Tangible experiences                                          

From my very childhood I did see that there was something uncanny in Indian language communications. I got a better understanding of it when I learned English. The experience was that when others spoke to me, the child, in Malayalam, their attitude was that of teasing an idiot, tormenting the idiot with idiotic questions, making the idiot act out buffoonery etc. At the same time, when the other person was at home in English and spoke it, the communication was more or less that of between two individuals of equivalent human intellect and dignity.

INSERT TWO IMAGES ONE OF CHILD INTERACTING WITH A MALAYALAM MAN & THE OTHER WITH AN ENGLISH INDIVIDUAL

Later in life I have noticed that this is not really a communication code between a child and an adult in Malayalam, but more or less the standard code of communication between a superior and inferior, feudal lord and his serf, rich and poor, benefactor and dependant, boss and servant, Indian police and a common man and such, in all ‘Indian’ vernaculars. However, it would not be correct to say that the superior person is bad or evil and the inferior person an epitome of goodness. The relationship is only relative and every person can don different statures in different relationships, wherein he or she will act out the code of behaviour mentioned.

Many years ago, I happened to ask an acquaintance about his social work, wherein he had been seen working for the improvement of others in society. He simply made a very dry remark, to the effect that he had stopped that work, for it improved the others. Meaning that, they improved and went ‘above’, while he went down.

That is the right form of understanding the word ‘improving’ in feudal language experiences. However, when seen from English, these realities do not don on the native-English speaker, until the wider realities really don on him and his social system. Actually, there is no need for a native-English speaker to deliberately strive to improve another person from a feudal language nation. All that has to be done is to simply allow the other person to move and associate himself in his or her (English persons’) companionship. A rapid change of mental and even physical stature to the positive side perches on the inferior person.

I remember my own daughter’s case. She was brought up in an absolute English ambience, even though she lived in the Malayalam speaking state of Kerala. Once we were right in front of the British School in the New Delhi. We saw the children coming out of their classes in a very serene pose when the bell rang. It was a very vibrant scene, and quite unusual. All White-skinned children, with a very elevated English bearing, quite different from the arrogant pose of the Indian upper class. My daughter, then only around 4 years old, simply told me with no deliberation, ‘I want to join this school and only this school’.

Well, one may feel that I am showing an affinity for the White skin and such things. However, that was not the case. It was simply the most unaffected understanding of my daughter that there was something of the refined superiority in the English kids, and an association with them would be something of an elevation, both mentally and culturally. However, my daughter couldn’t be admitted into the British school, for I did not have the necessary financial acumen to do that.

What not to do

Now, this is what the Asians and the Blacks who entered the English nations received, with not much expenditure other than the chance to be able to live in English nations. However, are they in any manner grateful for that? Well, no is the answer. They only have more complaints about the native-English speakers.

Well, this is an issue that most Asians know and understand. I did once see an Indian boss being quite feudal to his own factory workers, some of them even of supervisor levels in the workplace. When they come to his house, they have to stand outside. To many of them, some even elder to him, he would use lower indicant words. They were not allowed to enter even the veranda. He would use the pejorative words of Nee and Avan even to and about senior-in-age subordinates. However, outside this premises they were all in a higher mental and social stature than he allowed them inside his premises. Once I made a minor remark about the issue of being so derogative to his workers. He simply remarked, ‘There is no problem now. If I allow them more leeway and respect, then they will start demands, complaints, questionings, criticisms etc. Keep them in their place, and there is no problem’.

Now this is a very critical element of all feudal language nations’ political, social and even administrative policy. Even the standard schools in these nations are the deliberate disseminators of the philosophy of ‘keeping them in their position’. For, in feudal languages, if you show respect to the subordinates, they literally ‘climb on one’s head’.

Look at all the immigrant populations in the English nations. They have all improved tremendously in mental and physical stature, to levels quite unbelievable if they had continued to live in their native nations. However, what is their stance? It is not that of gratitude, but one of ceaseless complaints of being under ‘racism’. No one ponders on what the native population in the English nations are being put to bear from their presence inside English homeland.   

No one can deny the right of the Indian teachers to teacher the children in India. At the same time, the children's right opt out of their teaching and demand for British education can also not be denied. 

INSERT COMPARITIVE IMAGES OF INDIAN IN INDIA VERSUS INDIAN IN ENGLAND