KERALA - BANDHS AND GUNAS

After the Aryans intellectually overcame the Malabar of those times, they imposed Varna Ashrama in the land. They studied the people and socially categorized them into layers that would ultimately benefit the Aryan scheme of things. The Aryans naturally took the highest level of Brahmins for themselves. All those that aligned with them like the Ambalavasis or temple workers, were made half or quarter Brahmins. The Nairs were the warriors and kings and could not be antagonised. The money and lands were with them. Therefore, the next rung was practically theirs. Nevertheless, only the Kings among them were made temporary Kshatriyas through elaborate rituals.
The Varna categories had to be justified through genetic dispositions or gunas of the people. In Samkhya philosophy a guna is one of three "tendencies": tamas, sattva, and rajas. These categories were a common means of categorizing behaviour and natural phenomena in Hindu philosophy, and in Ayurvedic medicine, as a system to assess conditions.
The Brahmins had to have the Sattva element, translated to mean balance, order, or purity; in their genes. The Kshatriyas had to have Rajas or activity; the Vaishyas were of Rajas or Tamas, and all the rest possessed only the Tamas quality.
The Aryans in their wisdom attributed the Tamas disposition to the majority of Malabaris. In fact, except for the Aryan Brahmins or Namboodiris, all others in Kerala are Shudras and Chandalas. While this might all be traced to political considerations, the ‘scientific’ basis of the classification cannot be merely wished away in view of the general personality make-up of Mallus as seen in their current bandh/hartal/strike culture.

Tamas (originally "darkness", "obscurity") has been translated to mean "too inactive", negative, lethargic, dull, or slow. A tamas quality can imply that a person has a self-destructive or entropic state of mind. That person is constantly pursuing destructive activities. Indologist Georg Feuerstein translates tamas as "inertia"
Tamas, or tamo-guna, is the lowest of the three gunas. It is a life force or energy that is characterised by one or more of the states of: (1) darkness, (2) death, (3) destruction, (4) ignorance, (5) sloth and (6) resentment. Tamas is static, unlike rajas or sattva. This most negative guna rejects Karmic Law and the central principle of dharma that one's Karma must be acted out and not ignored.
Now to Kerala’s all-paralyzing Bandh culture. Kerala celebrated its 78th all-state Bandh of the year on 20th August 2008 as part of the national strike by Left unions. There had also been several ward/pachayat/village/constituency/district bandhs in the State in between. Being too usual, these are not enumerated anywhere.
Keralites are said to actually celebrate Bandhs. The cable TV and the Internet have made the salaried middle classes look forward to days of such enforced leisure. Kerala Civil servants do not have a dies-non on Bandhs. The government pays them salary for striking work and joining Bandhs. The manual labourers of Kerala are higher paid than their counterparts anywhere else in the world and they too do not mind a day without work. The characteristics of the tamo-guna are thus strongly exhibited in the work culture and lifestyle of Mallus at home. They themselves thus prove the Aryans right in classifying them all as Shudras and Chandalas.
What lets such forces of darkness, death, destruction, ignorance, sloth and resentment colonise the fertile brains of Mallus, only when they are within Kerala? It could all merely be the effects of the extreme humidity of the climate and the radiation from the coastal mineral sand in God’s own country! The evil forces of Globalisation that are said to be attempting exploitation of this labour paradise ought to research this.

LEFT BANDH ON JULY 20, 2008

Victim: The strike on Wednesday stopped Rodia from rushing to Kottayam from the capital city after her four-year-old son died. Here, she walks out of the Kottayam railway station with her elder son.
KOTTAYAM: In a heart-rending scene at the Thiruvananthapuram Central station on Wednesday, a young woman (Rodia Santhosh) was seen weeping even as political activists picketed the train which was to take her home for a last glimpse of her son.
Rodia Santhosh had come to the capital city to consult doctors at the Regional Cancer Centre in the hope of prolonging her four-year-old son, Richu’s life. Richu (Ronal Santhosh), afflicted with blood cancer, was fighting for life at a private hospital in Ernakulam. For the mother, it was the last ray of hope.
But, the world collapsed before her when news came in that the boy had given up his fight against the silent killer. Ms. Rodia received the shattering news on Wednesday morning. She rushed to the station to take the Bombay Jayanti-Janata Express, scheduled to leave at 7.10 a.m., to take her to Kottayam. However, what greeted her was something different — political activists were picketing trains, leading to long delay. She, along with her brother, had no option but to wait in the waiting room, weeping in silence.
Finally the train resumed journey after a delay of one hour and the authorities interfered to make her travel as fast as possible, as television channels aired the story.
She arrived at the Kottayam railway station by 2.20 p.m. Her elder son Jithu (Sonal Santhosh) and other relatives were waiting here to take her to her house at Kattachira, near Pala.
Police help out
A consoling factor was that police personnel took the initiative to make her travel from Kottayam to Kattachira as easy as possible. The mother and her relatives were taken home in police vehicles.
Ronal was the son of Santhosh Mathew of Ponkathil House, Kattachira, a businessman settled in Ernakulam. His wife Rodia is a beautician. The funeral will be held at St. Xavier’s Church cemetery, Kattachira on Thursday morning. Every hartal begets its own stories of inhuman sufferings caused by the insensitivity of this strange political weapon. On Wednesday, it was Ronal’s mother’s turn.
------------------------------------------------------------------The passing away of the infant was long anticipated; the Bandh had nothing to do with it. The mother's not being able to rush back was unfortunate; but in Kerala, such delay could have happened on any other day also, due to any number of silly causes including a text book-agitation morcha or train picketing by the UDF. That the CM and the DGP rose to the occasion is unfortunately not being highlighted elsewhere. Why did the other passengers in the Waiting Room omit to do anything at all? Lucky that the affected happened to be Christians from Manorama territory!

What can we expect from the LDF in Bandh matters when the Opposition is so ridiculous as to call for Bandhs even against Chikun guniya?

In the early 1970s, the CPM burned a transport bus in Malabar during a Bandh. A passenger’s burned corpse remained in the bus, sitting on a scorched seat, with its arm raised and bent as if in a question mark to the society. Manorama had made a lot about it in those days. Unfortunately, none of their new boys know about such bloodier early times of Kerala Bandhs.

Hope now lies on goondas and bullies like the NDF and RSS moving against Bandh-ers on behalf of the MNCs in the near future. Ushnam ushnena shanthi! The Church can also help with a few Idaya Lekhanams! Bandhs by the Church and the RSS/NDF would also be suitably defeated by the others then.