would also need money to move away from the feudal-language-speaking Blacks.

I speak from my mental conjectures. I have never visited South Africa. However, this is what my knowledge on language codes tells me. I had made some predications about South Africa, way back in 1989. See these links: One, two

There is a very definite way and manner to root out corruption. Just introduce pristine English as the
social communication standard. Then the citizens will not be divided into: the despicable and the golden. There will be no need to garner money to move away. There will be honour in standards and in rectitude. 

What I am trying to input here is that the modern educated persons in our village were not in the least bit connected to the older educated version of people. When I was a youngster, the youngsters that I considered as educated were good in English, had a very good reading knowledge of Enid Blyton, and knew at least a bit of information about English classics. Moreover, they had a slight concern about the stark feudal pejorative words and usages of Malayalam and were not very comfortable with sh*tifying other human beings with such words.

The elders, who were then the educated class, spoke of educating the local people to bring in a quality change in the social order. That is, if English is known to the local people, the snubbing, uncouth, barbarian quality of the communication system would change. It was a change that would serve the local society and people good and make their own social environment highly dynamic and healthy. However, this dream was not to be. For, suddenly on the horizon came this new group of persons who had adopted the concept of something they called education that only served to prop up a minor number of persons as a sort of crude superiors called government officials.

The uneducated people of the earlier times did not know English, had not heard of Enid Blyton, had no inkling of what British Classic was, had no concept of forming a queue, and were quite feudal and snubbing to the lower class people. Now the modern educated people of Malabar are also ditto. There is no change in that sense from the uneducated class of that time. However, it would be wrong to say that the people have not changed. Technology has brought in so many information, gadgets, appliances, vehicles, and much more. This is the change that can come to any place in the world where technology companies can market their products. For instance, toothpaste was a thing that majority of the people around our household did not use when I was a child. Now, almost everyone uses it. Mobile phones are available like matchboxes. When I was a child, matchboxes were not a trifle item.