01. Improving the female folk

Now going back to quality improvement, it is a theme that has a lot of frill elements.

The way quality improvement is envisaged in English is quite different from what it is understood as, in ‘Indian’ feudal languages. For example, in ‘Indian’ feudal languages, one is understood to have improved in quality if one has elevated oneself by some means wherein one can use degrading lower level pejorative indicant words to others. Such as, become an Indian government official, become rich, become powerful, become a teacher etc. Here the quality improvement essentially means the capacity to degrade and despoil others. It does not mean being polite, courteous and similar things.

If a woman is seen as improved, it just means that she has arrived at some social position wherein she can use these lower indicant words on a lot more people. There would be no link with a refinement in physical appearance, courteous stances, propensity to stand in a queue or to form a queue, being affable, show a stance of fair-play etc. Actually, it is not an individual issue. For, that is the only way they can improve.

I remember one Trivandrum-based female bus conductor speaking on Malayalam TV. One of her female colleagues was brutally spanked by a female passenger. She said the right attitude was to pose a very offensive posture to the passengers. Otherwise they would ‘climb on the head’. Now, what this means is that the social conditioning for effective communication was to be offensive. Being polite means being weak. For, a show of power, which comes from an offensive posture, would garner higher indicant words. If one were to be polite, the other person would immediately use words like Mole (child), Pennu (lower grade female), aval (lower grade She), Nee (lower grade You), Thaan (lower grade You) and such words in a pose of affection. Words have terrible effect, of which native-English speakers do not have any idea.

I remember one young man coming to me. He was going to England ostensibly for studying for MBA (but really to use it as a ruse to get a UK citizenship). His father was in the Middle East and did understand the difference that a UK citizenship could make. This young man told me in a tone of total surprise that a female had called from the university in UK. He was totally surprised that she had spoken in a very polite tone, which was a totally new experience for him. ‘How is this possible?’ was his query. He was under the impression that the staff in the UK university would be very cantankerous as in Indian government offices. The tone was quite nice and very polite.

I simply told him: ‘When you mention this incident to others, you would use the word ‘Pennu’ and ‘olu’ about her for she was quite polite. In India, the females in powerful institutions would take care to ward off that possibility by first terrorising you with tone and procedures, to avoid that categorisation’.

DIGRESSION: To allow outsiders to come and train themselves inside England can be the height of economic idiotism. Outsiders who come there are not the poor, but the quite rich. For, only they can afford to move to Britain. They basically come from locally powerful business or bureaucratic families.

I remember a story told by a Madras based shop owner. Two Malayalee young men came to him. They were quite obsequious, obedient and ‘respectful’. They wanted a job to survive in Madras. He was quite impressed by their pose of servitude. He gave them jobs inside his big shop which was dealing with certain specialised products. Soon, the two of them became quite friendly with the customers, for they used the same obliging stance with them also.

However one fine morning they left their jobs. He was soon to hear that they had started a fantastic shop in the next street, with much modern amenities and business connections. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the fantastic professionalism in the other shop’s design and decor.

What he clearly missed was a non-tangible information. The year was around 1985. Almost all Malyalees do have someone working in the gulf (Middle East). That provides that family not only a financial capacity expansion, but also direct exposure to current international business standards. All that the two Malayalee young men had to do was to get a platform in Madras, learn the business, get connected to customers and then to call their family members in the gulf. A grand business setting, much better than anything that the Madras businessman could envisage, is soon in operation.

The Madras businessman was weeping as he informed me that a good percentage of his customers had been taken away by the two persons, to whom he had acted benevolently.

Quality improvement as envisaged by the English educators here was by improving the innate quality and dignity of the individuals by reducing the chance for the others in the society to erase innate human refinement. This could be achieved by learning English. I am sure that even Lord Macaulay did not really understand the real depth and capacity of lower indicant words to reduce human individuality. However he did sense that there was something negative or rather diabolic inside ‘Indian’ systems.

What this was he did not precisely identify. However, his very repulsion for ‘Indian’ native systems and languages is quite evident in the way he describes and defines them in his Minutes on Indian Education. However, it is true that there were others in England who felt that giving English to the ‘Indians’ could be dangerous. For, there were powerful proposals made to the East India Company not to teach English to the ‘Indians’.

Improving the female folk

Improving the quality of the women folk should not be seen as a separate theme, quite apart from the local social issues. For example, nowadays the general theme is that the women should more or less revolt against their husbands and move out. That is they should move out into the trap set by other waiting guys. This whole theme is quite stupid and propagated by persons who either do not understand what they are doing. Or it is done by vested interests who have their own private agenda inside this.

Indian feminists view the Indian men as low quality and cannot bear to see their wives being loyal and committed to such low quality men. They want the females to improve. It is akin to asking their own subordinates to improve beyond their boss’s capacities and calibre. If such a thing is done, the institution would fail or falter. What has to be envisaged is to improve the quality of both the men as well as the women folk. When seen thus, the very imposing of reservation for women in each and every statutory organisation or institution is a grave crime. For, this serves only to legitimise the claims of low quality and low calibre.

Reserving seats for women has a powerful element of mutual contradiction. For the claim is that the female are equal or superior to the males. If that be the case, there is no need for reservation. If the claim is that they are inferior, then it should be statutorily accepted that they are inferior. If that be the case, then the males have a dominant role to play in society, for which the females are unfit or of less capacity.

However, this type of contentions reaches us nowhere. Yet, the facts as observable can be mentioned thus. Indian males on an average are not of great calibre, capacity, attainments or refinement. ‘Indian’ feudal-language codes can be held responsible to a great extent for this. But then, from a similar perspective, Indian females are worse in the case of capacity, calibre and refinement. This is the reality.

Now, before speaking about how to change this, there are two things that I need to input. One is my own experience when bringing up my daughters Varuna and Ashwina. Second, the question of whether anyone in India really desires to see the males and females here improving in capacity, calibre and refinement.