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MalabarMAnchor
Commentary on
William Logan’s ‘Malabar Manual’
It is foretold! The torrential flow of inexorable destiny!
VED from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS
Designing the background

It is foretold! The torrential flow of inexorable destiny!

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Now coming back to the Nairs, if the Nairs are accepted to be from the Sudra caste antiquity, then there comes the issue of how they acquired a higher-caste physical-demeanour and social status.


Here again the feudal language-codes act in a very peculiar manner in the social machinery, in more than one way. The Brahmins are in social command. How they acquired it is not known. There are some quotes from the Keralolpathi, given in this book (Malabar), whereby it seems to promote the idea that the Brahmins were handed over the social power by Parasurama. However, Keralolpathi is a book with serious credibility problems, apart from certain other more terrific issues. I will deal with those items later.


From whatever is quoted from Keralolpathi, there is nothing to suggest how the Brahmins continued to hold on to the social heights. However, if one does know the codes inside the local feudal languages, one can very easily identify the codes that assign divine aura to certain groups of people. Along with this, certain other codes deny dignity to other sections of the population. This can also be known.


In a feudal-language social ambience, it is not the higher-calibre persons who are assigned positions of responsibility and power by those on the heights. Instead, they give the power and position to persons who cringe and obey and exhibit obeisance and servitude. Those who are ready to offer almost anything that is asked for by the higher-placed persons, get the posts. Those who stand out in a pose of dignity are very cunningly denied any social status. They slowly go down in the social set up.


Look at the stature of the Indian police constables, both male and female. It may be seen that in India, where extremely high-quality persons are available, those who get posted as police constables are quite obviously the totally low-quality persons. In feudal languages, the officers would find most it most convenient to have extremely low-class subordinates. If the police constables are generally of a very high intellectual and personal quality, the officers would find it quite difficult to have them as handymen and women.


It is seen mentioned that the Sudra households of the distant past, set up a tradition of allowing entry into their houses for certain higher-class Brahmins. They could have temporary alliance with the women-folk therein. From a planar social set-up, if this procedure is viewed, it might seem quite an irregular and immoral system. However, from a feudal-language social ambience, wherein verbal codes are strictly enforced, no one would find any fault in this. For, a close contact with a Brahmin would only convey a divine aura to the household and to the female.


However, if the same female were to be viewed or mentioned or addressed in a profane manner or even called by name by a lower-caste male or female, that woman would feel the degradation. These are things that cannot be understood in English.


There is a huge difference in associating with a lower individual from that with a higher individual. The whole verbal codes change. This is a phenomenon that cannot be understood in English.


From a low-population perspective, the whole affair would be described as despicable. However, that is very much connected to the envy and hatred to populations who act superior. The lower castes see a breach in the cloak of superiority of the Nayars which they take up for sneering comments.


See this QUOTE from Sultan Tipu’s when he had over-run Malabar command:


QUOTE: and since it is a practice with you for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence all born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connexions than the beasts of the field : I hereby inquire you to forsake those sinful practices, and live like the rest of mankind. END OF QUOTE.


Females with social stature, offering themselves to the Brahmin, was a very wonderful experience for the Brahmins. Such a level of devotedness and servitude would naturally be rewarded. This could be one of the main items which promoted the Brahmins to uphold the Sudras up.


It is like a low-class man being appointed as a police constable. There would be other population groups who are of higher quality than this constable. But then what is the use? They all have to cringe and bow and exhibit servitude to the constable. Otherwise, they would get to feel the terrible wrath and fury of the whole police force.


Now, this is slightly what could have happened to the Thiyyas. Their first mistake was in doing a work which in the feudal languages would very powerfully assign them a lower slot in the social order. The second item that could have made them go down is the issue of body language which might not be that of obeisance. An English-type of body-language is seen to be the body-language of impertinence. In current-day India, when the police force is slowly changing into that of total feudal language communication, a pose of dignity would get the person end-up first in an hospital and then in the jail.


However, in the case of the Thiyyas of north Malabar, they were slowly swindled into a social location wherein they were dirt. However, the more intransigent castes and populations were totally degraded into subhuman levels. They remained as the Paraiah, Pulaya, Vedan, Malayan etc. in the varying locations at the bottom dirt levels.


However, Edgar Thurston does mention that the Thiyyas of north Malabar, especially those of Tellicherry and nearby places were quite fair in skin-complexion to the extent that some of them could quite easily pass off as Europeans. This was also true. I have personally seen such persons in my own childhood in Tellicherry area. However, I have also seen that in the case of many of them, their next generation went into total loss of this feature. Why this happened also can be very easily explained. However, I am leaving that issue.


I had found the following quote in Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume I, written by Edgar Thurston.


QUOTE: Concerning the Dikshitars, Mr. W. Francis writes as follows* :—"...............is the property of a class of Brahmans peculiar to the town, who are held in far more respect than the generality of the temple-priest Brahmans, are called Dikshitars (those who make oblations), marry only among themselves, and in appearance somewhat resemble the Nayars or Tiyans of Malabar, bringing their top-knot round to the front of their foreheads. END OF QUOTE.


I mentioned the above quote to pick out a very casual observation by a disinterested third party. That, there is some kind of physical resemblance between the Nayars and Thiyyas of Malabar in physical stature. And the words ‘of Malabar’ may also be noted.


However, the disinterested party, that is a native-Brit made an observation based on some isolated social scene he had seen. Nayar and Thiyyas did not have the same physical stature in many locations of north Malabar. However, in certain locations where the Thiyyas were not totally suppressed into a physical labour class, some of the Thiyya families did have looks which was as mentioned by Edgar Thurston. Quite fair and tall.


At the same time, it might be mentionable that there are Nayars who do not have the same physical features mentioned above.


The reader may notice the specific mention of ‘north’ Malabar in my words. It is because ‘south’ Malabar was different with a different population group. The higher classes of the Marumakkathaya Thiyyas of north Malabar exhibited a disdain for the south Malabar Makkathaya Thiyyas. However, this is not the end of the issue. The Nairs of north Malabar also had a similar kind of repulsion for the Nairs of South Malabar.


See this quote from this book, Malabar: QUOTE: but this is rendered doubtful by the fact that down to the present day Nayar women from North Malabar may not pass to the south of the Ellattur river END OF QUOTE


I do not have much information about south Malabar. If I am to refer to some book and write, it would take a lot of time to filter out a lot of false information in this. For, almost all current-day writings in India on these kinds of things are full of lies and slanted versions of events. Almost everyone suppresses information that is not supportive of their side. And glorifies their population side. Or anything or anyone who does the same thing. Words like ‘greatest in the world’ is a very commonly found adjective.


The social repulsion exhibited by both the Nayars as well as the Thiyyas of north Malabar to the corresponding castes in south Malabar, seems to be too much to be casually mentioned off as a coincidence. There was indeed something specifically in the history of the various populations that encoded these kinds of things. However, the book Malabar, does not mention these things. In fact, many of the information given in the book, which most probably is the inputs of the native-officials, are barren in this regard. Almost all these writings purposefully aim at glorifying their own caste populations; and degrading the others. All other finer details are simply wiped off.


This attitude is in sync with what Rev. Samuel Mateer has mentioned in his book Native Life in Travancore: QUOTE:— the amount of research bestowed by each to discover local traditions, verbal derivations, analogies in ceremonies or usages, or anything whatever that might enable them to out-vie rival castes — the contempt felt for the boasting of others — and the age-long memories of reported or imagined honours once enjoyed by them. END OF QUOTE


There is this quite curious bit of information that came to my notice in this book:

1. “I cannot offer even a plausible conjecture how, or at what time, a connection existed between Nepal and Tibet, and Canara, but I cannot doubt that such was the case.”

2. Mr. Forgusson has the following suggestive remarks in his work on the “History of Indian and Eastern Architecture” : ‘that it is remarkable enough that the Newar women, like those among the Nayars, may, in fact, have as many husbands as they please, being at liberty to divorce them continually on the slightest pretence.’

3. In fact, there are no two tribes in India, except the Nayars and Newars, who are known to have the same strange notions as to female chastity, and that coupled with the architecture and other peculiarities, seems to point to a similarity of race which is both curious and interesting.


The point here seems to indicate that Nayars have some ancestral connection with some population known as Newars in the Nepal area. How farfetched this idea is not known to me.


One possibility might be that one or the other Nairs (north or south Malabar) and the north Malabar Thiyyas might be of the same origin. They separated after becoming connected to the native feudal languages, which have the capacity to splinter up human populations into one-sided repulsion and one-sided attraction population groups. There are two points of correspondence between the Nayars and north Malabar Thiyyas. That is, both are following Marumakkathaya family traditions.


Yet, still it is also plausible that the Marumakkathaya Thiyyas are from the north-central Asian region as mentioned earlier.


As to there being any kind of cultural commonness between the Nayars and the Marumakkathaya Thiyyas, well, this is actually designed over the years by the level in the feudal languages. Persons and populations assigned a lower grade in the verbal codes are different from those assigned a higher stature. Genetic designs can be over-written by language codes. That is a fact.


It is the same level of stature in the language codes that actually creates a common population group. Caste is only a solidification of this levelling. Once this verbal levelling is changed, the caste-based grouping would also change over the years.


For instance, if one brother becomes a small-time coolie and the other brother becomes an IAS / IPS officer, in such a way that both of them do not have any connection with each other, the language codes would change their physical and mental demeanour very much. Within a generation or two, there would be little visible signs to show that there was some kind of commonness, other than some facial feature similarity.


Now, if the two brothers knew each other, there would be a certain amount of repulsion towards the coolie brother for the IPS brother. He would in most probability not even like to mention his coolie brother. However, the Coolie brother, in spite of feeling bad that his IPS brother is giving him a wide berth, would be quite attracted to his IPS brother, and would most probably mention his relationship to him.


It is possible that the Nayar and Thiyyas of north Malabar could be one population group that got separated by the language codes. However, this contention cannot hold much water. For, the Nayars do have a Sudra ancestry, which the Thiyyas do not have. So, it is more probable that the Nayars emerged to higher stature through a Brahmin link, while the Thiyyas went down through a verbal degrading route.


What is the situation between the Nayars of South Malabar and Makkathaya Thiyyas of South Malabar is not known to me.


However, there is a lot of purported information mentioned as from Keralolpathi. That book seems to promote the idea of a single Kerala in the days of antiquity, and that the whole of the geography was under one single dynasty. This may or may not be true. Most probably, if true, only for a very brief period. History of the world does not commence from the period mentioned in Keralolpathi.


If there is such a population-repulsion between those in North Malabar and South Malabar, how could a single kingdom be there which is supposed to encompass even the Travancore region? Keralolpathi is a useless book of historical records, possibly. Since I have not read it, I cannot say anything for sure.


The common points among the common people of north Malabar of yesteryears is the general fair complexion of their skin. This has slightly gone down in recent years, I feel. Second is the Matriarchal family system seen among both the Nayars as well as the Thiyyas there. Some Muslims groups also did have this, I think.


Third is the general repulsion for the populations of South Malabar. Travancore did not actually come into the picture at all, maybe till Gundert and party appeared on the Malabar scene and came out with a Keralolpathi.


It is curious that there is no reasonable information on why this population-repulsion came about.


There is another fanciful commonness found among the Nairs and the Thiyyas of North Malabar. Both of them have their own hereditary deities which are more or less Shamanistic in form. They may not have any real antique connection with the Brahmanical religion of the Vedic culture. However, the Shamanistic deities of the Nairs seems to be different from the Shamanistic deities of the Marumakkathaya Thiyyas.


The most mentioned deity of the Thiyyas is the Muthappan. There are others also. As for the Nairs, one deity named Mavan is seen mentioned in the footnotes, in the book Malabar, as a deity of the Nairs. There are others such as: Kuttichathan, Paradevatha, Asuraputhran, Gulikan, Chamundi &c. However, I am not sure if these deities are solely Nayar deities, or deities common with other lower castes such as Marumakkathaya Thiyyas, Makkathaya Thiyyas, Malayans &c.


There is some sameness. And yet, in the earlier days at least, the Nair common folks used to keep a distance from the Thiyya deities and worship systems. For the Thiyya deities were the gods of the populations they saw as low-grade.


Now, this idea would more or less disconnect to the Sudra ancestry of the Nayars. However, there is a lot of confusion. It is only to be understood that in a single generation of people, with an average life-span of around 45 to 60 years, so many things happen. So many mixings happen. So many warfare, fights, relocation etc.


The people of Travancore are mentioned to have a Tamil heritage. While the north Malabar region has had a language which had not much content of either Sanskrit or Tamil. Now, how do one go about with this information?


With regard to the Travancore history this is seen mentioned: QUOTE: were in turn brought under subjection by an irruption of the Tamil race (Nayars) under Kshatriya leaders from the East Coast. END OF QUOTE.


Here it seems that the Nayars of Travancore were Tamilians. Then how come there is a single Nayar caste? Well, that is not a error-free question. For there is a hierarchy of castes inside the Nayars itself.


But then, are the Nayars all the same in some way? The only sameness must be similar to the sameness one would see in the immigrants to England from various nations. After all of them live under the English systems for a few generations, there would not be any difference left in them, other than skin-colour, and certain traces of facial features.


Like that those populations who were placed in the rank of the Nayars, as supervisors by the Brahmin populations would slowly seem to be one population. The population groups who placed their women-folks at the beck and call of the Brahman folks are those who come to the fore.


What is the reason for allowing such terrific rights to the Brahmins? It needs to be understood that to arrive at a higher language-code level above the so-many terrible populations who would want to crush them down, the general attitude would be to concede to this. For, it is much better to go up above the lower-placed populations, who would be more crude, rough, ill-mannered and totally uncouth. Their very eye-language would be Inhi / Nee /Thoo to those who they have no ‘respect’.


Over the centuries, all the different population groups who got placed in the Nayar level would slowly evolve out of their own ancestral bloodline and would reflect both the Brahmanical bloodline as well as the higher-position they have in the language codes.


South Asia is a land in which in many locations, a fair skin-complexion is seen as quite attractive and of a superior social mien. This is a point to be noted. For, it does give an impetus to dark-skinned populations groups to get connected to fair-skinned population groups.


Now, speaking about the Thiyyas, there is something more to be mentioned. It is that among the Thiyyas themselves, there is severe grading depending on the stature of the household and also connected to the occupation. Many Thiyyas were by ancestry connected to the job of plucking coconuts. This naturally connects them to the other allied profession. That is of Toddy-tapping on the coconut trees.


From an English perspective, there is nothing wrong in these professions. However, in the

local feudal vernacular, this profession has been assigned the low-grade stature words. Words for He, Him, His, and You, Your and Yours would be that of the dirt level, from their own caste higher persons. This dirt-level-ing of words is in itself a complicated social machine process. I cannot explain it here. Interested readers can peruse the book I mentioned earlier.


The association to this low-graded professional did give a pull and tug towards the bottom levels of the social order. It affects the communication codes to a disadvantage. Especially when viewed from the perspective of the higher classes.


So among the Marumakkathaya Thiyyas themselves, there came into being a sort of caste-divide inside their own caste. There were the Thiyyan and Thiyyathi, who were literally treated as dirt in the verbal codes. They were the labour class of people. Devoid of all rights to dignified verbal codes from the higher castes and from their own caste land-owners. The other more prominent Thiyyas owned lands and also had administration over their own centres of worship. This information I am more or less writing from an impressionistic understanding of history.


This higher-level Thiyyas were the Thiyyars. Not the Thiyyan or Thiyyathi. This difference in verbal designation is what is derived from the feudal codes of the local language. The Thiyyar individuals would address the Thiyyan and Thiyyathi as Inhi ഇഞ്ഞി, and refer to them as Oan ഓൻ and Oal ഓള്. They in reverse would address and refer to the Thiyyars as Ingal ഇങ്ങള് and Oar ഓര്.


In effect the local feudal language has created very powerful disintegration and split inside the same population group. The higher-class Thiyyars would quite frankly show their distance and repulsion to the Thiyyans and Thiyyathi. This information I am adding from my own observations. It may not be possible to find any written records or evidence for this.


In between I should mention that this kind of terrific splintering in the social fabric is happening right now in England, as the feudal-language speakers slowly spread out inside the soft belly of the native-English society over there.


The newly-arrived-in-Malabar native-English administrators were more or less impervious to these issues. This was the first danger that the Nairs noted. That they can be quite easily dislodged by the Thiyyas. For, in English, there is not much of a premium value in displaying extreme servitude and obeisance. In fact, if they tried to offer or exhibit any of the kind of obeisance they practised towards the native-English officials, at best they would go down in stature.


The larger issue can be seen in the fact that many Englishmen who went in for long-stay here took Thiyya lower-class females as their woman / wife here. This is something no native higher-class man would dare to do. It would simply pull his stature down into the gutters. It would reflect in everyone’s verbal codes, even in his own wife’s family members’. However, the English to a long extent remain aloof from all this, even though it might be true that a slight quality degradation would set in, the moment they get defined by their local family connections, in the native languages. This highly explosive information never seems to have entered into the heads of the native-English. Even now, they do not know anything about this.


The commencement of an Anglo-Thiyya blood population groups in Tellicherry and surrounding areas must have created terrific dins of dissonance in the higher caste social web. It would be most keenly felt by the Nairs. For they stood on the location which shared its boundary with the Marumakkathaya Thiyyas.


Being on the lower-grade of the language-codes does bring in terrific quality deficiency. Not only does the intellectual quality in ordinary conversation go down, but even their words of referring can be terrible demeaning for others. Entry of one single Thiyya into the officer cadre of the English administration would go a long way to spray the codes of degradation on to all other higher castes in the work area of the same officer.


This degradation is caused by the bridge that this single individual has created to all his lower-social grade companions and relatives to converse about the higher caste individuals with the least of ‘respect’ and ‘reverence’. In fact, all Nairs in the officer cadre can easily do down to the levels of the labour class Thiyya relatives of the officer Thiyya. They would very easily get converted into Oan ഓൻ and Oal ഓള്, in the conversations of the low-grade populations. Their rightful position is actually that of Oar ഓര്.


Before going ahead with the book commentary, I would like to insert this much here. Allowing the lower-grade people to address a higher standard population with such words as Inhi/ Nee ഇഞ്ഞി/നീ, Oan/Avan ഓൻ/അവൻ, Oal/Aval ഓള്/അവൾ etc. (all lowest grade verbal codes for You, he, she etc.) is a very demeaning work. The person or the persons who get addressed, if they are of higher personality quality will get degraded into a level of stinking excrement. Others of quality will try to keep away from their proximity.


Affected persons may go into mental agony, paranoia and even epileptic seizures. I mention this much to denote that they are all very powerful language codes.


Now, this is a common experience in India. The lower-grade police constables are allowed the freedom to use these words on any individual who are accosted by them, and appear to them as socially vulnerable. This idea may be understood in a further manner. That, in the newly-formed nation of India, a small percentage of the population is of golden standards. They possess the right to higher grade verbal codes. The main group who have come to hold this right in a sort of hereditary manner is the Indian government officials.


That does not mean that all the other Indians are stinking excrement. Most of the higher social classes are also in the higher bracket. But a huge section of the population are stinking dirt, who can be addressed in the most meanest of verbal usages by the police constables. From this information, the reason why the people who live in India are generally defined as some kind of dirt by the Indians who have relocated to the English west and to Continental Europe, can be understood.


There is some truth in their assertion. The degraded populations of India cannot even address a government office worker as an equal or subordinate. If the requisite ‘respect’ is not given to the government office worker, he or she is done for.


This is the real fact about the so-called independent nation of India. When the English administration ditched the people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and handed them over to the government employees, the people quality went into decay.


However, the real training of the people into a excrement mentality is done in the vernacular schools of the nation. The teachers, most of them totally of the very low intellectual class, use the lower indicant word form of You, Your, Yours, He, His, Him, She, Her, Hers etc. to the students. And also differentiate the parents into Adhehams അദ്ദേഹം (gold) and Avans അവൻ (dirt). The former consists of the government officials, doctor, and big business owners etc. The latter consists of ordinary workers and such.


This is a huge topic. I do not want to go into that. Interested readers are again requested to read the ‘An Impressionistic History of South Asian Subcontinent’.


It is quite curious that two individuals from the subcontinent got Noble Prize for supporting ‘education’. One escaped to England. The tragedy of England! I will leave that topic here.


Now, I am going to take up the ‘Nair’ mention in this book, Malabar purported to have been written by William Logan. The reader must bear in mind that I am giving frank impressions. If the Nairs or Thiyyars or any other population group feels insulted, it had not been my aim to do so. Moreover, people react to the language codes. When they feel that any association with anyone else can degrade their defining verbal codes, they will make all desperate attempts to negate it. If they feel that another person or groups of persons are going to outwit them or to go above them, they will get terrorised. Because all such events can create cataclysmic changes in the language codes.


In a feudal language system, language codes are everything. Just like codes are very powerful inside a software.


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Commentary                MMVol 1               MMVol 2

Book Profile


1. My aim


2. The information divide


3. The layout of the book


4. My own insertions


5. The first impressions about the contents


6. India and Indians


7. An acute sense of not understanding


8. Entering a terrible social system


9. The doctoring and the manipulations


10. What was missed or unmentioned, or even fallaciously defined


11. NONSENSE


12. Nairs / Nayars


13. A digression to Thiyyas


14. Designing the background


15. Content of current-day populations


16. Nairs / Nayars


17. The Thiyya quandary


18. The terror that perched upon the Nayars


19. The entry of the Ezhavas


20. Exertions of the converted Christian Church


21. Ezhava-side interests


22. The takeover of Malabar


23. Keralolpathi


24. About the language Malayalam


25. Superstitions


26. Misconnecting with English


27. Feudal language


28. Claims to great antiquity


29. Piracy


30. CASTE SYSTEM


31. Slavery


32. The Portuguese


33. The DUTCH


34. The French


35. The ENGLISH


36. Kottayam


37. Mappillas


38. Mappilla outrages against the Nayars and the Hindus


39. Mappilla outrage list


40. What is repulsive about the Muslims?


41. Hyder Ali


42. Sultan Tippu


43. Women


44. Laccadive Islands


45. Ali Raja


46. Kolathiri


47. Kadathanad


48. The Zamorin and other apparitions


49. The Jews


50. SOCIAL CUSTOMS


51. Hinduism


52. Christianity


53. Pestilence, famine etc.


54. British Malabar versus Travancore kingdom


55. Judicial


56. Revenue and administrative changes


57. Rajas


58. Forests


59. Henry Valentine Conolly


60. Miscellaneous notes


61. Culture of the land


62. The English efforts in developing the subcontinent


63. Famines


64. Oft-mentioned objections


65. Photos and pictures of the Colonial times


66. Payment for the Colonial deeds


67. Calculating the compensation



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