Routes and strings of obedience and obeisance

Now coming back to the East India Company, the ‘Indian’ master class had to do something about the fact that rank outsiders were uprooting the social system by allowing their serfs and servants and their children to imbibe English and understand modern social concepts which were quite alien to ‘Indian’ social understandings for centuries. Here one needs to understand the concept of social leadership and routes of command that flows downwards, and the fierce strings of obedience and obeisance that point upwards.

Here before going ahead I need to bring in an illustration from Varuna’s and Ashwina’s lack of formal education. The local school teachers could address almost everyone in the local society who were some twenty years younger than them as Nee, and refer to them as Avan or Aval, as a matter of right of domination. For most of them had necessarily been their formal students. These words, apart from being snubbing, suppressing and also regimenting, were also words that made them line up as subordinates to the leadership of individual teachers or group of teachers.

Now, in the case of Varuna and Ashwina, they were not in this group for there was no way to address them in Malayalam and make them understand this regimentation. Simply addressing them as Nee and referring to them as Aval would have no effect. It would be like the case of the White foreigners who used to folk to Kerala shores for tourism. At least some of the native population would, out of spite, use the pejorative words on them and about them, but to no avail. For, the effect comes more in making them understand the meaning, or in making a lot of others admit the usage and its meaning. The White foreigners would simply smile and wave and move around, claiming, ‘What a sweet people’!

It is like making a jeering laughter at another person. The effect comes only if he can be made to hear it. Otherwise the laughter has no effect immediately. {However, it must be put in words here that negative words and also non-verbal codes do have some effects on the virtual code arena, but that item cannot be discussed here. {See my book: CODES of LANGUAGE; WHAT is LANGUAGE?}

The very fact that Varuna and Ashwina were not going to any school, but were in fact trainers by themselves at a very young age, did create a huge mental problem for the local teachers and social leadership. How to use the words Nee and Aval, which were their prerogatives over youngsters? Even the local shopkeepers did not use these words, which among other things would signify their domination over them. However after a lot of acrimonious complaints to the local police department, when Varuna and Ashwina were finally admitted to the local English medium school, I could discern an immediate change in the verbal codes. Some shopkeepers immediately took the liberty to use the lower indicant words. {Beyond that a very clear lowering of personal quality was also evident in Varuna and Ashwina as they moved at the lower end of the indicant words, under teachers who themselves were placed at various levels of lower indicant words by their school owners’ household}.

The ambivalent codes of benevolent suppression

Actually these words and the right to use them in a social context did connect persons to individual or groups of social leaders. When the British East India Company was taking up local natives as their own staff members, it was a unique situation, the like of which had never before been seen in the same geographical location. When a man becomes a staff or a servant of another higher level ‘Indian’ man, there is not much of a social threat to other social leaders. For, even though if certain social leaders may seem to be competing among themselves, to the extent of even physical fights, there is another powerful code at work, which really unite them at a higher level of cunningness. That is, the necessity to see that the socially lower class persons does not rise above their station. So that the boss of a person is actually not only his lovable benefactor, but also his constant enemy who wants to see that he does not improve. In this aim, all the social leaders are one group. So another man’s servant is also acknowledged as lower class man by others also, in verbal and non-verbal codes.

However, when the lower persons start working for the native-English speakers, they would get filled up by a powerful feel of being unfettered. In fact, they would seem to be having a mental aura that is higher than the local leaders. Moreover, they do not belong to the regimentation of the local social leadership.

Now how do an English person mix and become comfortable in such a social system, if he or she has to mix? Well, that was also another quandary that the colonial Englishman had to face. He couldn’t work under any ‘Indian’ unless that ‘Indian’ is socially an extremely high personage. In feudal language social systems, even the very having a higher grade person to be under you can be a great social elevation. Lower grade persons would immediately use the lower grade indicant words to exhibit a social seniority over another person very visibly and very powerfully. The other man, if he is with a higher level of refinement and intellect, would stink and get despoiled. It is a social terror that cannot be imagined in pristine England. However, the very fact that one’s is a companion of an Englishman would ennoble an ‘Indian’ in the eyes of other ‘Indians’.

Even a huge part of the glamour that such persons as Nehru and Gandhi had is connected to the fact that they had lived in England and could address the Englishman with his name with or without a Mr. attached. In the case of persons who did terror attacks, such as Bhagat Singh, the glamour is connected to the fact that he had attacked an English official. Had he killed an Indian official, the same amount of glamour wouldn’t be there. However, here again the paradox is that the Englishman is actually a simple man in a liberal-language world, while an ‘Indian’ leader would be a higher person in a feudal language world.   

The liberalism that makes the English world attractive is very easy to discern. Just look at a few persons interacting to each other in English. The easy communication that is seen is delightful. However, if the same persons interact in some ‘Indian’ language like Malayalam or Hindi, one would immediately see and feel the tight containers and routes of communication that makes interaction quite tedious, as one has to keep and exhibit his or her position in every word and usage.

Read this story THE POOL by Somerset Maugham to understand the effect of being part of a feudal language social system on a native English speaker.

Now this was the third problem that the colonial Englishman faced. In his language, human beings have the right to dignity and rights to articulation. He has to see that ‘Indians’ are equal to him. However, how he can he equalise himself to ‘Indians’ who exist at varying levels of equality, with a few of them of golden value and most of them at dirt levels? As per his own social codes, the ‘Indian’ who is equal to him can address him with his name with or without a Mr. prefixed. In ‘Indian’ languages being able to address another person with a Mr. prefixed to his name is seen as a rising-above-that-person communication code. Moreover, the Mr. disappears fast, and the other man soon becomes a ‘mere’ name. {I have experienced this effect and its traumatic after-effects, when I used to correct persons who come addressing me with a Saar. I tell them to address me with my name with a Mr. prefixed. It is taken as a licence to address me with my name with no Mr.} He becomes equal to the level he mixes with, and this can be a maddening affect.

The fourth issue

There is this fourth issue that the colonial British faced. That of there being two extremely different and mutually opposite demeanours for the British rule in ‘India’. The first one was that displayed by the British East India Company. Seen from the modern Indian nationalistic fervour perspective, it was quite a traumatic experience for ‘Indians’. However, the real fact was quite the reverse. The officials of the East India Company on an average had a very low opinion about the ‘Indian’ ruling classes. They could see through the veneer of their so-called affection for their lower-down depending-classes. The suppression and despoilment that they wreaked on their serfs.    

The issue here was that they (East Indian Company) could employ the lower classes, which indirectly led to their (latter’s) mental and physical improvement. The first positive effect was that the lower classes could get to learn English and be on close contact and physical proximity to the native-English speakers. The very seeing of native-English speakers is a mentally elevating event. This is a thing which most people do know, even though very few people do acknowledge it. Brightness comes into the mind as one gets to see and talk to English speakers. This may quite easily be mistaken for an affinity for the White skin coloured persons. However that is not the exact truth. Because the speakers of such egalitarian and planar languages such as English do induce positive effects into the mind of a person who is in fetters created by feudal language codes.

It is an effect seen and observed in many persons who have had the occasion to be exposed to an English ambience. It is not something a fantastic building or a five star hotel can create, but something that is quite apart from the fabulousness of monetary riches. I have experimented with this and observed this effect in the case of my own daughter as she was brought up in a totally English ambience, away from the sting of feudal codes. I have seen the positive changes that came into other children who were her companions. This all took place when I stoutly kept away from my rich family ambience and lived in surroundings of total penury. I have also seen the negative effect eroding her positive qualities as she was forcibly put into a rich school, among rich kids, by my rich family members, as she mentally bore the brunt of a feudal degrading Malayalam language ambience, which was there, even though no one spoke to her in Malayalam. This was only an experiment and an observation of mine, and I should not say that there is anything personal in any of these things.

The British had no concern about the master class here. And they could directly deal with the lower classes here. Now, it must be admitted that the master class would feel the terror and the torment. It is like an ‘Indian’ master’s servant and family moving with the British, and talking to them in English. It may be mentioned here that most ‘Indians’ do not want their servants to speak in English. I have seen this very frankly been told to the servants by the ‘Indian’ masters and their wives. For instance, in many households in Bangalore, due to the fact that many people do speak English at home, it is quite easy for their servants to pick up English.

AN INCIDENT

I can mention one such incident that should be in my mind. My daughter Varuna (then around five years) and I visited Bangalore for buying a second-hand computer many years ago. It transpired that I stayed outside on the second day, I might be short of Rs. 100, to buy an Inject Printer. So, I was informed from my family that I could stay in the house of a relative. He was an elderly man who had worked in the Gulf in some Arab’s family. He had arrived at a reasonably sound financial condition. He was good in English. When I arrived there in the night time, he was waiting for me. He lived alone, his wife and children being abroad.

We spoke in English. The relationship route was quite straight, with no curve inside it. However, I could understand that he was not very comfortable with this straight route communication with a young man, who through the family hierarchy route would exist quite below. However, there was no way for him to change the standard of communication. And my daughter did not know any Indian vernaculars.

I knew that he was desperately seeking an external invention to rectify the ambience to suit his low level mental impulse. He started calling my mother on the phone. He said that I can talk to her. However, I told him to refrain from bringing in my mother into the ambience. Yet, he persisted. When my mother answered, he spoke in Malayalam. He informed that I had arrived. Actually there is no crime in what he did. However, the situation here was that he was desperate to bring in the arch in the communication, and I was not conceding to that. He mentioned about me as ‘Avan’.

Again it is not a thing worthy of mention in ordinary situations. However, I knew what was prodding him. The moment he mentioned ‘Avan’ (lowest indicant word for He, Him), there was a very visible change in the ambience. It was quite feel-able, with him elevating and me going down. My daughter, who couldn’t understand the words, could sense it.

What had taken place is actually an example of Code Switching, about which I have mentioned in this book.

Once the phone call was over, there was a very rapid shift of ambience. He changed his communication to me to a mix of English with Malayalam. Whenever the word You had to be used, he would insert the lowest indicant word for You, that is Nee in a proper mixed-up grammar. It is not an extraordinary thing to do in many family communication setups. However, I generally keep away from a communication network, wherein I feel a fetter on my power of articulation.

My tone also changed. I mentioned that I had asked him to refrain from calling my mother. However, since he had shifted me to the lowest indicant level, there was nothing to restrain him from speaking any nonsense that he wanted. The whole atmosphere was that of a young subordinate with no right to any personal dignity staying in his house. He simply mentioned the words, ‘NinteNut loose aano!’ (Is your  nut gone loose?). [Ninte is lowest indicant for Your]

The time was around 12 in the night. The place was Bangalore, which is a city that I am not quite familiar with. I told my daughter that we couldn’t stay in that house. She had also understood the phrase ‘nut loose’. We came out and went ahead to find an auto rickshaw to find a hotel to stay.

I mentioned this incident just to give an illustration of the communication that moves through the powerful arch and that which moves independently.

There have been other incidences of a similar nature. The issue is that I do not practise this curved route communication with anyone including those who can come beneath me as a family member. I am sure that many persons wouldn’t mind it even if I were to use it.

Redefining the Sepoy Mutiny

This was the most powerful reason for the so-called Sepoy Mutiny, which has been erroneously defined as the First Indian Independence Movement. Actually, there was nothing ‘Indian’ about it. It was just a local mutiny by a section of ‘native’ army of the East India Company at Meerut, near Delhi. Even the local populace of Meerut did not collaborate with this section of the armed forces which had run amok and were indulging in arson and rioting. An Asian army running amok is a most terrorising thing for any population.

QUOTE FROM WIKIPEDIA: In 1856, a new Enlistment Act was introduced by the Company, which in theory made every unit in the Bengal Army liable to service overseas. Although it was intended to apply to new recruits only, the sepoys feared that the Act might be applied retroactively to them as well. It was argued that a high-caste Hindu who travelled in the cramped, squalid conditions of a troop ship would find it impossible to avoid losing caste through ritual pollution.

MY COMMENT: If this is taken as a serious contention, among the lot of varied items that are listed as the cause of the Sepoy Mutiny, it is amply seen that as a high-caste repulsion to be with other ‘Indians’. There naturally were other sepoys who stood with their officers.

SEE this quote from WIKIPEDIA: 

When on March 29, Sepoy Mangal Pandey of the same regiment revolted and attacked his British officers, it was Shaikh Paltu who saved the life of the adjutant by attacking Mangal Pandey.

By that time an English sergeant-major had arrived at the scene and attacked Pandey. He was however overpowered by Pandey. While other sepoys looked on, Shaikh Paltu continued to defend the two British officers, calling upon other sepoys to join him. The sepoys, with obvious sympathy for Pandey, chose to remain inactive. Some are reported to have attacked their officers with the butts of their muskets. The sepoys however threatened Shaikh Paltu asking him to let go of Mangal Pandey. Paltu however "continued to cling to him" until the British officers had time to rise.