48. Who should ‘respect’ whom?

For a government office worker (employee), if a common person, who enters the office, does not stand with a bow, and with adequate ‘respect’, it is a problem. For, in a feudal language, individuals who do not exhibit ‘respect’ would be expected to behave in an impertinent manner. Feudal languages are not languages in which both sides can continue a conversation for long, exhibiting their equal stature and dignity.

The government office worker (employee) would exhibit his or her right to address the common person by his or her name. However, if the same right is exhibited by the common person, to address the government office worker by his or her name, it would be seen as an abusive behaviour, impertinence and absolute rowdy attitude.

In Malayalam, if a common person addresses a government office worker (employee) as ‘Ningal’ (middle level - You), it would treated as rank rascality, in most government offices.

At the same time, if the government office worker (employee) addresses the common man as Ningal, there is no problem. At the same time, the start reality of India is that in many village-level government offices, even the office peon would have no qualms in addressing many a wearied-out villager as Nee (lowest level – You) who is desperate to get some small-time official paper from the government office.

At the same time, if the common citizen were to address the government office worker (employee) with a Nee, it would be treated as a grave criminal offence. The government office workers (employees) have joined together and conspired and deliberately created written-laws by which such persons can be sent to jail.

What can be mentioned about the ‘peoples’ representatives who give statutory validity to such irascible laws? Can anything be safely said?

If anyone shows some soft or considerate behaviour, it is quite natural to act outrageously rude to them. That much is encoded in the internal codes of feudal languages. This is very much known to the government office workers (employees). So, they would not get any sense of security unless they are able to make the common citizen who stands before them to bent and bow.

If a common citizen enters a government office and addresses the employees therein with a ‘Ningal’, and that too without any expression of subservience, it is very much possible that many of the employees would exhibit some kind of mental imbalance. If the location is where they can beat up a person, then it is very much possible that the common citizen would get nicely thrashed. For, the government employee, who has thus lost his mental balance, would act quite homicidal.

However, the actual fact is that the problem does not lie within either the government office worker (employee) or the common citizen. The problem maker is the native feudal language. It is not known as to what the ‘expert’ committee which had recommended the change of administration from English to Malayalam, had mentioned with regard to this issue.

The core issue here is who should ‘respect’ whom. The wider issue is that if the worker has to be revered and treated with ‘respect’ by the employer, the worker ceases to be a worker. This is also a problem that has to be taken into consideration.

Some more things need to be said about the above-mentioned points. A bit of history also might need to be added. The other around-30 points can be mentioned some other time