01. Promoting an entity

02. Evaluating another charlatan

03. EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES

04. Neutralising the English advantage

05. The travails of benevolence

Promoting an entity

Now let me just go back to Gandhi. The amount of money that someone had spent on behalf of Gandhi to promote him has never been mentioned. It is at best quite an idiotic stance. At least someone should have just thought about it. How could a relatively unknown person suddenly come into media prominence? There were a quite a lot of other ‘Indian’ leaders who were actually doing a better job at improving the quality of the people here. They all simply vanished in the sudden halo lend on Gandhi. Well, he did have one halo. That of being an England-returned person. Well, that is something that still lends a halo.

DIGRESSION

I remember one time, when during a training programme one of the trainees asked if it was true that I was an England-returned. When I answered in the negative, I could very powerfully feel the dismay and consternation among the trainees. They would have been quite happy to get an England-returned person as a trainer.

And to conclude that story, some years later I did come across another person who had achieved the adjective of ‘corporate trainer’ on the surge of being an England-returned person. He would not clearly mention what it was that he had done in Great Britain. However his accent was quite good, even though his vocabulary was found wanting. He had never read an English classic nor did he exactly know what they were.

Yet, his simple credentials of being an England-returned gave him the glow to become a ‘corporate trainer’. It must be admitted that personality-wise also, there was a lot of difference in stature, posture and even in demeanour from the local non-England-returned crowd. In fact, there were a lot of positive features in him, even though he was not good in English literature or knew anything about British antiquity and heritage. Well, that much differences a mere two-year visit to England had perched upon him.

Speaking about England-returned, there is this incident that I can relate. One person came to me to learn speaking English. He wanted to go to England within a few months. His English was quite bad, even though he did have the daring to speak in English. Later he reached England, and was in London, doing a particular course. He wanted me to do the project work for him from here. He would call me and speak.

Within a few months time, his accent was quite good. In fact, if he were to speak to me in front of others, it was quite easy to feel that his English was much better than mine. However, to a man who was conversant in good English, this wouldn’t be the feeling. For his sentence construction was quite bad. Yet, his accent was great. Now see this sample paragraph of what he sent me to rewrite, which I would do within hours:

Note: Please note that the below writing would be completely re-paraphrased by me and sent back to him

QUOTE: [Personally I had not many skills in critically thinking especially in business field. The important one is that I had not much skill in approach a problem in business scenario and solve as well. But traditionally I am from a business family so know some little bit ideas about the practical business and how to approach and solve it. Another one is that I am not much expert in business writings especially these kinds of projects.

An also important thing is that we had not much skills to interviewing others especially management people if it a part of curriculum. The most important one I think so that is research skills and I hadn’t better idea about how the practical and theories are collaborating in one place.] END OF QUOTE

Well, then what about Gandhi? His rich father knew the social value of having his son domiciled in England. When he comes back, most of the ordinary Indian social communication limitations get erased at least for a short time. It was Gandhi’s onus to use this minor interlude to make use of the momentous historical moments to garner media publicity for himself.

The government of India also spent a huge amount on making the Gandhi film. It was a film in which a man with supremely English features acted as Gandhi. Gandhi speaks English in the film. What a Gandhi is that? Actually Gandhi spoke in Hindi to his followers, who then naturally heaved him up on the ennobling heights of the indicant word codes. It is a very cheap technique, which every cunning leader in India uses.

When speaking about looks in films, there is this to be said. Good looking actors play out the life of ordinary people who in real life do not look so sweet. I have even seen English films wherein Black persons of Africa are seen depicted by English-speaking Blacks of English nations. What are then featured are not the real blacks of Africa, but the highly refined Blacks of the English nations. It is basically a fooling of the film viewers.

The same goes when featuring Black slaves in English films. The slaves more or less bear modern English looks and not the original crude looks of the slaves of Africa.

It is like making a cow act as a lion. Seeing the cow, one is not intimidated. However, the real lion is not like a cow. It’s very facial features and its roar can curdle one’s blood.

There are very easy evaluation tools to be used on Gandhi’s endeavours. He published English newspapers/magazines in both South Africa as well as in India. What was he doing writing in English when the majority population did not know English and he himself was rampantly anti-English? The easiest answer that he was trying to arrive at a level of equality with the English folks and also informing the other ‘Indians’ that he was way above them, is not looked upon.

Why was he involved in such activities? The easiest answer again that he was having a craze for leadership wherever he went, is also not thought about. His political work in South Africa must have given him the complete information of the power of the media. There are different ways to arrive in popular thoughts.

It is like this. When I used to travel for my business purpose all around my home state in my two-wheeler, followed by another trip in my four-wheeler, I used to meet a lot of people on a regular basis. It was to give me a circle of connections in a very wide geographical area. I should have been a very famous person compared to many of the others that I knew. However, this was not the effect. Instead, if someone writes an article in one of the regional (vernacular) newspapers in his own name, it gets read by over 600 thousand people. In one day, he is famous. He is discussed. That is the power of the media.

This was the understanding that Gandhi did get. For, there was the traditional method of arriving at popular leadership, which almost everyone else used. That of, working for the people, and addressing their various issues. But then it does really assure one of social leadership. For example, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He is actually the native person from this geographical area whom I admire for his tenacity of purpose, towards addressing a real social issue. He could make the British parliament declare Sati as unlawful.

A story for which Napier is famous involves a delegation of Hindu locals approaching him and complaining about prohibition of Sati, often referred to at the time as suttee, by British authorities. This was the custom of burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. The exact wording of his response varies somewhat in different reports, but the following version captures its essence:

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.- Charles James Napier

To say that Gandhi was a saint who became famous without any conscious and meticulously planned efforts on his part to become famous, would be the heights of folly. For, as a person who has experienced the mental prompts of the people of this geographical area, I would categorically say that there was a very deliberate planning on the part of Gandhi to arrive on the heights of the British-Indian political activity. All his actions and words are just meticulously worked out political strategies. However, there would be other persons also in the same competition, who would work to checkmate him.

Evaluating another charlatan

My mind here moves to the possibility of someone making a film of Nelson Mandela. Who can act in that role? Any black man from Africa from the not-rich, English-educated classes over there? Well, the chance is less. The role would most probably be given to some British or US or some other English nation domiciled Black actor. Again the person who appears in the film will have as much likeness to the real African-language speaking Mandela as a lamb would have the likeness of a hyena.

The real Mandela can be evaluated only from his real personality. How much of the native African language, culture and custom pejoratives and snubbing did he refuse to inflict on the native blacks there? If he come out with an outstanding ranking in this regard, he is great. Otherwise, he is just another person who rode high by igniting volatile and unintelligent mob emotions. To gather back his royal rights over the suppressed native people there.

The same could be said about Nehru also. And also about certain rich communist leaders also, who studied in England and came back to ‘India’ to run a passing-show of ‘revolution’ in which they remain on top of so-many non-descript and desperate individuals. Bringing real improvement to this group of people is never in their agenda.

For it is a foregone conclusion that they cannot be improved. They can only be manipulated. Only the ‘stupid’ Englishmen really tried to improve them. And for that crime, these very beneficiaries rallied to throw stones at them. These people were manipulated by crafty tricksters who called themselves national leaders, whose sole aim was to stall the people’s improvement.

My mother’s father did take part in the freedom struggle in Tellicherry. However, I do understand that only very few people took an active part in this movement which was directed from Delhi through the help of newspapers. He belonged to a lower caste, which had for the first time in recorded history got a chance to throw off the shackles on it, during the British rule in Malabar. Yet, there was no sense of gratitude. For, gratitude can be felt only by the first generation which came out of the shackles.

The succeeding generations do not see any great factor of benevolence in their liberated life. His father, that is my mother’s grandfather, was to feel the liberation that came upon his family through English intervention. He used to sing praises of Queen Victoria in his home. He used to address her as Amma Maha Rani. For the first time, Thiyyas got a chance to feel that they are not under the suppression of any other ‘Indian’, including the higher castes. That they could sit on a table, sleep on a cot, had the right to wear proper dress and to study.

One can’t find fault with him. For, the early blacks who escaped from slavery through British intervention and help did sing the praise of Queen Victoria. Yet, the later generations had no personal experience of slavery or saving from slavery. Their information was all school-fed nonsense. See these lines from one of the songs that the escaped slaves used to sing. Which school history textbook has such things in it?

EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES

Oh, I heard Queen Victoria say,

That if we would forsake

Our native land of slavery,

And come across the lake;

That she was standin’ on de shore,

Wid arms extended wide,

To give us all a peaceful home

Beyond de rolling tide.

Farewell, ole master, etc.

Speaking about communist leaders, see this quote from an old article on a particular Communist leader that came in the New Indian Express some years ago. See the rich and feudal family links and their link to English education right inside England and their participation in the so-called Indian Independence Movement. At heart is the idea to stand on top of both the feudal systems as well as on top of the social revolution. A very cunning ambivalent stance, which more or less defines ‘Indian’ leaders.

QUOTE: Kumaramangalam is the name of a zamin village owned by his family in Salem district. If successful careers were one way they carried that name across the country, marriage was another.

For instance, Subbarayan was a Gounder

and his wife Radhabhai, a Mangalore Brahmin, Mohan Kumaramangalam the third son of Subbarayan married Kalyani who was a Bengali and Ranga’s wife Kitty is a Punjabi.

Subbarayan was a barrister, educated in London. His three sons and a daughter were also educated in England. While Mohan Kumaramangalam became a reputed criminal lawyer, one of his elder brothers Paramashivam Kumaramangalam who passed away earlier this year served as India’s army chief. The other brother Gopal Kumaramangalam was the former Chairman of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation and a sister Parvathi Krishnan is a CPI (Communist party) leader and lives in Coimbatore. She is married to NK Krishnan a Palakkad (Palghat) Brahmin whom she met during her days in Oxford. An active leader of AITUC (Communist Party Trade Union), she was elected to Lok Sabha from Coimbatore in 1957 and 1972.

Despite their English education, during the Freedom Struggle, the entire family plunged into the movement and courted arrest. END OF QUOTE

MY COMMENT: Every rich family in British-India wanted to have their children in England. And they, when they lived in England, understood how easy it was to come into national leadership, if the British rule was removed. The fact is that if their family liked to have their children have direct access to British systems and England, almost all the other family in British India would have desired the same.

Neutralising the English advantage

I think I need to mention Anton Balasingham who was a leader of the LTTE. His wife was a white Australian lady of British descent. This platform naturally gave him and his movement a real capacity to be on par with a lot of world leaders, even when the LTTE was described by the jealous media of the Asian nations as a rag and tag army of misfits. Now, it was in Sri Lankan interest to see that this man was removed from the scene. By removing him from the scene, the total address of the LTTE again goes down to the lower indicant word codes of the Asian languages.

Now getting Balasingham neutralised was priority number one in the war. He died seemingly of natural causes. Well, if a study is done on his body, it might be possible to see evidence of a case of death by poison. Well, treachery is the very spice of Asian social systems and there are specific codes in Asian languages that insist on betrayal. After all, the debacle of the LTTE was possible only by the inside information rolled out by a traitor in the camp. What would become of him, now, I am not sure!

The travails of benevolence

Getting the people out of the scope of improvement delivered by the British had this terrible outcome. A new class of persons who improved intellectually and socially through the various British inputs came up. However, they had no allegiance to the British, but to others who told them false facts about British aims. Actually when one speaks about British aims, first of all we have to filter out ‘English aims’. (For Britain has other native languages also; Welsh, Gaelic & Irish). Then there is the issue of ordinary Englishmen coming to ‘India’ and seeing themselves as superior to a lot many persons here. For no fault of theirs, but due to the self deprecating communication codes in ‘India’.

Here again I need to explain. When a newcomer goes to a new place, he is introduced to new people. If each one of them is innately understood by themselves as lower class, it is not the newcomers’ fault that certain people appear as despoiled and as dirt. It is the responsibility of the local society to see that no one is introduced as low. However, when the newcomer sees that he has to use such lower indicant words as Nee, Avan, Aval, Eda, Edi etc. to the local people, he would do it, if he is also under similar mental compulsions. Actually, when ‘Indians’ go anywhere, they innately do pick on the local people for pecking. All feudal-language-nation people would do it. However, it is easy to see that the English did not do it. For, they had no mental compulsion to do it. Yet, they were aware of its terrible power when they came to reside in Asian nations.

Even the issue of people of Indian origin being pushed out in many African nations can be traced to this factor. They generally come on top by crushing the local natives using pejorative codes.

The feel for acting out a higher level of social standing in front of the natives was a compulsion that they forcefully maintained. I have seen it in this short story by Somerset Maugham, The Rain. Sadie Thompson, the white lady is of dubious reputation among the white folks. However what worries certain white folk is seen in this quote:

“Between ourselves, Dr Macphail, I don’t say that I have formed a very favourable opinion of Mr Davidson, but I am bound to confess that he was within his rights in pointing out to me the danger that the presence of a woman of Miss Thompson’s character was to a place like this where a number of enlisted men are stationed among a native population.”

MY COMMENT: Note the words: among a native population. The hint is about the havoc on the communication (indicant) codes. The white lady would go down to the despicable stink levels in the indicant codes of the natives, within hearing distance of the enlisted men. Once this lower indicant word code can be attached to one white person, then the next item would be the feeling that it can be used on other English folks. The effect contains the roots of the Thrash White phenomenon, that later was to infect all English nations wherein feudal-language speakers also barged in as equal citizens.

This is one information that did not filter to the native English lands. No one could properly explain the gist of this issue. For many persons, these things that I mention here are below the levels of decent discussion. It is an area of discussion that can literally reach out to the deep sensitive spots of human discernment and reflexes.