It must be said that most of the themes dealt out in Candide are true of present-day India, also. I am talking about the India that the vast majority of Indians would see if they were moving around from their base. However, as in the case of medieval Continental Europe, not many common Indians do move much from their home base. There is no security for them. Anything goes wrong on the way in a faraway place, then they are as good as lost. No one of significance would help an ordinary man. The whole administrative infrastructure is meant for the higher Indian. Actually, no one finds any fault in this system. If anyone ends in up in trouble by moving beyond his social and geographical parameters, then he is just blamed for being so reckless.

There is a whole, well-organised trade in trapped girls all over India, which operates with the full knowledge of the administrative machinery. In many places, the very administrative machinery is in active collaboration in this trade.

Many public service examinations are just a farce.

The sales tax officials are just dacoits. Many are fabulously rich. There is much to compare them with the thuggees of pre British-India times.

Long distance solitary road travel is not safe for the unwary traveller.

Corruption is rampant. Recently, a senior police official did an intra-departmental enquiry in a district in the State of Kerala, in India. The report he got was that in the whole district, there were only 6 police officers, who were not corrupt. One may imagine the plight of the persons who get trapped in the net of the corrupt policemen.

The judicial system is a mess. Moreover the system is very slow when it comes to the task of helping the helpless individual. Against persons who it does not like, it moves with malicious speed. In many cases, judiciary is just an appendage of the police and administrative departments.

Citizens are cynical, sarcastic, mean, obsequious, highly opportunistic, non-committed to word-of-honour, and of many other mean qualities.

I can go on and on with the list. However that doesn’t serve any purpose. For many persons do know India with all these identifications. What I would like to declaim here is, do the English nations like to go in for a level of competition with this level of nations?

Actually all English nations should keep away from all levels of activity wherein they have to compete with these despicable nations. Even the game of Cricket when played with mean nations not only debases the game and its players, but also gives a halo and glow to the players of these base nations, by their very interaction with the English players. I can put this theme in a more correct base by saying that if one day all English nations stop playing Cricket with non-English nations, then this game would lose its exalted status in many third world nations.

A disturbing comparison: In this regard, I would like to compare an English-speaking, internationally mobile, feudal language Asian-native girl with an English girl from a similar background. On seeing the girl, modern dressed, with very good English, coming from superb social standings, and with very gracious looks and communicative standards, one may, with much shallow understanding of psychic undercurrents, identify her personality as equivalent to that of an English girl, of similar or even lesser or superior social standings.

Yet the reality is that the Asian-native girl is not a single entity with clearly definable personality. For, what one has seen is her English personality. Yet, English is actually her second language. For at home, and in her intimate society, she may be speaking in Hindi, Sinhalese, Telugu, Korean, Kannada, Chinese, Tamil or Malayalam etc. When she is in this latter software, then she clearly is a different person, with different social equations, attitudes, emotions, likings, dislikes, animosities, reactions, obsessions, relationships, antipathies and even social repulsions. Her society is different. The way she discerns society is like a step-like hierarchical structure, which is very much unmoving, both in terms of manoeuvrability as well as emotions.

This individual is not the same as the English individual who is equated to her. Because of this propensity to oscillate between highly opposite social situations, this Asian-native girl is a highly dangerous social entity if allowed the free run in English societies. For, she can really operate from this sinister mental and professional background, with a highly evolved level of deceit, in the English social and professional areas, with extremely tragic affects for the host society. Here, I must interject to say that though many English novel writers have tried their hand in bringing out themes of deceit, betrayal, cheating etc. in the English world, (though much of it can be traced to European connections and not exactly from English world), the fact is that the level of deceit as practised in the feudal language social schemes is of a much more sinister level, with conspiracies, backstabbing, betrayals, selling out etc. done with more finesse and less mental qualms. It is a socially acceptable action, when the victim is discerned to be of a weaker position.

Beyond all this, the factor of how both girls are seen and positioned in their own societies is to be reckoned. The Asian-native girl would enjoy a status of extremely supreme levels, with not many persons, other than her own level of persons, in her native land being able to even address her by name, with or without a Miss, or Mrs. prefixed. All addressing to her or about her should be couched in highly feudal respectful terms. Now this type of social moulding is not available in the English world, other than to their monarch. In other words, the Asian-native girl who one may see as nice, cosy, educated, cultured, and refined is actually a mini-royal personage in her home nation. Her association with the English world definitely helps this image immensely.

What I would like take out from the allegory to the Asian-native girl is that the same comparisons can be made out of any individual from any feudal language side, when compared to another person from the English side. Like for example, an Indian cricketer and another one from the English team. Though both are of similar stature in the English sense, the level of reverence that the Indian can command at home is of the nth degree, when compared to the Englishman.