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| The Hindu Newspaper Editorial Vocabulary : 11 November 2018 -For Various Competitive Exams: Quantamity |
Petty politicians or easy scapegoats?
A dream fable from a strangely familiar land where people blame their politicians for their own failures
I dreamt that I woke up in a foreign country with
many languages, cultures and religions. It was also a country with a working
democratic system and a Parliament full of different parties.
The people of this country, despite wide swathes
of illiteracy, mostly participated in the political process, and often held
strong views. But they tended to complain endlessly about their
representatives. Some of them would aggressively — even violently — endorse one
party against the other, but they would also castigate politicians in
general.
“If only we had good politicians,” one of them lamented
to me. “Yes,” added his friend, who actually supported a party in the
Opposition. “All these politicians just play us against each other in order to
win. They never think of the people and the country first. Sheer opportunists, all of them.
With no moral, no character, nothing but a hunger for power.”
In my dream, I listened to them, and it sounded
familiar. I had heard similar sentiments while awake too. But I was curious. I
asked them to explain.
Two cults
“Well, you see,” one of them said. “We have
various religions, but the major one is known as the cult of stone and the second
biggest one is known as the cult of air.”
Ah, I said. That sounded familiar too. “And what
do these, er, cultists look like?” I inquired.
“Look like?” he answered. “They look human, like
me and him, of course!” He pointed to his friend, who — to my foreign eyes —
looked almost like his twin. “My friend belongs to the cult of air: we call
them Aerialists.
I belong to the cult of stone: they call us Lithicists.”
Ok, I rejoined. “I don’t see any problem yet —
let alone a problem your politicians can take advantage of.”
“No, you won’t, you don’t know the place,” the
Aerialist responded. “But you see, we had this church in which we worshipped
our god who cannot be seen, and the People’s Party of Aerialists claimed that
it had been built on the spot where one of their visible gods had been born...”
“Not that you lot were actually using that
Aerialist church,” the Lithicist rejoined with a laugh.
“Facts, my friend, facts. You are talking belief;
we are talking facts. Your lot broke down our church by sheer force. You broke
the law in the process,” the Aerialist responded.
The two friends paused at this point of
disagreement and then agreed that, in any case, they did not care this way or
that, and the matter would be decided in court before the next election.
“I still do not see how politicians can...,” I
began to say, but I was interrupted by the two.
“That’s not the only issue the courts will decide
before the next election,” the Lithicist interposed. “You see, the Aerialist Church has
its own personal laws.”
“So do other churches here,” the Aerialist broke
in.
“But my friend,” the Lithicist continued. “You
will agree that your personal laws are a bit harsh on your women: the husbands
obviously get more rights than the wives. Why, they even get more wives!”
The Aerialist looked a bit uncomfortable and waved away
the issue. “I say, let the courts decide,” he replied. “They will, they will,”
his friend laughed.
I was still quite confused in my dream. “Look
here, gentlemen,” I objected. “It is not that I am unfamiliar with such
controversies, but what I still do not understand is why you seem to be blaming
all this on your politicians?”
Both of them replied together: “Because our
politicians take advantage of such situations!”
“But how can they?” I asked, bewildered. “You have said that
the courts will decide, and you have told me that you have a constitutional
democracy and functioning courts in your country. If so, surely, the courts
will decide against the conservative Lithicist position in the case of the
demolished church and against the conservative Aerialist position in the case
of the personal laws. I mean, you have already indicated that, in terms of law
and justice, it was wrong to demolish the Aerialist church and that it is wrong
of Aerialists to discriminate against women in their personal laws. So, problem
solved: your courts will take the right decision before the elections and no
politician will be able to use these issues again!”
Accepting court orders
Both the friends laughed incredulously at me.
“That is what you think, do you?” they scoffed.
“Well, let me tell you, Mr. Foreigner (or maybe they said Mr. Dreamer), many
Lithicists won’t accept a court order in favour of the Aerialist position on
the matter of the demolished church, and many Aerialists will not accept a
court order against their personal laws. So, do you know what will happen
before the election if the courts take the correct decisions in both the cases?
Mobs of Lithicists and Aerialists will be out in the streets protesting and smashing windows
for different reasons, preventing reasonable voters from voting… The election
will be totally polarised.
Politicians!”
“Surely it is not the politicians’ fault if so
many of you refuse to accept the correct...,” I started objecting, but that is
when I woke up.
01. Scapegoats
(noun) - A person who is blamed for the wrongdoings,
mistakes, or faults of others. whipping boy, victim.
02.
Swathes
(verb) - envelop, bind, swaddle, bundle up, muffle up, cloak,
shroud, drape, enfold, bedeck, sheathe.
03. Castigate (verb) - reprimand, rebuke, admonish,
chastise, chide, upbraid, reprove, remonstrate, berate, take to task, lambaste, haul over the coals, criticize, censure, chasten.
04. Lamented
(verb)
- mourn, grieve, grieve for,
grieve over, wail, moan, groan, sob, howl, pine for, beat one's breast, bemoan, complain about, deplore, rue, fulminate against.
05. Sheer
(adjective)
- complete, absolute, out-and-out, thorough,
thoroughgoing, consummate, patent, veritable.
06. Cult (noun) - sect,
religious group, religious order, obsession
with, idolization of, devotion to, veneration of, reverence for.
07. Aerialists
(noun)
- abstainer, recluse, hermit, solitary, anchorite,
anchoress, celibate, puritan, monk.
08. Lithicists (noun) - Of the
nature of or relating to stone.
09. Interposed
(verb)
- Place or insert between one thing and another. Insinuate, place, put.
10. Waved away (idiom) - to make a signal with
the hand for
someone or something to move away from someone or something.
11. Bewildered
(adjective)
- Perplexed and confused; very puzzled. baffled, at sea, at a loss, thrown off balance,
disorientated, taken aback.
12.
Incredulously (adverb) - disbelieving,
unbelieving, doubtful, dubious, unconvinced, distrustful, distrusting, mistrustful,
mistrusting, suspicious, cynical, sceptical, wary, chary.
13. Scoffed (verb) - mock, deride, ridicule, sneer at, be scornful about, treat contemptuously,
jeer at, jibe at, make fun of, poke fun at, laugh at, scorn.
14.
Smashing (adjective) - wonderful, marvellous, excellent, splendid, magnificent, superb, amazing,
glorious, sublime, lovely, delightful.
15. Polarised (verb) - Divide or cause to divide into two sharply contrasting groups or sets
of opinions or beliefs.
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