01. A digression to a caste based farce

02. The claims of equality to the heights

03. The trauma and the remedy

04. The kaleidoscopic experiences

05. The pains of another caste: the Nairs

06. A slender aspect of superiority

07. The tragic side of reservation

08. Grey areas of human equality

09. Ineffective attempts to forestall negativity codes

A digression to a caste based farce

Now, here I would want to discuss on what is the problem of Ezhavas mentioning that the Thiyyas are part of their own fold. Ezhavas suffered a lot of discriminations and social limitations which their native king had imposed on them. Most of these events in that kingdom were contemporary to the British rule in Malabar.

The Thiyyas did not have any such experience during that period, for they had being under the British rule for quite some time. During the times of the British rule in Malabar and to some time afterwards also, the Ezhavas did have a demeanour problem connected to this suppression in their facial and social features. At the same time, the majority Thiyyas also did have something similar in their facial expressions. However, this was not due to statutory suppression, but more due to social suppression connected to being under the domination of low quality feudal lords.

There is definitely a specific kind of sameness between the Thiyyas of Malabar and Ezhavas of Travancore. This sameness is that both of them had members among their lower social status persons engaged in coconut plucking and also doing the toddy taping profession. Yet, not everyone in both these castes was engaged in this profession. Due to the feudal content of the local vernaculars, Travancore Malayalam and Malabar vernacular, this particular profession is seen with disdain by the local people.

Now, the exact cultural sameness of the two castes springs from the fact that both of them were under the same kind of higher castes. The Nambhodiris, Varmas and the Nairs, and next the Ezhavas in Travancore. The Nambhodiris, Varmas and the Nairs, and next the Thiyyas in Malabar.

It is like Sri Lankans and Malayalees living in England. Both of them are under the English systems. Within a few centuries, there wouldn’t be any tangible difference between the two. For, it is the total social system that designs both.

DIGRESSION: Here a remembrance comes into my mind. It is connected to social placement that is already in place for a newcomer. The year must have been 1980. I was in Trivandrum. I went to meet one companion of mine in a cricket playing ground. By size I was small, compared to so many of the youth who were playing there. Suddenly the cricket ball went over a high wall and fell into the compound beyond. It was an unusual incident and no one knew what to do. However, since I was quite agile and used to climbing, I simply swung myself up the wall, jumped to the other side and retrieved the ball.

When I was coming back, the majority of the youngsters were quite grateful to me. It was giving me a social focus momentarily. There was one giant like person among them. He spoiled the scene. He simply came near me, pulled me out of the wall and held me up like a child, addressing me like a kid, in a very pose of singing a lullaby. Instead of me coming down like a hero, for having performed a physical feat of strength and agility, in front of everyone, this giant simply sent out the message that I was just a small kid, who had done a bidding of the elders. Actually, I would be of the same age of some of the players there. My companion laughed and informed me that if anyone does strive to show off, this is their experience.

I have seen this issue in the experience of many persons. The local social scene wouldn’t want a newcomer to overtake them in any manner, if they can help it. When some Thiyya persons arrived in Malabar area (an area where physical movement was quite difficult through the thick maze of forest, mountains, hills, streams, rivers, and no proper roads, then), some of them must have exhibited their ability to climb coconut trees. Immediately the local social seniors would hold them with pincer like grip in lower indicant words into the coconut climbing caste. With words like Nee, Avan Aval, Chekkan, Pennu, Avattakal, Alae etc.

The newly arrived Thiyyans wouldn’t at first know of this terrible social placing. Slowly as they get to know the language, there is no escape.

In fact, no one would dare to do a lower level job if he or she can help it. For, immediately others would use that scene to bring them down. That is the power of Malabar Malayalam. I remember that in the old days, women of higher class houses wouldn’t’ want to be seen sweeping the yard. For, it immediately would encode her as an Oal (Aval) in the others, especially in the lower class males and females. It is not easy to associate a yard sweeping female with an Avar (higher indicant word).

There is absolute danger for English nations when they allow feudal language speakers inside their nations, without first understanding the dangerous codes that these outsiders are bringing in. In Australia, they are doing the worst of possible actions. They are going to teach the local children Asian feudal languages. Once this is done, the local children would face the same prospect, that the newly arrived Thiyyas experienced. They will start to see themselves as dirt. END OF DIGRESSION

Similarly the same feudal structured classes speaking the same feudal quality languages will design both the lower castes at the same levels. Mental as well physical. However, a minority of Thiyya had the advantage of direct British social intervention that gave them the respite from such tragic repression.

In 1956, a new state was formed, Kerala. It was an amalgamation of the erstwhile kingdoms of Cochin and Travancore with Malabar district of British-ruled Madras Presidency. This brought two mutually unknown castes into direct contact.

The English-educated Thiyyas of the early years did not have this demeanour problem. So, the Ezhavas made it a point to express that the refined looking, English-educated Thiyyas were only Ezhavas. Now, this was seen as repulsive by the English-educated Thiyyas. For, it was quite unbearable for them to be identified with a group of people who had statutory fetters on them, when they themselves had none.

Actually, I need to quote some paragraphs from CASTES AND TRIBES OF SOUTHERN INDIA by EDGAR THURSTON Printed at GOVERNMENT PRESS, MADRAS 1909. It is suggested here that readers who are not interested in this subject matter may skip this section:

1. There are, in North Malabar, many individuals, whose fathers were European. Writing, in 1887, concerning the Tiyan community, Mr. Logan states * that ** the women are not as a rule excommunicated if they live with Europeans, and the consequence is that there has been among them a large admixture of European blood, and the caste itself has been materially raised in the social scale. In appearance some of the women are almost as fair as Europeans.”

On this point, the Report of the Malabar Marriage Commission, 1894, states that “ in the early days of British rule, the Tiyan women incurred no social disgrace by consorting with Europeans, and, up to the last generation, if the Sudra girl could boast of her Brahmin lover, the Tiyan girl could show more substantial benefits from her alliance with a white man of the ruling race. Happily the progress of education, and the growth of a wholesome public opinion, have made shameful the position of a European’s concubine; and both races have thus been saved from a mode of life equally demoralizing to each.

{MY COMMENT: This is true in the case of only a very minute section of the Thiyya community. From my queries about my own family links in Tellicherry, only females of the lower sections of Thiyyas went in for living with the Englishmen. Whatever their status among the Whites was, I am told that some of these females did enjoy perfect social elevation due to the proximity to the Englishman.

It would definitely not be like the status that a Sudra girl could gain from consorting with the Brahmin male. For, in this case, it would be a Malayalam-based relationship. In the case of the Thiyya female, it would be an English-based relationship, wherein the female would not suffer from any pejorative lower indicant words from the English side. However, the Sudra female also would improve due to the proximity to the Brahmin male. The question of what is the exact caste Sudra in Kerala also comes up}.

2. All over the southernmost portion of the peninsula, among the Shanans and Tiyans, the ladder and waist-band are unknown. They climb up and down with their hands and arms, using only a soft grummel of coir (cocoanut fibre) to keep the feet near together.”

{MY COMMENT: Actually the climbing of coconut trees by the Thiyya coconut tree-climbers would be with two coir coils. One for the hands and one for the feet. I have not seen this system of coconut tree-climbing among the Ezhavas}.

3. Izhava.— ‘The Izhavans or Ilavans, and Tiyans, are the Malayalam toddy-drawing castes of Malabar, Cochin and Travancore. The etymology of the name Izhavan is dealt with in the article on Tiyans.

{MY COMMENT: Actually there is a mix up here. Tiyans are in Malabar. So the order of placing should be Tiyans and Izhavans or Ilavans}

4. In another case, a Cheruman, who was the servant of a Mappilla, was fetching grass for his master, when he inadvertently approached some Tiyans, and thereby polluted them. The indignant Tiyans gave not only the Cheruman, but his master also, a sound beating by way of avenging the insult offered to them.

{MY COMMENT: There is total repulsion for others inside ‘India’ among so many people. In fact one would find claims that Thiyyan are not from ‘India’ and that they are from Kazakhstan, Greece and such other places}

5. A Brahman who enters the compound of a Pulayan has to change his holy thread, and take panchagavyam (the five products of the cow) so as to be purified from pollution. The Valluva Pulayan of the Trichur taluk fasts for three days, if he happens to touch a cow that has been delivered of a calf He lives on toddy and tender cocoanuts. He has also to fast three days after the delivery of his wife.” In ordinary conversation in Malabar, such expressions as Tiya-pad or Cheruma-pad (that is, the distance at which a Tiyan or Cheruman has to keep) are said to be commonly used.*

{MY COMMENT: This dirtying is directly connected to pejorative indicant word connection. See my book: CODES of REALITY! WHAT is LANGUAGE?}

The claims of equality to the heights and the repulsion to the lower sections

Here, what has to be borne in mind by the people of English nations is the social repulsion of ‘Indians’ to other ‘Indians’. It is not an imagination, but real. ‘Indians’ do have many type of repulsions for other ‘Indians’. It is not connected to race or colour. And there are legitimate reasons for this. These repulsions are felt by others also. For example, when people, whose demeanour has the feature of social suppression based on their own feudal languages and social systems, claims to be equals, a natural repulsion arises.

It is a creepy feeling. It is the claim that repulses. The remedy lies in retracting the claim, and going for personal quality development. Without striving for refinement, simply saying that one is equal to a person who carries the various facets of an English refinement should not be allowed. Simply said, it is right to refute the claim. For, the claim is connected to equalising to a lower order of human existence.

Equality with the English social systems and those who practise it cannot be claimed, unless one has the mental refinement to lend the same quality of equality to those who abound the lower circles of one’s own social system.

[For example, a Thiyya man has no right to claim equality with a Brahmin, when he himself does not want the proximity of a person of caste lower to himself. In fact, only persons who have risen above all this can be allowed proximity to egalitarian English social system. Otherwise, the same negative codes will enter English.

I have seen some socially high Thiyya making jest of Brahmin’s claim to superiority. At the same time, they speak with full vehemence about persons of castes lower to Thiyyas]

Without allowing this, simply claiming equality with persons of a refined social system is nonsense. And perfectly refutable, powerfully. However if the social systems of the Asian peoples, the African Blacks and such other peoples are similar in refinement to the English systems, then there is no need to harp on equality and rights to equal dignity. For, their own social systems would be equally or more attractive. It is just because their social systems are so terrible that they all want to barge into English social systems and claim equality. They cannot bear the lower sections among themselves. They want to be with the English populations.

For instance, the Whites of South Africa kept places apart for Blacks and Whites. So what? Blacks have their own place. Make those places more attractive than the places kept apart for the Whites, by the simple means of social communication refinement. Instead of thinking on those lines, the easier route of claims to enter into the White areas simply denotes a miserably low quality Black leadership.

The trauma and the remedy

I can understand the mental trauma of being identified as a lower class. When my own children were brought up, I simply took up a stance that I am not bothered about others’ evaluation. All I did was to secure them in a social set-up in which the feudal language social system was denied entry. That did lead to many incriminating claims. There was one relative on my wife’s side who demanded the right to have my children to play with his children.

Well, it was like the Blacks claiming the right for their children to play with the White children. However in my case, there was actually a terrible difference. I was quite poor at that time, living in a dilapidated house. Usually in India, people do not want their children to be with children of poorer parents.

At the other end, the local rich folks (most of the lower class employees in the Middle East) also had certain complaints. That of I not showing any exquisite interest in being with them. Usually, it is a nice thing to be known as a companion of the rich folks. However for me, rich folks with bare knowledge in English, who had never heard of British classics, did not seem quite attractive companions.

The kaleidoscopic experiences

I think it is right for the writer of this book to state that he stands apart from the scenes when writing this book. He does not claim any particular attainments or refinements. All he states is that had he been allowed to be trained in English systems by persons of English refinement, his own personal qualities would have been great. However, he was trained or rather tormented by brutal Malayalam speaking-teachers and social content. However, there is no rancour for this.

For, it is the contradictions in experiences that gave this writer a fantastic kaleidoscopic variety of experiences and insight to do a lot of writings. For that, the writer expresses his deep obligation to everyone who strove to inform him of the brutalities of a feudal language social system or position him to experience the same. For, this writing cannot be done by any person who has had the luck to live in an English ambience of exclusive refinement.

Now coming back to Wikipedia and the pages on Castes, I have to mention something more about Indian castes. As I mentioned earlier, every caste writes and rewrites their own history to be on par with the emerging social requirements. It is like the modern Blacks of Africa claiming that they were all highly educated, superbly sophisticated populaces before they were all turned into destitute by the Europeans.

DIGRESSION

There is this information from ‘Churyayi Kanaran’ [Unsigned article, Deepam, Vol. I, No.7, Kumbham 1930, p. 20: When Churyayi Kanaran (1812-1876], a Thiyya, who went on to become a Deputy Collector at Ponnani, was appointed as Head Munshi, his Nair superiors (Sirasdars) harassed him, giving him only a mattress to work on, instead of a chair, prompting H.V. Conolly, the Collector, who had appointed him, to intervene on his behalf.

Now, there are a series of issues in this information. What are they?

First, the majority people of this land couldn’t sit on chairs, until British intervention came. Second, in British ruled areas, lower castes did get superior English education, that they could join the higher levels of bureaucracy. Third, the pain that the relatively higher castes naturally felt. For, when they extend equality to him (who naturally would be quite well educated in English), they would be simply allowing themselves to be equated to the lower sections of the Thiyyas (lower caste). It would come upon that the lower castes persons would then be able to dare to think of them in Avan and Aval terms (lower He, Him, His, She, Her, Hers). The fourth issue is the most terrible. It is that appointing a native in higher bureaucratic job was not a good thing for other natives of this land. For, they get distanced from English administrators.

This can be seen in the experience of C Kanaran also. When he was denied a seat, there was an English superior to help him out. However, when Kanaran is the superior, he wouldn’t find it within his scope of understanding to refute the claims of local social codes. Moreover, he himself would know and speak in feudal Malayalam. For him, the other natives could be divided into Avan/Aval (lower He, Him, She, Her, etc.) and Adheham/Avar (higher He, Him, She, Her, etc.).

When a native man approaches him, his experience would be starkly different from his experience when he approaches an English officer. The latter would lend him dignity by the mere usage and thinking in English. The former can do anything, either defile or else ennoble him, as per his whim and wish. So, when seen in the larger context, appointing native ‘Indians’ into the administration was a tragic thing that the Crown rule did in British-India. I have seen Indians natives treated like dirt by Indian officials. The codes and triggers for this are in the Indian feudal vernaculars.

Tail piece: H.V. Conolly, the English Collector of Malabar was later cut into pieces right in front of his wife by rioters of the Mappilla Lalaha (Mappilla rioting) in south Malabar. It may be noted that this rioting was mainly spurred by the Thiyya-convert-to-Islam Muslim. So, there is not all encompassing logic to social fury. At one end, this English man is trying to bring in correction to social negativities. And at the other end, the very people who are actually benefiting from the same are spurred by nonsensical rhetoric to kill him.

* It may be noted in passing that all talk of English administration being disruptive, despoiling and exploitive were advanced by the Adheham/Avar ‘Indians’. NOT by the Avan/Aval ‘Indians’.

END OF DIGRESSION

The pains of another caste: the Nairs

There is another caste by the name Nair in Kerala. Depending on the exact location, this caste name did have regional variations. Among them also, there were variations in levels. However, they were generally the serving class of the higher castes, the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. The Brahmins were the priestly caste while the Kshatriyas were the kingly caste. Now, unlike in the northern areas of the ‘Indian’ sub continent, in Kerala the caste system was not the four-caste one as enforced by the Sanskrit based four-caste (chathurvarnya) system.

The four castes were the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas, the Vaishyas (traders and farmers) and the Sudras (serving class). The Sudras were the lowest. They also belonged to the Aryan groups or what is locally called as Aaryans. {I have noticed that the European Aryans like the Germans do not admit the claim that that the ‘Indians’ are Aryans. Again it is a repulsion that is evident here. The repulsion to be identified with people who very obviously look different}.

The very mention of Sudra is seen as repulsive by a lot many people in India. Actually this is not based on real facts. There is a general feeling that the Sudras are the lowest of the castes. It is not true. Sudras are the lowest of the four-caste Chathurvarnya system prevalent among the so-called Aryans of ‘India’. However, in many places there were many groups of people who were called the untouchables, who existed on the periphery of local societies. Sudras were not the untouchables. In fact, they were from the so-called ‘Indian’ Aryans groups. They were the people who could enter into the higher caste household and work for them, in close physical proximity.

However in recent times, in the modern state of Kerala, the general wrong notion that the Sudras are the untouchables has somehow come up.

Now, when we speak about the Nairs, there is a contention among the Ezhavas and also among a section of the Christians, who were Ezhava and other lower caste-converts, that the Nairs are Sudras. The modern Kerala view is that the Sudras are sort of really the lowest caste. This whole idea is very repulsive for the Nairs. The Ezhavas and others do mention this with a vehement mood to contain the claims to superiority made by the Nairs.

A slender aspect of superiority

It would be quite untrue to define the Nairs as Sudras, even though they were the serving classes of the superior castes. By demeanours, looks and general average complexion, they are of a caste higher to both the Thiyyas of Malabar and Ezhavas of Travancore. Now, how do we claim superiority? Well, it is basically a mental mood. Like what happened to the Thiyyas of certain small places in North Malabar.

When they received English education, their general feeling was of superiority. One thiyya man, I have mentioned earlier, became an RAF pilot and his complaint was that he was not accepted as an equal by the native-British Air force officers. He had no complaints about the inferior placement he was entitled to receive from the higher castes of his own nativity. That is generally what comes about with being improved.

When many Thiyyas demanded lower caste reservation(in government jobs and professional education) for the Thiyyas, many of the superior featured Thiyyas stood against that, claiming that the Thiyyas are not an inferior caste. However, the majority were inferiors and they wanted to cash on that.

I have seen a very vibrant stance of mental superiority among the Nairs. They could have claimed that they are also a low caste and arrayed a lot of documents to prove it. However, they refrained from doing that. Now, when looking back, it was a great loss. For, they did not get any reservation in education, or in government jobs, while the Ezhavas, the Thiyyas and the Muslims received it lavishly.

It was to make a huge change in the sociological standards of the social system. I remember being told by certain Thiyya elders in Tellicherry that they had vehemently stood against the branding of Thiyyas as a lower caste. However, the vast majority of really low level members of the caste and their leadership stood for a lower caste branding and consequent reservation. However, it was a very bad thing. For, it gave a premium to being low class.

The tragic side of reservation

With reservation, what went wrong? People with low-class behaviour to the public became government officers and officials. Their pejorative filled communication standards became acceptable. There was no value in being refined and polite. The social system started giving value to corruption and bribes. The earlier stance of imitating British standards simply was washed away from public knowledge and remembrance.

Claiming reservation is equivalent to claiming to be mentally handicapped and that for that very reason, I should be given a higher job and right to enter into higher echelons of education. Quite obviously there is something wrong in the logic.

Now, the Nairs were also quite desperate to keep a distance from the Ezhavas. For, they were the group closest to the Ezhavas. The desperation was more caused by the crudeness of the Malayalam language in that if the lower caste individual treated them as equals or as lower, it could have its corresponding changes in the indicant word codes. This could be a very unbearable thing to happen. The unbearable-ness of this issue cannot be explained in English. Now that is also another problem. For, there is a great negativity. However, there is no means to explain it to a person who is a native-English speaker who does not live in India.

That they are not Sudras can be accepted. However, the next question that comes up would be, then who are they? They speak much about their martial history, that of a Nair Pada, a Nair army. Well, then martial means fighting. Fighting means Royal. That means, Kshathriya. They went about claiming to be Kshatriyas. It was a very funny situation. In that the Kshatriyas are really the royal families. In Kerala they are generally called Varmas.

Now in all these things what an average English reader should bear in mind is the repulsion of each group of ‘Indians’ to be identified as another ‘Indian’ group. They view the others as repulsive and want to maintain a very detailed distance from them, even in words. Now, is there anything great or powerful in being connected through words?

Well, there is. Actually almost all social communication, command routes, prestige, stature, ‘respect’, concept of right and wrong, acceptability of actions and many other things are connected to what words are used, and how they connect a person to other people and institutions. If a native-English reader claims that he has understood the gist of the above line, then he or she is being very, very foolish. For he or she has not understood anything.

I have seen this type of repulsion among African Negros also. Once, I mentioned to an African Black that I knew another person who was from his race. I mentioned that man’s name. Immediately, his face went into a terrible contortion. He very vehemently said that the other person was not from his race, but from some very inferior race.

Grey areas of human equality

For a long time, the Nairs used to claim that they were Kshatriyas. It was a desperate ploy to escape the dirtying done by lower caste people. If the higher castes like the Brahmins and the Varmas call them lower caste, there is no problem. However being categorised by the lower castes as lower caste, is a dangerous equalising. Only people from feudal language social systems can understand the terribleness of equalising.

The foolish people of English nativity cannot understand that equalising is liked only upwards. For instance, the Blacks of English nations have problem only if they are not treated as equals by the native English Whites. However, if they are to be treated as equals by the lower classes of the Black nations of Africa and of the Asian nations, it would be totally another proposition. An equalising proposition which they would fight against with everything in their possession. They would have terrible complaints about this equalising.

Ineffective attempts to forestall negativity codes

I write this to specifically to demark the grey areas of the slogans of Equality-Liberty-Fraternity. Actually each of these things needs a lot of deeper analysis. The French stance was quite shallow. However, they did understand that there was some problem with their tongue. For, they tried to bring in another term, ‘Citizen’ to overcome some social communication issue.

Karl Marx, a German Jew was also aware of some communication issues in certain languages. He brought in the term ‘Comrade’. However, in feudal language nations, this term ‘Comrade’ couldn’t remove the innate hierarchical structure of the social communication. In these nations, the Communist Party itself is an epitome of feudal communication. Just a reflection of the very feudal social structure it is committed to remove.

Mere political philosophies cannot change the social structure. What is required is a change in the communication software.

Now coming back to the Nairs, I did see once a detailed research done by two American students on Nairs with the active collaboration of some Nairs here in Kerala. It came in a Kerala edition of an English newspaper. It was detailed that the Nairs are Kshatriyas. I am sure that for writing this nonsense, the duo could have received their doctorate. In many ways, this is the standard of understanding about non-English social systems among persons from English nations. And also the standard of academic doctorates. In the current day environment, the information that filters into English systems about feudal language society and the various triggers inside it more or less is zero in terms of correctness.

Suppose I am to do intimate research into the world of dogs. I befriend one dog who has learnt English. He takes me into the interiors of his world. He tells me much about the social hierarchies inside them. However, when it comes to something that touches him personally in terms of any social or familial group stature, there is always a grave danger that what he informs me would be doctored information.

See these lines in CASTES AND TRIBES OF SOUTHERN INDIA by EDGAR THURSTON, c.i.e.. ASSISTED BY K. RANGACHARI, m.a.: For the following note on the Izhavas of Travancore, I am, when not otherwise recorded, indebted to Mr. N. Subramani Aiyar. It is seen that the information that Thurston derived could have been filtered and doctored by two natives, both of the higher castes of those days.