We often hear the saying that one cannot be more knowledgeable than knowing about his or her own limitations. This is true for a community as well. The majority community in Kerala is slowly but clearly waking up to the realisation that they are no more the majority in any sense of the term but have serious limitations to overcome. The Clever and Muscular communities (CC and MC respectively) have beaten the Humbled community (HC) so squarely that the great realisation has come as rude shock to many. In a way it was destined to happen. Most members of HC have been highly complacent about the future and the so-called creamy layer (of HC) was arrogantly unsympathetic to less fortunate brethren within our own fold. Enjoying the sunshine in an entire coastline of our own, we found pleasure when sand was harvested out from under our own feet. And unwilling to respond to our wailing neighbours under assault, we are now finding our few houses trapped in a new unfriendly neighbourhood. We have been sleeping and this slippage to minority status is the price we have already paid. Now that the great realisation has taken place, it is time to think about how it happened and what needs to be done in the short and long term to survive in Kerala as a decent minority.
From Protected to Privileged
1498 AD is a landmark for anyone analysing the decline of HC in Kerala. That was the year when the European sailor Vasco da Gama set foot in Kerala and was received with great warmth by the people and rulers of Kerala. Had he faced an uneasy welcome and unfriendly crowd, the history of Kerala (and India) would have been much different. Many foreign travellers had visited us in the past but Vasco de Gama was of a different stuff. He was a greedy sailor and a very clever one too. Like his ideological successors in Kerala now (the Daddies & Mummies of Kerala), the brilliant businessman in him quickly noticed the virgin land available for a cocktail of religion, business and power. What followed was a well executed drama of deception and betrayal of faith (of the innocent natives and their benevolent rulers). This unabashed display of manipulative manoeuvring has continued all through colonial days and even after independence when our new constitution came into existence.
Indian constitution is one of best in terms of many aspects. The protection given to religious minorities has been enviable and unprecedented. Though HC is avowedly secular, the founding fathers felt it necessary to have adequate protection for the religious minorities in the constitution itself, just in case the majority community turned around at a future time. Perhaps the division of the country on religious lines made it inevitable. But very soon things started going sour with the dirty designs of electoral politics. Protection gave way to special rights which is complete anathema to the concept of a civilised society pursuing socialism and secularism. Sections of society that needed to be protected became the privileged ones in due course. In Kerala, the situation has become so much distorted that almost 75% of all the institutions in education and healthcare sectors are under the control of 25% of people belonging to CC and MC who have successfully (mis)used the special privileges. Business and trade have been monopolised to more than 80% in favour of certain communities. In the present day Kerala society, social justice and equality are non-existent. Those who look to left for social justice may well remember that the present situation has arisen in Kerala in spite of (or because of) a strong presence of communist forces in the state.
Multiplying Tricks
Coupled with successful distortion of the constitutional provisions for protection to mean special rights, the clever communities have pushed their hidden agenda so brilliantly in the fields of harvesting souls and accelerating the multiplication of harvested souls. Along with organised harvest and migration, the accidental 'third child' was a well thought plan to push up the population without being noticed. The rigid pro-life stance of the institution provided a convenient cover for the community members to procreate and beat the competition. Another strategy was annexing lands using settlers in Malabar and Wayanad. Far off lands were conquered by carefully organised migration aided and abetted by those in power under the guise of encouragement for cultivation in barren lands. Encroachment and encroachers were encouraged so much that many successful politicians and political parties owe their existence only to the migrant encroachers. What nature and original owners of the land lost in terms of forest cover and natural wealth was cornered off as private properties by the clever men and their communities. The extent of encroachment is exposed in the visual media year after year during the natural calamities in the form of landslides in the hilly tracts of Western Ghats.
For those who believe that everyone is fair or at least fairer in the twenty first century, the 'hallabulla' that followed the tsunamis in our coastal belts was an eye-opener. Hundreds of foreign and Indian NGOs queued up to offer relief and rehabilitation. The sole intention of many of them was the potential scope for harvesting souls. It is this never ending hunger for harvest that is disgusting to many in the civilised world. But the game of marketing religion still pays in the third world and that is why disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes and floods bring smile to the face of some ace religious marketers from the west. Some representatives of God in earth still believe that quantity (not quality) of believers counts when their own case comes up for consideration for a place in heaven. What happens to the converted souls is hardly of any importance to them. They are interested only in harvesting by any means and in getting the harvested ones to multiply exponentially.
Strategy for Survival
Survival of the fittest is a natural phenomenon. Only those individuals and communities that can adapt to changing times can survive. The most important pre-requisite for adaptation is the realisation about threats and opportunities. We have made great progress in this regard. During the past ten centuries Indians have realised many things, being at the receiving end of a series of military and ideological attacks. We now realise the simple fact that threats for Indian nation are not solely from the 'failed state' or the 'confused state' in our neighbourhoods. Bigger ideological threats are emanating from one of the tiniest nations thousands of kilometres away. The missionary missiles targeted at our nation have force multiplier effects with their local variants. Confused communists are fuelling the missiles for their own reasons. It might seem that communism and missionaries are strange bed fellows. But the simple fact that they complement each other in many of their objectives makes them comrades in arms. For both forces, a completely disorganised and disoriented majority community is the best bet for their foreign ideologies to flourish. But they are heavily mistaken when they are facing an enlightened community of few but firm adherents.
The ultimate weapon of defence is offence. It is indeed the last option. But when it becomes inevitable, the war has to be taken to enemy's camp. That is what Lord Krishna has explained so convincingly in Gita. In our context, the war is regarding harvest of souls. Government after government have failed to legislate on this vital matter concerning even the security and integrity of Indian nation. Leaders who won the elections on a secular mandate have failed the people much more than the pseudo-secularists. The proponents of organised harvest of souls in India must be made to realise the ultimate truth in all natural processes ' that reverse osmosis is equally possible as osmosis. It will not take much time and effort to convince those who have been harvested on the false promise of equality to return home. The only thing that needs to be done is to put our own house in order. The ultimate success always lies with those who respect and worship Mother Nature because nothing unnatural can survive in nature.
