THE COMMUNIST DISTORTION OF MAPPILA REVOLT

This is an extract from the PhD dissertation by Patrick Hesse, submitted to the Faculty of Culture, Social Sciences and Education of the Humboldt University of Berlin, in 2015. The thesis is titled, "To the Masses" - Communism and Religion in North India, 1920–47.

Although communists had had no part in the moplah rebellion—in fact, the CPI hadn’t established so much as a single cell on the subcontinent yet—, it soon figured prominently in the localization of communism. In view of M N Roy’s anti-bourgeois stance in the Comintern debates on the agents of revolution in colonial countries, the Moplah rebellion was a much needed point of reference on two counts. First, it figured as a prime example of the militant mass struggle that Roy posited as the core of the khilafat and non-cooperation movements. Second, the uprising served to showcase the relative lack of radicalism in Gandhi and the Congress. Gandhi had condemned the insurgents because of their ample use of force. The communists, however, soon fashioned it into the beginning of revolution.

Neither the scarcity of reports nor the tenor of the few available pieces of information could detract from the communist determination to claim the rebellion. On the contrary, its initial perception through the lens of an Eastern revolutionary paradigm ensured that its pronounced fundamentalist component contributed to a positive assessment. A 1921 Inprecorr (International Press Correspondence, the international organ of the Comintern) article located the rebellion’s origins in religious outrage: Soldiers had entered mosques in a bid to arrest Muslim leaders and thus had desecrated the sites. This had caused “understandable” indignation among the Muslim population1.

M N Roy

Abdur Rab, founder member of the CPI, not yet fallen from Bolshevik revolutionary grace, felt vindicated in his view that Brahmins were no more than hesitant compromisers, whereas “the Muslims” had gone straight for “immediate revolution.”2 For him, the uprising was anti-colonial struggle par excellence. In a rare case of agreement between the two, Roy echoed this endorsement when he called for extending what had “burst out spontaneously at […] Malabar” to the entire subcontinent in the manifesto submitted to the 1922 Gaya Congress. Later, Roy even boasted to have had a hand in the uprising through his agents.3 While this seems presumptuous, his straightforward embrace of the rebellion leaves little doubt that its religious fanaticism did at least not contradict Roy’s aspirations.

Ironically, these first responses bore close resemblance to British assessments. The only difference was that they embraced the rebellion on the very grounds that led British officials to discount it as obstinate fundamentalism. Slogans such as the call for a khilafat republic had stirred the refractory Moplahs into action, and thanks to their inherent fanaticism they had taken the injunctions literally. The extent to which a social dimension of the conflict was gainsaid becomes apparent in a telegram to the Government of India, where F B Evans stipulated that there was no reason to suppose “that agrarian discontent was even a contributory cause of the rising”4 : Initially, the colonial and the communist point of view concurred in the cultural substance of the argument.

Only when cues to non-religious motivations of the revolting Moplahs became available did subsequent communist contributions switch to the emphasis of the rebellion’s purported materialist underpinnings. Referring to the report of a Kerala Congress committee tasked with an enquiry, the Vanguard approvingly quoted from a speech by the committee’s head, V. S. Gayatri Iyer*, characterizing the uprising as a consequence of “long standing and acute agrarian grievances.”5 The systematic destruction of public records demonstrated that forced evictions had been a core cause of the outbreak. Roy jumped to the conclusion that Iyer had “proved [!] that the rebellion was neither for the Khilafat nor directly against the British government […] [but] primarily against landlordism.”6

Yet, in the mid-1920s the rapidly worsening inter-communal climate forced Roy to reconsider the religious factor. The surge in communalism after the end of non-cooperation made it difficult to uphold the conviction that religion was just a relic, an ephemeral phenomenon bound to be swept aside by the strides of history (that is, the class struggle). Since all it had been swept aside in were the terminological regulations Roy had applied, in the end he came round to admit an “ugly character of religious fanaticism.”7 Still, this had been possible only because the conflicting classes had belonged to different religions. As to the basics, he remained convinced that despite a “certain religious character” the Moplah revolt had been “an agrarian revolt.”8 In the same measure that religious fanaticism had been emphasized earlier, communist commentary would henceforth belittle it to the extent that the rebellion acquired the halo of a revolutionary example for peasant communism.

Saumyendranath Tagore

And yet, the CPI-led Kerala state government’s bid to introduce pensions for veteran insurgents on rebellion’s golden jubilee in 1971 met with unequivocal rejection from senior CPI(M) opposition leader Namboodiripad (1909–1998). His claim—understandable from his biographical experience as an indirect victim since his family of wealthy landlords had had to live as refugees for half a year, but very unusual for a communist—that the uprising had been a communal movement seemed to indicate a comprehensive reversal of the rebellion’s embrace in communist quarters.9 What had happened?

Indeed, his assessment appeared diametrically opposed to earlier communist stances. Saumyendranath Tagore’s (1901–1974) pamphlet Peasants Revolt in Malabar, 1921, written after an extensive tour of the area during the early 1930s, constituted the first ‘native’ communist commentary on the rebellion. Certainly it was the first to rely on firsthand accounts. The text was a manifesto of radical dedication to a communist ‘history from below’ and of equally radical determination to preserve the materialist pristineness of popular self-assertion: Throughout the history of revolt among Moplahs, the “apparent causes” of outbreaks had been not religious, but “purely agrarian.”10

Consequently, Tagore portrayed the uprising’s communal dimension as a malignant rumor. “The Moplah peasants were not anti-Hindu by any means […] Not a single Hindu was molested or plundered in those days just because he happened to be a Hindu.”11 Victims among Hindus inevitably had been either class enemies or pro-British, and only those who had collaborated with colonial institutions had been harassed and robbed. Evidently, Tagore didn’t waste time with questions such as how exactly the rebels had told those aiding the British from those loyal to the insurgents. Instead, he extensively quoted allegations by Ahmad Hazi, a peasant leader during the rebellion, that it had been the government which had engineered the destruction of temples and the looting of Hindu houses in order to defame the rebels.12

Tagore’s reductive simplicity soon invited Namboodiripad’s criticism. As it was written during the pro-Muslim euphoria of the CPI’s ‘nationality period’, it is all the more remarkable to see Namboodiripad’s 1943 classic, A Short History of the Peasant Movement in Malabar spell out the rebellion’s motivations in no unclear terms: “The beginning of the riot was partly political and partly agrarian but very soon it developed into a communal movement.”13 Namboodiripad attacked Tagore and other “so-called Marxists” for neglecting a couple of “simple but relevant questions”—such as why the tenant movement and the subsequent rebellion had been restricted to Muslim-majority areas. Neither the bureaucracy nor the landlords had been partial towards Hindu tenants. Nevertheless, the latter had experienced the uprising as predominantly anti-Hindu. Also, Tagore had ignored the forced conversions, which “cannot by any stretch of imagination be explained away as part of a purely agrarian movement.”14

E M S Namboodiripad

Still, it was Namboodiripad’s very theoretical sophistication that eventually enabled him to arrive at a comprehensive absolution of the rebellious Moplahs, and in the end more or less confirm Tagore’s position. To begin with, despite admitting that “a certain percentage of the crimes are of a purely fanatical type” he was quick to identify culprits outside of the ‘masses’: What the corruptive khilafatist influence had been to Tagore, the mullahs were to Namboodiripad. Allegedly, it had been in their interest to turn “the anti jenmi [landlord] sentiments of the peasants into the anti-Hindu sentiments of the Moplahs.” It had come as no surprise, then, that the uneducated peasants had fallen for this. Rather, the remarkable fact was that there had been relatively few “fanatical outbursts”: 

“It clearly shows that with all his traditional illiteracy, backwardness and priest-riddenness, the Moplah peasant is much more a class-conscious peasant than a community-conscious Moplah.”15 

As to why the “class-conscious peasant” had taken a “partially communal turn,” then, Namboodiripad pointed to the withdrawal of Hindus from the movement when it turned violent. “The Moplah found that his Hindu compatriots […] deserted him; the military arrived to hunt him out of his abode; his Hindu neighbours helped the military against him.He naturally got enraged at them [!].”16 Having thus become victims both of the British military and the treacherous infidels, Namboodiripad considered it understandable that the Moplahs turned against Hindus, even common ones.

This rationalizing drive was topped off with a baffling appropriation of the movement’s leadership as suitable revolutionary material. Quite possibly this was a reflection of the CPI’s contemporary holistic embrace of resistive Muslim self-assertions, an embrace that tended to downplay rifts and differences in the exaltation of the greater Muslim cause. Consisting of “saintly Moplahs” strangely unconnected to the maligned ulema, the ideological (that is, religious) lapses of the uprising’s leadership were merely a matter of correct instruction and at any rate eclipsed by their merits as anti-British agitators and peasant leaders:

"Sincere anti-imperialists, they, however, think and speak in the terms of religion which had tremendous effect in rallying the Moplahs […] most of them were good material as peasant cadres if only there had been a good and efficient central leadership […] they showed their mettle as good organizers both before and during the rebellion."17 (emphasis added).

Namboodiripad’s reasoning was all the more remarkable because it concluded a text starting out with an attack on “so-called Marxists” for their ignorance of disagreeable communal facts. As an apparently much better Marxist, Namboodiripad could even imagine the very same leaders doing the very same thing under a properly, that is, communist-organized revolution.

A K Gopalan

His later positions display a similar, if somewhat more sophisticated rationalizing impulse. Emphatically sympathizing with the hunted and deserted Moplahs in a 1970 interview, his justification of their suspicions and aversions towards Hindus became more dogged in the same measure that the latters’ fears and apprehensions were devalued. Namboodiripad averred that the crucial, communally divisive factor had not been actual forced conversions, but rather the fear of them on the part of Hindus. Similarly, he estimated the number of killed Hindus to be quite low, as “it was not so much the number that mattered but the athmosphere [sic!] of tension.”18 Hence, he attributed the spike in the Malabar Arya Samaj’s popularity after the rebellion, which furthered the intercommunal divide, solely to Hindu phantasmagorias, outsourcing the irrational factor to the nonrebelling population segment that had developed essentially unjustified fear. The betrayed and beleaguered Moplahs, on the other hand, had had a rational foundation for their communal outrages as the few Hindus remaining in the area had actively cooperated with the British.19

In view of this background, it can be safely said that Namboodiripad’s seemingly contrary stance on the matter during the above-mentioned 1971 pension controversy originated in motivations of political distinction. Considering his other efforts to acquit the common Moplah peasant (if not the rebellion as a whole) from the charge of communalism, this was clearly an anti-CPI move designed to expose the rival party’s reactionary trends for political reasons rather than because of an evolution in his own positions. Mutual recriminations of the same pattern abounded in the years after the 1964 party split. Hence, the principal merit of Namboodiripad’s “most sophisticated analysis” (Robert Hardgrave) lies in the attainment of an impressive level of rationalization and exculpation, and in the inadvertent exposition of the mechanisms at work there.20

By temperament not prone to complicated theoretical analysis, popular Kerala communist leader A K Gopalan (1904–1977) confirmed the Moplah rebellion’s importance as a reference point for communist identification of resistive subjectivity. His 1973 autobiography confessed that the “Moplah rebellion excited [his] imagination.” Even while the rebellion had been “bereft of intelligent political leadership [and] well-conceived policy or programme, the brave deeds of my Muslim brethren who fought against imperialist oppression enthused me.”21 Notwithstanding their shortcomings, the rebelling Moplahs, braving the constraints of time and place, had managed to come out progressive in a political and a social sense:

"The class sense of Muslim peasants [of Malabar] has sprung from a century-long struggle against feudalism [!] [.…] The last of these struggles against feudalism took place in 1921 [….] There is no memorial yet to the countless martyrs who laid down their lives in the fight for land for the peasants."

Strikingly, Gopalan didn’t bother to explain away (or even mention) religious militancy. To him, one of the most renowned popular leaders of the South Asian communist movement to date and a native of Kerala to boot, the defining criterion seemed to be ‘activity from below’ plain and simple: The political self-assertion of a socially declassed population segment through a rebellion that counted landlords and foreign rulers among its enemies compensated for possible uglier aspects. Ideological motivations apart from those acknowledged by coarse Marxism seemed either irrelevant or non-existent to Gopalan’s perspective, mirroring the entire party’s blind proximity to fundamentalist currents.

__________________________________________

1. “The Revolutionary Movement in India,” Inprecorr, Roll No. 1921/3-B, 18.

2. Izvestia, May 11, 1922, quoted in Home/Poll/1922 Nr. 884, 5–6.

3.Home/Poll/1924 Nr. 261, 110 (quote); Petrie, Communism in India, 283.

4.“Telegram to the Government of India, Home Department, No. M. 163,” in Tottenham, The Mapilla Rebellion, 200. See also “Note on Malabar affairs,” in ibid., 32, and “Letter from the District Magistrate,” in ibid., 17.

5. Quoted in “Materialism vs. Spiritualism,” Vanguard, 1 August 1923. This was long after Roy’s embrace of the rebellion in his manifesto the 1922 Gaya Congress.

6. Ibid.

7. “Economics of Communal Conflict,” Masses of India, January 1925.

8. “The Calcutta Riot,” Masses of India, May 1926.

9.The state government had considered the rebels freedom fighters and as such entitled to special pensions. The central government refused to comply because compatriots had been among the rebellion’s victims as well, triggering an intense debate in Kerala whether the great rebellion belonged to the national movement or not. See Menon, Malabar Rebellion, 475–7.

10. Saumyendranath Tagore, Peasants Revolt in Malabar, 1921, PCJ CPI 2A, 5 (quote), 10–12. 351 Ibid., 16–18.

11. Ibid., 24.

12. E. M. S. Namboodiripad (interviewee), 3, 5 (quote).

13. Namboodiripad, “A Short History,” 179, 182.

14. All quotes ibid., 174–5.

15. Ibid., 184. This motive was dominant in Namboodiripad’s writings on the matter; see Namboodiripad, A History of India, 177.

16. Namboodiripad, “A Short History,” 184.

17. Namboodiripad (interviewee), 20, 22.

18. Ibid., 26.

19. Robert Hardgrave Jr, The Mappilla Rebellion, 90.

20. A K Gopalan, In the Cause of the People: Reminiscences (Bombay: Orient Longmans 1973), 9.

21.Ibid., 249.

* Note: It is V S Sreenivasa Sastri. There was no Gayatri Iyer in Congress and Gayatri is a female name in India- Ramachandran

DALIT SHIVA CONSECRATED

A Dalit Guru, Who Preceded Narayana Guru

When Sree Narayana Guru, the social reformer saint consecrated a Shiva idol at Aruvippuram in 1888, it was a revolution and a break of tradition. The Nambudiri brahmins questioned the legitimacy of a lower caste Ezhava, installing an idol in a temple, and termed it blasphemy. Guru remarked sarcastically, "I have installed an Ezhava Shiva."

Guru, well-learned in the Hindu scriptures, wrote after the consecration: "This is the model abode where everyone will live in brotherhood, without animosity due to differences of caste and religion". 

In Travancore, the lower castes got entry into the temples only after November 12, 1936. The Temple Entry Proclamation was issued by Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma on that day.

It was during his wandering life that Narayana Guru came upon Aruvippuram. He decided to build a place of worship open to all castes. He picked up a stone from the nearby Neyyar River and used it as an idol for the temple and consecrated it. He set up other temples at Aluva, Vypin, Cherai and Moothakunnam.

But the first Ezhava to consecrate a temple was Arattupuzha Velayudha Panikkar. Panikkar, an Ezhava noble, had consecrated a Shiva temple, the Njaneswara temple in 1852,  at Karthikappally. The installation of the idol was done by a non-Brahmin Tantri, Viswanathan Gurukkal, of Kandiyur, Mavelikkara. Panikkar had also selected a non-Brahmin to do the daily pujas. The next year, Panikkar built a Shiva temple at Cheruvaranamkara, Thanneermukkam, near Cherthala. Panikkar had learned the temple rituals by impersonating himself as a Brahmin and staying at the Vaikam Mahadeva temple. He was also the first non-caste Hindu to learn Kathakali. He established a Kathakali troupe of Ezhavas in 1862.

Omal enters

Between these two  Shiva installations, a Dalit revolution took place at Kuriyannoor, near Kozhencherry in today's Pathanamthitta district. In 1875, Omal, belonging to the Pulaya community, built a  temple and installed a Shiva idol. The reformation in Kerala has unsung heroes like Omal. He consecrated the Mahadeva temple on top of Mayiladumpara, and it still exists.

The renewed interest in Omal has been ignited by the notes on him, unearthed from the archives of the Karipalli Nair family of Kuriyannoor. These notes were authored by K K Sankaranarayana Pillai, in 1952. In his foreword to the notes, Pillai says that he got the details on Omal from his grandma, Nangeli. Thuruthipallil Narayanan Vaidyan's collection of poems, Ganamanjari, contains a poem on Omal, Omal Keerthanam.

The life story of Tapaswi Omal began to trickle down in bits and pieces, from the 1980s onwards. Two Malayalam dailies were reported in 1988 and 1989 on Omal's spiritual journey. Now, Orna Krishnankutti, a Dalit activist, has written a booklet on Omal which is available on Amazon Kindle.

The dailies towards the end of the 1980s had based their reports on Omal, on the accounts of fourth-generation members of his family, M K Kesavan, Kuravankuzhichira Omal and Vidwan K K Sankaranarayana Pillai.

Omal was born in Kuttanad in 1825. His family were the slaves of Idanat Idathil Thampuran and he was bought along with his family as slaves by the wealthy Karipalli Nair family of Kuriyannur, in 1845. Omal's family belonged to a gotra called Thachanillom among the Pulayas.

Slavery had been abolished in Travancore by a royal proclamation on December 5, 1812, by Rani Gowri Lakshmi Bayi. But the proclamation stipulated that the slaves attached to the soil and agriculture would remain slaves.

Omal was the elder son of Karumban Koran and Maikkuzhiyil Thevi. He had five siblings: Kannan, Palan, Azhakan, Daivathan and Kuliri.

It is said that Omal was spiritually inclined from early in life. Like Narayana Guru, he also got married, and his wife was Thaliri. They had five children: Mathura, Kuruka, Kuliri, Kochomal and Kannan.

Omal listened secretly to the rendering of the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita, by the Karipalli family head, Narayanan Nair. Nair, in turn, encouraged Omal in his spiritual pursuits. He sent Omal for studies in the nearby Thuruthipallil house, where Ezhava scholar Narayanan Vaidyan taught Bhagavatha. Omal assisted Nair in his pujas. On a Shivaratri day, when Nair's family members objected to a dalit assisting in pujas, Nair extolled Omal's dedication. On that day, Nair gifted a Rudraksha chain to him. After Nair's death, Omal had been a shadow to his nephews.

Mayiladumpara Mahadeva Temple

The author of Omal Keerthanam, Narayanan Vaidyan (1903-1984), belonged to the third generation. Narayanan Vaidyan had heard stories about Omal from his father, Unnan Vaidyan. Omal Keerthanam describes Omal wearing ochre, rudraksha and soolam. He had untended hair.

Omal’s family members remember that he was enamoured by an encounter in the Sambari Mahatmya episode of Shiva Purana. One day, Chandaka the hunter sees the remains of a Shiva temple. Prince Simhakethu met Chandaka who was wielding a Shivalinga, on his hand. The lower caste, Chandaka, asked the prince whether he had the right to do pujas. The prince told him that anyone is free to offer pujas to a Shivalinga, chanting the Panchakshari.

While continuing as an agricultural labourer, Omal used to visit Aranmula, to pray to Parthasarathy. Since entry for him was banned, he prayed to the god from the opposite bank of the river Pampa. There was a hundi established on this bank for the lower-caste devotees to make offerings.

After one such visit to Aranmula, during the consecration of the new flag mast in 1873, Omal didn't go back with his colleagues. He submerged himself in the Infinity, praying intensively, eyes shut. He had crossed the border that was earmarked for the Dalits. When he opened his eyes, he saw that people had poured cow dung water over his entire body. He realised once and for all that the temples are for the elite and will always be closed for the Dalits. He left the noble's home to seek his Lord- he began a deep penance on top of Mayiladumpara. He sustained himself for 41 days, on water and basil leaves. The basil water was provided by the Nair family. 

At the end of it, Omal drowned in the river and came atop with a rock. He carved out his Shiva, the dalit Shiva, out of the rock, using his axe, and installed it atop Mayiladumpara. It was Maha Shivaratri, March 6, 1875 (1050 Kumbham 24). The temple, a hut, also had Kali, looking to the West. When the Aranmula temple authorities protested, he quoted Shiva Purana. Then, according to his family members, an absolute utterance emanated from him: "നാലു കടങ്ങൾ ഇല്ലാത്ത ഒരാൾക്കേ എന്നെ തടയാനാവൂ - മുൻ കടം, തൻ കടം, സങ്കടം, അപകടം." (Only a person free of four debts will be able to prevent me- previous debts, self-debts, distress and danger.) It means one who is free from the cycle of birth and death alone is competent to prevent him from the consecration.

After Kuriyannoor, he consecrated another Shiva temple at Valiyakulam, Ranni, in 1888. While the Ranni temple is in the hands of the SNDP today, Kuriyannoor temple is administered by Kerala Pulaya Maha Sabha (KPMS). 

Omal attained samadhi on August 2, 1908 (1083 Karkatakam 18). His year of death is recorded in Omal Keerthanam. After his death, the temple was renovated by Dalit leader Azhakananda Swamikal, who was in the vanguard of the Vaikam and Chengannur temple entry struggles. He had also two Dalit leaders, Kurumban Daivathan and Vellikkara Chothi, with him to fight at Vaikam.

The temple created by Omal has grown into a great temple today. It has a well 750 feet above the river water level. The area of the single rock on which the temple stands comes to almost one acre. And the soul of Omal is sure to reverberate through Kerala history in the coming decades.

© Ramachandran 

KEY BENEFITS OF MANAGED HOSTING FOR E-COMMERCE

Your e-commerce site, online store or website never wishes to waste time, energy or money managing servers. Commonly, web businesses face a crisis due to server issues. The  solution is to hire a managed hosting service.This article will look at the benefits of managed hosting.

____________________________________________________

• What is Managed Hosting?

• Benefits of Managed Hosting

• Conclusion 

_____________________________________________________

What is Managed Hosting?

Managed hosting means the service provider looks after all the server issues. You get  servers and technical support  from your hosting partner and you pay them. Reversely, there is unmanaged hosting-the provider rents you the server and you do the maintenance. 

There is also a middle path known as self-managed hosting. Here, you are responsible for running the servers.The provider does just basic maintenance. 

In managed hosting, the hosting provider or company handles administration, set up, technical support and management of your servers, 24x7. The hosting company ensures your website stays up running. 

Web Hosting makes available for online viewing files that comprise a website. It provides storage space and enables individuals and organizations to post a web page or website on the internet. 

WordPress Hosting, a type of web hosting, is  pre-configured and optimized for WordPress CMS (Content Management System). Another type, Cloud Hosting allows you to utilize multiple servers, instead of a single one.

Benefits of Managed Hosting

There are at least six business as well as technical benefits for managed hosting:

1. It is Time-saving

You run a small business and the time spent on managing your servers and managing the system admins who do them is a waste. You could spend this valuable time to enrich your business. You have to focus on the growth of your business rather than worrying about the servers. This is true at the best and worst of times. 

2. It is Cost-saving

Managed hosting helps your company to be involved only in the essential business processes, cutting operating costs. You may find it expensive to maintain a wide array of accountants, internally. Only a few major accounting firms can afford the budget to have a whole IT team. Managed hosting also cuts spending on hiring and training since professional technicians know the latest industry requirements.

A managed cloud hosting service provider can take care of it. A provider will have hosting plans that suits your budget. For a blog or small site with SSL, the basic plan can be as low as just $ 5.

3. It Performs Well

A managed cloud hosting provider ensures the latest accounting technology. You will have access to top-class data and accounting software. The provider will inspect the existing networks to make improvements and achieve your business objectives. 

The provider is constantly scanning the operating system. Fast responses increase your business's goodwill and improve productivity. The  provider resolves your IT issues instantly. You can create a support ticket and follow it up, through emails, chats or phone.

4. Reduced Risk

In terms of data security, the managed hosting infrastructure is superior. It employs advanced security instruments to protect sensitive data. These include:

● Data encryption aimed at safe  data transmission

● Multi-level authentication for secure access

● Intrusion detection for identifying and prevention of harmful data 

● 24x7 data traffic and server monitoring to intercept suspicious behaviour

● Access control permission facilities for file access

● Protection against brute force attack

● Anti-malware and Antivirus 

The most basic standard security measure for a hosted website is having a free SSL certificate. 

5. It is Reliable

Managed WordPress hosting helps you develop custom WordPress themes, designing sites, without worries. Apart from the hardware expertise, a provider usually includes additional features designed to reduce the burden of site owners. Managed WordPress hosting is ideal for e-commerce owners, freelancers and creative agencies. Hence,  33% of the Internet runs on WordPress.

6. It is Scalable

If you sell products online, you would have seen sales and traffic peaks around holidays such as Christmas, Mother's Day, Holi or Valentines Day. Scalable web hosting allows storage, added bandwidth instantly to meet increased needs. When your site grows in terms of traffic and assets, the hosting provider offers access and stability.

Conclusion

Managed web hosting is different from its relative, dedicated web hosting.In dedicated server hosting, a  server is dedicated to a single customer. You may not have the internal expertise to manage a mission-critical server. It is also possible that you need it, but can’t spare the resource. 

In these circumstances, managed web hosting is the best option.Though managed web hosting is costlier than dedicated web hosting,  it takes care of your IT needs 24x7. The hosting partner takes care of your site and ensures that in the worst scenario, they can restore everything. They guarantee you peace of mind.

© Ramachandran 

 

STRATEGIES FOR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

 

Inspiration drives employees to work. Motivation is important. But many workers today feel uninspired by what they do at the workplace, get fed up and start hunting for new jobs. If this exit of employees happens regularly, and retention is near impossible, the company loses steam and benefits from talent, skills. For any company, an existing workforce with institutional knowledge is important. It helps the organization to grow.

 

Employee engagement is important to job satisfaction. Employees of today need more than a routine job. They want to be recognized, rewarded and motivated. They care about the company brand.

 

Employee engagement is all about the worker's involvement in their work at your organization. It is a human resource idea to denote the dedication an employee feels at the workplace.

 

Engaged employees feel that their dedication benefits the company in its growth. They care for the work culture you can offer, more than their salary. Their well-being is directly proportional to their performance. It is thus an inevitable part of the company's growth.

 

The Employee Engagement Blueprint

 

An employee engagement blueprint is a must to know what makes people happy and productive. There are three top engagement models. Each model is based on organizational psychology. They help companies to have their system for employee engagement.

 

1. The Zinger pyramid

 

The model invented by David Zinger depicts a pyramid structure. It focuses on 10 top actions that business leaders must take to employee engagement. In it, you have to start with employee needs, like their wellness and passionate work. From there, work upwards for the next levels of results.

 

The ingredients of the Zinger model:

 

• Bottom row: the essentials

 

In the Zinger pyramid, the bottom is the basic things that every employee needs to do excellent work. At this stage, you have to improve, energize, and strengthen them, contributing to their wellness.

 

• Second row: unification

 

The second row is connecting employees with the organization. You have to recognize and build relationships with rewards and celebrations of personal moments.

 

• Third row: boosting performance

 

Track progress and maximize performance.

The third pyramid focuses on personal and social engagement translating them into practical strategies to achieve results.

 

• Top -results

 

The goal is to profit and improve productivity through employee engagement. Define clearly define your objectives. Tools like eNPS, team KPI enhancement and retention could be used to track your goal to achieve a definite outcome.

 

2. The Deloitte Model

 

It engages employees by a work culture with respect, involvement and challenges. The Deloitte company was successful in creating an irresistible workplace. The employees are in love with the workplace. There are five core elements to this cultural model:

 

1. Four key elements are essential: Hiring culture, Autonomy, Empowered small teams and Slacking time

 

2. Aligned management

 

Managers create or destroy an employee's morale. Align and empower managers to engage your employees with setting clear targets, training, using resources in management development and performance.

 

3. Positive ecosystem

 

Create an ecosystem where employees feel comfortable, respected, and rewarded.

 

4. Future Prospects

 

You have to solve employee passivity and stagnation. Provide promotional opportunities in your company, such as training and facilities for career development.

 

4. Mission and trust

 

You have to show commitment to your workforce and win their trust. It depends on the purpose, investment in employees, and transparent communication.

 

3. The AON Hewitt Model

 

This model affirms that employee engagement affects the company from customer relations to turnover. This model helps leaders managers to gauge the engagement level.

 

Factors on Employee Engagement

 

There are three key factors of employee engagement.

 

Leadership

 

Inefficient managers make big holes in your revenue. You fail to select the right one. If you have a mediocre manager, your employees will never feel motivated and engaged. A professional leader will have a robust relationship with the employees with better communication.

 

Rewarding excellence

 

Recognition and rewards make employees get engaged and perform immensely. It boosts the team. Begin a recognition program reflecting your culture and values. It can be monthly awards, a thank you note or a gift card or a party.

 

Professional growth

 

A survey indicates that a company can retain 94%  if they are supported in their profession. Modern employees are accustomed to learning and believe it is a factor to feel happy. These professional growth prospects is an integral factor of employee engagement.

 

Strategies to improve employee engagement

 

Engaged employees are committed to work and their company. Employee engagement is not only the annual meetings, responding to emails, or periodical reviews. It's a meaningful dialogue between the employee and the company. It, in turn, results in high levels of efficiency, morale, and productivity. Organizations have to improve employee engagement by efficient remote team-building tactics and internal communication. 

 

A detailed list of employee engagement events:

 

1. Parties for employees

Companies have seasonal parties to celebrate business growth. You need to add new celebratory festivities like Thanksgiving parties, Halloween dinners and parties. They make employees feel that they're an integral part of the company family. Invite families, spouses, mentors and significant relatives to these events. Throwing a party during the day will save expense. You can even barter with other companies.

 

2. Learning Lunches

Learning lunches can bring your team and help them understand. Different departments can share their current work, and tackle new subjects as a group and celebrate birthdays.

 

3. Employee Competitions

Employees can engage in games and competitions. You can host a pool tournament, where you can set up an internal cuisine.

 

4. Special Days

Special days such as No Uniform day, Pajama day, Bring your child to work day can be exciting to employees.

 

5. Training sessions

Boring training sessions have to be replaced by special speakers, like spiritual gurus or experts in personality and skill development; always try to give your employees something fresh.

 

6. Sports activities

You can organize sports events such as baseball, basketball or soccer teams, invite local teams, and invite employees' family members.

 

7. Working as a team

Employees look forward to activities on team-building. They love especially activities outside the office. There are options like Go-cart racing, Laser tag and bowlingThese kind of activities will strengthen bonding outside the office and give the workers a common platform.

 

8. Charity Days

Charity and fund-raising days bring together employees to contribute to a humanitarian cause. Often unexpected natural calamities like floods and earthquakes affect your employees. They want to be with the victims. You can chalk out a series of events as causes; employees strongly attach themselves.

 

New ideas for employee engagement

 

Technology has brought in new ideas for employee engagement. If an employee is engaged in tech devices and can work simultaneously, it is better to encourage them.

 

Surveys reveal that engaged employees are happy, productive, and likely to continue in an organization that allows personal freedom. A company can achieve a better retention rate by facilitating employee engagement. While they remain with the organization, engaged employees perform better, helping companies achieve goals, greater growth. They have positive interactions with customers.  There is any number of technological tools and ideas available for you to keep the employees engaged.

 

Feedback with a chatbot

 

Chatbots are there to ask questions suited to your organization. They follow up automatically with employees on concerns you have raised. Employees may be willing to vent their pent-up emotions and frustrations to a chatbot than to a manager or colleague. It becomes a customized feedback channel, with responsiveness and follows up. It happens even if the employees are not in the office.

 

Action on feedback

 

Knowing the real feelings of your employees is important, But it doesn't stop there. You can't sit idle after getting the feedback. What are you going to do with that information is significant. Most employees say they are eager to stay at a company that takes feedback seriously and acts on it. You have to analyze survey data and your channels. By this, you can establish benchmarks, track significant metrics, and visualize trends that guide your intuition and response.

 

Recognition is a must

 

Lack of recognition in a company drives employees out. Extending social recognition tremendously workers as monetary rewards. It leads to all-around benefits-improved personal performances, better NPS, higher esteem in the stock market. It results in employee retention.

 

Virtual office hours

 

It's a virtual world. You can encourage employees to make the best of it. Allow employees at all levels to drop in and engage them in informal chats in a virtual meeting. Your Slack channel is a valuable tool for true feedback.

 

Keep employees happy

 

Employees should be free to do things they love during part of their work time. It is an incentive to keep them happy. It also benefits the business: happy employees tend to be creative and bring new product ideas.

 

Establish wellness program

 

Regular wellness programs give priority to employee health. It helps to minimize job stress and keeps them happy. They feel that their organization cares for them and their family.

You have the ideas with you now. Think out of the box, find your ideas and prioritize the needs. Find out what keeps your employees truly engaged. Then you can chalk out an action plan.

 

How to Keep Employees Satisfied 

 

There is no organization without a workforce. Automation will never replace the employees. Each employee is important in your company's scheme, vision, and goals. He is part of the work culture.

 

An HBR study found that disengagement lands companies in a loss of around $550 billion per year. The productivity of a company gets increased by almost 12% by the employee satisfaction.

 

Happy employees will be more productive. It will tremendously impact the bottom line of your organization. A single point program can't improve employee performance. Inspiration, motivation training etc., are essential to keep them engaged.  A strategy to enhance employee engagement should be in place.

 

There are ways to enhance employee satisfaction. Some factors hinder their performance.

 

Why does employee satisfaction matters

 

Employee satisfaction is a term used to denote how satisfied employees are with their jobs, experience, and the company. It is one key measure that can determine the overall wellness of a company. Hence many companies do surveys to gauge employee satisfaction. They follow satisfaction trends regularly. A high satisfaction rate is an indicator of employee happiness. It is an indicator of the employer's treatment too.

 

Key factors of dissatisfaction

 

• Lesser salary

• Lesser career prospects

• Shoddy Management

• Relationship issues with colleagues and managers

• Lack of Recognition

• Work-Life Balance issues

 =The prominence of job satisfaction:

 

Employee satisfaction is critical for employees to show excellence. There is no pressure or compulsion on them to work in your company. They pursue a dream of taking their company to new heights. Employee satisfaction creates a positive environment at the workplace.

 

Happy employees will be regular at work. Resulting in saving of time and money.

 

Chances of retention become less.

 

Satisfied employees perform better. Overall performance of companies grows with a large chunk of high performing employees.

 

If employees feel that you support their interests, they will work harder. The concept of citizenship behavior holds good here.

 

Unhappy employees would create issues everywhere. They become rigid. Happy employees participate in training programs; They are eager to pursue emerging technologies that help them in their careers.

 

Job satisfaction reduces psychological stress and social risks.

 

Factors of Employee Satisfaction 

 

The intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect job satisfaction have to be considered here. The intrinsic factors have a personal dimension. The extrinsic factors are about the job and the company.

 

Individual factors. These are ingrained in the employee's personality: self-confidence, conscientiousness, and ability to control emotions.

 

Job-related.These are traits of the job itself: skills, tasks, feedback and autonomy.

 

Organizational.The working ecosystem,  leadership, technical and emotional support, supervision, internal  relationships, job prospects, salary, developmental issues,

 

Employee satisfaction determines the discretionary effort a team puts in. Each employee will have different work goals. But there will be certain psychological common factors related to job satisfaction. You have to understand the psychological factors about job satisfaction.

 

Employees will have a feeling of fulfillment when they have achieved something. The whole team should feel they are an integral part of a bigger entity, the company. Even smaller wins are cause for celebration.

 

Positive feedback energizes a person. If they don't get it, many fall into distress and frustration. If you give them creative feedback, it will be a learning process for them. If you give them feedback, it will be a pointer to their potential growth. Negative feedback is just a statement of faults and inefficiency. it could be positive if you explain things and share ways to improve. It can be done to improve it.

 

You need not harbor excessive job expectations.  It can lead to emotional stress, psychosomatic upheavals and lesser output. Keep working and non-working hours separate. It will help reduce the job stress in your life.

 

The physical environment of the workplace can have a major impact on the team's job satisfaction. A decent desk, some solitude and separation between the quiet and social sections are all necessary. Your office space will be more attractive if you add plants and excellent lighting. These amazing office layouts are worth looking at.

 

 Employees are satisfied when there is abundant support from the company. It is a happy feeling to know that the company cares for them. You can encourage them through better communication. The morale of employees is important. The superiors have to treat them in a civilized manner. Encouraging emails will be a morale booster.

 

Gauging employee satisfaction

 

There are three methods of gauging employee satisfaction: single global rating, global measurement or summation score and facet measurement. In some cases, a fourth method, the personal interview, is applied.

 

Single Global Rating is an answer to a single question.

 

The single question can be, "how satisfied are you with your job?". The number of answers can be around five-satisfied, not satisfied, highly satisfied etc.

 

This method is simple. Employees are well aware of their satisfaction level. The supporters of this method guarantee that it is an effective tool similar to larger surveys.

 

The other two are sophisticated. These are accurate methods. Both include several questions related to work: conditions, salary and perks, relationships with colleagues and managers etc. Each point has a standardized scale, and researchers generate scores, combining them.

 

The global measurement obtains an overall score. The facet method evaluates each facet and imparts a different score for each.

 

Employee satisfaction is an important criterion to ensure higher profit for the company. Employees have to have a feeling of belonging and attachment towards the company. If it is not there, training or motivational pontifications would never help,

 

Strategies to improve satisfaction

 

We have seen factors that decide job satisfaction, like flexibility, autonomy, and recognition. Let us take a journey through the relevant essentials to understand better how job satisfaction impacts your company. A survey showed organizations with employee engagement outperforms those with low engagement by 202%.

1. Half of the millennials mentioned learning and development as the important factors in deciding the organization to work in.

2. Half the workforce identified corporate culture as the main factor in looking for a new job.

3. If employees feel their strengths and abilities are used properly at work, they are 15% less likely to exit their job.

4. Most employees will stay in a company if their bosses show more empathy and humaneness.

 

Strategies to improve Morale

 

1. Recognition

 

A study revealed that 63% of employees feel they are devoid of recognition. Managers should recognize the positive contribution that a leader has on the brand voice to be more effective.

 

A Deloitte research identified engagement, performance and productivity are 14 per cent higher in companies that reward their employees. A 15 per cent hike in engagement could win a two per cent rise in profits.

 

2. Career prospects

 

Companies are investing in employee development with a definite goal. Both companies and leaders have a chance to grow if they make investments for the company's growth. Online classes, master classes webinars, seminars, and certifications are all methods to achieve the goal.

 

3. Flexibility

 

Employees are increasingly looking for a work-life balance. Companies need to create hybrid work environments to stay competitive. Encourage openness and cooperation among members of your team. You must stop micromanagement.

 

4. Improve communication

 

Adopt transparent internal tools to communicate all the changes that occur at the workplace. Unhappy employees feel they have been kept in the dark, if there is no communication and if they come to know the changes from outside the company, reading dailies.

 

5. Hold surveys

 

Surveys are useful in understanding the views of workers about organizational developments. They can provide valuable inputs about specific measures that leaders have to address.

 

6. Address wellness

 

Holding seminars on health can help employees. Make sure that they get regular breaks, annual leave. Make sure they have robust food options. Offer discounted gym memberships. Create company communities for fitness goals.

 

7.  Foster good relationships

 

Collaboration and cooperation are important in the workplace. It is the key to today's workplace success. Participation in team-building activities fosters collaboration among employees. To encourage employees to build meaningful relationships, you may organize regular gatherings. Friday happy hour or weekly learning lunches are examples.

 

8. Attention to housekeeping

 

Small things make a big difference. Avoid mediocre facilities like slow servers, shoddy software, or malfunctioning instruments. All employee concerns have to be taken care of with speed.

 

Conclusion

 

According to surveys, happy employees are 31% more productive. They show three times more creativity than unhappy workers. You have to build a close, humane company culture. The effervescent, rich company culture begins to bubble when your workplace is abuzz with humor, joy, humility, and connecting activities that foster camaraderie. Employees are happy, engaged, confident and feel motivated. Happy employees create a creative, productive, and innovative workplace. By integrating even small changes to keep employees satisfied, organizations can scale heights. Start with the easiest thing on the available list. When you reward the employee, you get rewarded.

 

Strategies for Employee Retention

 

Hiring the right talent is tough. But retention is a challenge.

 

Every company invests a lot to groom talent. When the talents says goodbye, the company is at a loss. The employee leaves fully trained in skills. It is to make him equal to the existing workforce. Employee retention strategies are in place to ensure that the talent stays for the optimum period.

 

When an employee decides to exit, the first sign is disengagement. According to estimates, 35% of employees exit jobs each year. The pandemic has made the new remote work normal. Employees have a wider range of employers to scout from. It is high time you created an engaging workplace with proper strategies for retention.

 

 Need of Employee Retention

 

Retention refers to the strategies employed to help the employees stay with the organization for a longer period. Employee retention strategies motivate the employees so that they say in the organization and contribute immensely.

 

What do you gain out of retention? Some benefits:

 

• The longer process of hiring the right one gets minimized.

         The existing employees are familiar with the policies and guidelines better.

 

• Employees in an organization staying for a longer period have loyalty

• Retention reduces training costs.

• It creates a friendly ecosystem and bonding

• Increases profits for the company.

 Employee retention strategies 

 

Some of the techniques to keep employees:

 Excellent Ecosystem

1. Recognition and rewards

2. Flexibility

3. Scope for career growth

4. Healthy internal relationships

5. Competitive salary

 Companies hired during the pandemic. They will hire more. You have to scale up your retention strategies if you don't want to lose talent. Here are some ways to push employees' satisfaction.

 

1.Remunerative package. Perks can attract talent. It also can re-engage existing staff. It will boost employee morale. Build a culture of recognition. It is enough to reward people once in a blue moon. Even if the employees are working at home, you can send mails of appreciation.

 

2 Rich onboarding experience. Everything starts with onboarding. It continues for a year. It takes a new hire up to two years to reach the same level of productivity as an existing employee. Make them feel at home at the outset.

 

3. Continuous feedback. Frequent meetings have become the rule of the day. The annual reviews process has been abandoned. Begin one-on-one meetings.  Brief them about their professional goals. Make them visualize their future with you. Never make hollow promises. Talk to them about career growth potential. Draw a realistic plan to achieve those goals.

 

☆ Stock option. ESOP is an excellent option to compensate. It is an incentive. The employees become stakeholders. They own the company too. Thus they stay invested. It maintains liquidity.

 

☆ Alter Responsibilities. Involve them in vivid tasks and rescue them from the monotony of doing the same boring tasks. Let them work with other departments. It will create better ideas, improve relationships. It will teach them extra skills for professional growth. Encourage creativity. Give them space for personal growth.

 

☆ Work-life equilibrium. A robust work-life equilibrium is needed for job satisfaction. Managers should know that employees have lives outside. Maintaining the balance is more challenging than working from home. Encourage employees to take their vacation. Give them extra time off to compensate, working extra late at night.

 

Employee retention factors

 

It's important to have programs and incentives in place. Several factors decide whether an employee is happy and engaged. Let us look at some essential employee retention factors.

 

1. Flexible ecosystem

 

Remote working has become the rule. But employees are looking for more flexibility. They won't simply conform to the conventional restrictions of the 9-5. If there is rigidity at the workplace, they will look elsewhere. If someone doesn't need collaborators for a big project, let them work from home. Einstein had discovered the theory of relativity while working at home. Taking a holiday is not a sin.

 

2. Wellness benefits

 

Give a health spending allowance or a gym membership. Psychological stress can negatively impact business.  Offer a reasonable health benefits package, which includes health and life insurance. Offering a retirement plan is a nice retention strategy.

 

3. Personal development

 

An employee learns and grows with the company. Hence you need to have a personal development policy. New learning and development avenues encourage an environment of growth for everyone.

 

4. Address financial stress

 

Considering a pay hike is not easy. Financial insecurity is behind the exit of several talents. An employee worried about money will not be productive or happy at work. If another organization offers a better package, he will quit even if the existing ecosystem is good. But if you want retention, you have to pay a competitive salary. You can ward off the uncertainty if you pay your employees a little more than the market rate.

 

5. Use Technology Wisely

 

Human dependence on digital tools and technology has become greater. Over-dependence can lead to burnout. It is a contributing factor to attrition. There is no point in sending messages every half an hour. Video conferences and phone calls can guarantee messages are conveyed in the right tone. Technology is an asset, not a liability.

 

6. Encourage generosity

 

Encourage societal behavior in employees. You are allowing them to connect. By encouraging them to be good human beings, you give them a sense of trust in society and the company.

 

7. Formulate friendly policies

 

The employees must be given one or two wellness leaves in a month. They can rejuvenate. Avoid calling them on weekends. Let them be with their family. Celebrate major festivals together at the organization.

 

Conclusion

 

Hiring should be seen as an opportunity rather than a risk. Smart hiring techniques are there. But you cannot ensure that your new hire will fit in. Fresh hires revitalize a company. Don't hire just to fill a gap. Retention is critical. Your employees feel secure; The company becomes their second home-the first for workaholics!

 

© Ramachandran