CHAPTER ELEVEN - Conceptualising looting - VED from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS' Writings Page

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

CHAPTER ELEVEN - Conceptualising looting

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

Enumerating the British ‘evil’ deeds

Now back to the British ‘loot’ of ‘India’.

They did other ‘disturbances’ in the ‘Indian’ social scene. For one thing, they crushed the habit of burning up live young girls on the pyre of their dead husbands. I did once ask one of my trainees who vibrantly declared that the British had looted ‘India’. I simply asked him as to what it was that they had looted from this land. It was a very troubling question, for he was at a loss to answer such a strange question. For no one really asks such a question, for it is a foregone conclusion that the ‘British had looted ‘India’’.

He looked at the other trainees for support to fend off the piercing stab of the pointed question. Everyone looked at each other. Then someone mentioned ‘pepper’. Ah, yes, said the first person, ‘They looted our pepper!’ Well, that was a wonderful answer. Pepper which they bought from this land for a sum of let us say one rupee, they sold in the European markets for 30 rupees. That is around 3000% profit. If one calculates at this rate, England did really loot ‘India’. If we buy USB’s from an interior company in China for Rs. 25 bulk rate, and sell it for 400 rupees in ‘India’, we need to say that we have looted ‘China’. But not so much as the English did, for the profit here is only 1500%. However, we miss the fact that transporting a thing from China by Plane is quite easy compared to the coming to ‘India’ through the rough and dangerous seas, in the old times, by sailing ships, of doubtful capacity to face a storm.

Actually, it was a trade that gave value to an agricultural product that literally had not much value then in the local areas. In Europe, pepper was treasured as an essential item to paste on meat before they were smoked and dried to last through the winter months. It added taste to the meat, and also made it more palatable. And preserved it through the cold months.

The other argument about the English looting is about the agricultural taxes. Well, the vast majority of this had to move through a huge network of ‘Indian’ families and middlemen who couldn’t be wished away by the English administrators. For, they were in the scheme of things since a long time back, much before the arrival of the English folks.

It is seen in history that actually the East India Company did run into financial troubles to meet the expenses of running the ‘Indian’ administration. And had to seek loans. As to individual Englishmen making money on their own cannot be seen as a national crime. For, in the History of Parry Company (of Madras) it is reported that in those times, there was one Englishman doing arrack business in some place in Madras State. I do not speak of individual dispositions, but that of a group of people.

Individual disposition versus group disposition

For example, there was one evangelist who told me of one incident. However, first let me give the social background to the individuals concerned. The lower castes of Travancore kingdom were denied so many rights including the right to join government service as employees. They petitioned the King to no avail. Ultimately a few years before 1900, many of them converted to Christianity. This led to a huge rise in the number of Christians in the kingdom (from around 11 hundred thousand to around 16 hundred thousand). However, in the new religion also, they faced discrimination from the old time traditional Christians.

At that time, the neighbouring place of Malabar had been under the British rule, as a remote district of the Madras Presidency. Proper law and order was there. Beyond that there was no discrimination on the basis of caste at administrative levels. {However, in the social setup there were a lot of discriminations, and also social upheavals}. When the British left ‘India’ in the aftermath of the coming to power of the Labour Party in Great Britain, there was a sudden slackening on the law and order machinery as well as in the protection extended to the huge forest lands of Malabar. Taking advantage of the general slackening of bureaucratic efficiency, a huge population of the newly converted Christians started moving to the Malabar areas.

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

The story the evangelist told me is like this: Near to a settlement that his parent’s group made inside the forest area, was a tribal colony. They lived a very isolated lifestyle, but had enjoyed the protection from outside interference during the British rule, statutorily. The settlers came with a powerful organised might. For each group was intrinsically connected to an evangelist, ordained or otherwise. This priest was a sort of uniting force, dispenser of justice and the mechanism of enforcing law and order among the encroachers. He was their emotional focus of their powerful unity.

As per what the evangelist retold (of an incident from his or his father’s childhood), the youth among the encroachers would besiege the tribal colony in the dark hours, crowd round the small hamlets, and push their hands through the coconut palm leaf walls of the dwellings, catch hold of the legs of sleeping females, pull them out and fornicate them. He mentioned all this in a very playful manner, wondering how many of the modern tribal population in that colony really had tribal DNA in its entirety. I mention this story here to denote the issue of individual misdemeanour versus group misdemeanour. This evangelist was really a good man, and possibly the other settler population was also of good moral standards. They wouldn’t do any moral transgression at an individual level. However, at a group level there was no problem and even their evangelical leadership which accompanied their entry into the forest areas wouldn’t see these things as worthy of mention or admonition. For, their own leadership to a limited extent was connected to being in sync with the general mood and cravings of the group.

In the case of the Colonial Englishmen, we have to make a similar exception. However, in their case reverse could be the truth. Even when there might have been individual cases of transgressions and failings, at the group level, things were kept at a very high standard of technical correctness. This also was connected to the issue of the English language insisting that there is no need to seek the ‘respect’ of the lowest or the numerically high, as an everyday code of leadership.

A digression

I happen to remember another theme from what this evangelist related. The settlers were always in the fear of wild animals, especially wild elephants. They would dig huge holes in the ground and cover them up with a false mud cover. They would then place some edibles like coconuts on top of them. When elephants came to take the coconuts, they would fall into the deep hole. Here they would be trapped for days, and slowly die of thirst and starvation. The evangelist did say that they used to hear the painful wailing of these dying animals, from their houses. He said that was only the way they could remove the elephant menace in the forest areas which they were occupying.

Almost all the monkeys in the forests were decimated by these people, for the purpose of meat. There were high rocky areas where mountain goats would be grazing. They could come occasionally to the edge of the cliffs. Some youths from among the settlers would be waiting with a gun. They would shoot them, and they would come plunging down the depths.

When I lived in an old house in a settler area for a brief time, I found the walls adorned with antlers (branching bony appendages on the heads of male deer). Many other animals like porcupines, wild boars, various birds and much else were ruthlessly hunted down, in the free for all mood that gripped the people who had come into the areas that had been kept in perfect protection by the British administrative system. This is the real sample of what happened to a particular section of Indian forest after the departure of the British. However it is quite possible that these things would not be found in any authoritative Indian history textbooks. It would be quite easy to find dubious text that describes how the British robbed the nation’s forests.

The pivotal powers of the servant class

I will explain this concept here: It is connected to the fact that in ‘India’, and in all feudal language social systems, including that in ancient Arabia, the servant class had a very powerful stance in social and familial environment. A superior has to get the ratification of the servant class of other households. They have to necessarily acknowledge a superior as a superior. Otherwise he or she would lose face, so to say. For example, if I go to a senior government official’s residence. He is not quite respectful to me. That is not much of a burden. However, if his menial servant is also quite disrespectful, it is another matter altogether. It is a displacement to a location below that of the servant in the virtual code arena (See: CODES of REALITY! WHAT is LANGUAGE?).

Even in the life history of Prophet Muhammad, when his marriage to Khadhija is dealt with, it is very prominently mentioned that her servants gave her a very good opinion of him, which was taken as a powerful assessment and approval. So, it may be mentioned that even in Arabia also, the opinion of the servant class was quite a powerful content that had to be powerfully taken into account.

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

Digression: There is the story of Rama, narrated in the great epic Ramayana which is geographically connected to the area currently connected variously to current day north-west India, north India, Middle India, East India, Nepal, and South India, and even to Sri Lanka. Ramayana is in Sanskrit. It is said to be a great book with a lot of insights into human social and spiritual living. I have not read it, but do know a few of the stories in its vast canvas. I do not know anyone who has read it in the original. Surely there will be some persons in India who have read it in the original Sanskrit. Even though Sanskrit was recently made one of the official languages of one Indian state, I do not think that it is a language with which people here are traditionally or by family links really connected to. If the patriotic indoctrination is removed, not much a real link might be discerned. For the current day population is the offspring of an immensity of populations that have ravaged this geographical area. The anthropological looks however would be individually connected to each person’s native language as well as the indicant level he or she is stationed in.

Rama was sort of duped to marry a female who was said to be a princess, but actually was not. Looking from the spiritual point of view, what I am saying could be painful. However, seeing Rama as a person who lived in a feudal language nation, this could be a real havoc in his life. For, when he takes his wife to his household, the servants there wouldn’t treat her as a superior person. It is a great problem. In India, if a person from a powerful and socially superior family marries a female of lowly or doubtful family links, the most terrible danger is from the servant class of the family. The family members may or may not treat her with higher indicant words, depending on her husband’s stature. However, to make the servants associated to the family to use the higher indicant words would be quite difficult. They would do it perfunctorily. However, in the privacy of their own households, they would only mention her as an Aval (oal) or USS, instead of Avar (oar) or UNN. The husband’s social stature would get mighty affected.

Rama’s father, the king had three wives. Now, when the prospect of an un-acknowledgeable female becoming the queen becomes a real prospect, the main servant of the third wife spurs her mistress to stake her claims to crown her son as the next King. Instead of Rama, who should actually become the next king, as per the codes of primogeniture.

In this incident, the power of the servant class is evident, which is not really visible otherwise. They stand as the pivot on which the higher persons rotate. They can literally change an indicant code word and tangibly swing superior persons on to any positional angle in the society. Very dangerous and diabolical power, indeed.

I understand that the Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata may indeed contain a lot of social insights. Even in the behaviour of Sita, which required a Lakshman Reka to contain itself within acceptable norms, there are great insights about the powers inside a feudal language software. I do not want to go into that here, for it may take my writing into far-off locations.

A wife who the servants do not respect and see as a social senior can bring in disaster on the familial discipline over the servants. A wife whom the servants believe is one among them can be a problem to a limited extent even in England, when the family is from the nobility. However, the issue of a powerful indicant words dwarfing the wife and through her of her husband is not there in English. It is powerfully there in feudal languages. A servant’s husband is not an avar or adheham, but a mere avan. Even though, such words may not be openly spoken, the numerical values in the codes would sink to that level, even if the husband is perfunctorily mentioned as Avar or Ayaal.

In the case of Sita, she was an adopted daughter of a King. Naturally, it is obvious that at least some of the servants of her husband’s household were not willing to concede to her the status of a Royal princess.

The senior man not getting up in a pose of respect is not a great thing, and can easily be condoned or even disregarded. However, his menial servant not getting up is a pose of stark disrespect and an active form of insult. In Malayalam, it can have the same effect as that of calling a man ‘eda’.

Now, it must be admitted that the British officials also slowly did get to feel the power of the local communication codes. Yet, their social bases were inside well cordoned-off English arenas. So whatever infection that can enter into their egalitarian mentality would get rectified from this base area. Or at least there was this arena where it could be cured.

Now this was a very crucial factor that made the British officials starkly different from the ‘Indian’ officialdom of yore. The British officials were not bothered much about what the ‘Indian’ subordinate staff spoke about them to the extent they did not understand the dynamic oscillation of the indicant words on the basis of each and every input. For example, it is seen mentioned that the British officials would go into any subordinates’ quarters’ area and make sudden inspections, without any paraphernalia and pageantry to accompany them. Even if someone did not act very powerfully ‘respectful’, it was more or less a thing of not much consequence to them.

However, it has been mentioned by an ‘Indian’ IP (Indian Police) officer (predecessor of the current day Indian Police Service) that after the formation of the current day India, the IPS officers would go to any such places only after assuring that a very powerful set-up of saluting constables are first placed in position. For, if they simply go in without anyone clearly understanding who it is, and someone is not ‘respectful’, it can be a real mental trauma and literally a demolishing of the command structure. This issue cannot be fully understood in English. The issue is that he would have to act in a belligerent attitude to set right the error, and a reputation of an iron man would have to be delivered.

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

An Iron lady from a lower version: I remember this incident, when my mother, (when she was a senior (non-IAS) officer of the state government) was transferred to the Cochin office. She entered the office and the peon, who did not recognise her, spoke to her in a very careless manner, in the usual tone meant for the common person. Immediately she had to give him a powerful retort that literally made him jump up from his seat. A reputation of being an Iron lady builds up. This ‘Iron Lady’ feature is not at all connected to the Iron Lady features of Margaret Thatcher, the old time British Prime Minister, wherein her iron-ness was not in making peons jump up from their seats.

Now coming back to the East India Company officials’ personal attributes, this is what has to be mentioned: The mental security from the menace of the fear of being un-respected. It was a very powerful security, about which no one has really contemplated upon or commented.

Here again, what one finds is the simplicity that is being extended by the English officials to the ‘Indian’ population. Which if not correctly understood can easily be misunderstood as weakness, effeminate nature, softness etc. At the same time, it needs to be understood that compared to the attitude an ‘Indian’ boss to his inferiors, what the British official class was offering to the lower man was a stance to improve one’s own mental stature, from being unduly bothered about extending a continuous posture of obsequious servitude. Whether many ‘Indians’ really understood the very fine difference of this refined culture is doubtful.

Now actually, this fear of ridicule, jeering and lack of respect from the lower class persons is a very great deterrent to doing anything intelligently. For then, what are required are not intelligent actions, but actions that are seen as impressive to the lower class. That is how the codes in the ‘Indian’ feudal languages dictate things. However, the English administrators were not much affected by it. However, at times they also did get affected by them through the huge number of ‘Indian’ staff members who were in all levels of administration, including that of the Indian Civil Service (ICS). They would bring in the codes of feudal hierarchy which included the codes of ‘respect’ to the high and pejorative degradation to the low.

In many ways the issues of this communication codes did have a very significant part in the events that led to the military firing on the assembled protestors at Jallianwalabagh in Amritsar in Punjab. This firing was also a stark evidence of the extreme inexperience of the English administrators. For, when Asian administrators do it, it would be done with meticulous planning. They would remove all outsiders from the venue and then go for the killing. However, in the case of the Jallianwalabagh firing, it was more or less an outburst of other frill animosities, including that of the members of the Ghurkha and Baluchi soldiers to the ‘Indians'.

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

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