The Many Indias - Haphazard Thoughts

I would not have touched this issue with a barge pole, but since the Indian Express has given it an editorial status, I feel I too can talk about the issue of a north south divide in India.

The Express pointed out that the headlines of national newspapers highlighted that the national films awards were bagged by the SOUTH, and raises the question if South and North are different countries.

My experience of living in many parts of India confirms that there is indeed such a divide in the minds of Indians, a fact which seeps through inevitably into the language of their daily parlance.

And there is animosity too – perhaps not with too serious consequences generally. The Shiv Sainik hostility towards the 'Southies' in the sixties and seventies and towards the 'Northies' in the present century, which translates into violent assault, is an isolated localised phenomenon.

When you look closely at the issue, certain nuances become visible. These complexities emerge in metros like, say, Mumbai. Mumbaikers don’t consider themselves North Indians, something which deep down in Kerala, I hadn’t realized. In Mumbai, I’ve had my head bitten off a couple of times for referring to Mumbaikers as North Indians. Mumbaikers are “West” Indians, a category with intelligence and sophistication superior to the rest of India. A slip of the tongue and you refer to them as East Indian, you’ll have your head broken into smithereens – for that is a category for with they have supreme contempt. So we have the North, South, and the West.

From the Kerala where I grew up, I formed the notion that all North Indians are cerebrally challenged, except the Bengalees for whom Mallus have some sneaking admiration. And so it is common to hear us Mallus trying to list out the points of similarities between the Mallu and the Bengalees – fish eating and rice eating habits, light colour of the saree women wear, intelligence, Marxism blah blah blah. My take on this issue is mallus and bongs are as different as two people can possibly be – neither for better nor worse.

Sorry for the digression. To return to the subject in hand - There was a time in my unenlightened youthful days when my friends and I earnestly believed that all ‘Northies’ were ‘Bhaiyyas’, which was a derogatory term used to dismissively speak of the inferior intelligence of North Indians who, we admitted, were fair and beautiful and - well that’s it. Nothing more. The term Bhaiyya as a belittling term was so ingrained in my mind that when my nieces and nephews, in all respect for him, added the word 'bhayya' to my son’s name (because they or somebody thought that chetan or angala was too naadan), I used to cringe inside and pray earnestly that he would not grow up to earn that name! Thank God, in my mid thirties, I was completely cured about my biased and stupid notions of graded intelligence among the Indians.

Within the southern states, there is this highly ethnocentric notion about the cerebral capacities of the denizens of the four states. Mallus are supremely contemptuous of the talmilians -‘Pandis’ as they call them. The term has a lot of negative connotations, mostly related to unintelligence, colour and lack of sophistication. Regarding the Kannadigas, we talk of all Gowdas as Goondas. I once heard a Mallu assert very authoritatively that the origin of the word Gowda is Goonda!! But there is a huge, unconcealed admiration for the Andhraites. I don’t know what the other southern states think of the Mallus, but I know, from a friend, that they are very wary of us. “If you see a Cobra and Mallu, kill the Mallu first" is a favourite maxim, said my Tamilian friend.

It was during my stint in Mumbai that I came to know that the women with whom I worked (from all parts of India to the North of the Vindhyas) had a fascination for South Cottons. Most of my saris were light printed cottons made in cotton mills in Gujarat. We get them in plenty in Kerala. But my Mumbai friends used to insist that they were “South cottons”. They’d nearly faint in sheer ecstasy when I wear village cottons. Wear a Kasavu sari(Travancore cotton, as they call it), you’ll have to wear an thank-you placard round your neck - or you’d tire your tongue out and weaken you muscles around the mouth expressing and smiling your gratitude for the tsunami of tributes showered on your sari - from the student community too. So the divide also exercises itself in the act of exoticising that strange region to the south of the Vindhyas where a strange species called the Madrasis live!

I remember a common sentiment expressed in Kerala among educated Malayalees in the sixties. South India should have been a different country – at least it should be part of a loose Indian federation where the Centre would have control only over the defense matters. They (? I’m not sure who) were not fair to Kerala, it was felt. It was a case of taxation without representation! The state of kerala gets hardly any representation in the Central government or a decent budget allotment, but it contributes heavily to the Central coffers through exports – don’t ask me how/what -just bits and pieces I have heard and remember.

I remember a very painful incident while working in a college in Mumbai. My very good friend – a Mumbaiker – fumed into the department, dumped her books and handbag on her table, whirled around and asked me:
“What is this, molly? Is it to be given according to the whims of the President?”
I had no clue as to what she was talking about. Seeing me blink with incomprehension she said
”MS Subhalakshmi is getting Baharat Ratna”
“Well deserved, don’t you think?” I asked sincerely.
“What do you mean? Why does she deserve it more that Bhimsen Jhoshi?”
I could have told her that it was not just her singing skill that won her that honour – but didn’t venture to, seeing how agitated she was.
“I’ll tell you why. The President is a South Indian”. !!!!!!!!!

I chose to hold my peace. And it took her a week to forgive me for KR Narayanan, the President from Kerala favouring a South Indian by bestowing on her the highest award in the country.

This type of stereotyped thinking and the animosity it generates are not peculiar to India alone. Russel listed this tendency under the category 'intellectual rubbish' (One Englishman is equal to five French). Modern theorist have written/continue to write libraries of complex, involved abstract theories in strange unpalatable language to establish that there are no distinguishing features that are exclusive to any one category of people. But it’ll take aeons before we humans are able to relate to each other outside the contexts of caste, creed, nationality, class, ideology, race and what not.