The Towering Silence: An Audible Response to the Toer of Babel

       Towering Silence: an Audible Response to the Tower of Babel

Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh  has been canonized as the Saint of Silence- ‘Maun Mohan Singh’ by the PM-in- waiting. PM has to be thankful to his challenger for conferring upon him the haloed sainthood in the midst of the loud cacophony echoing from Television studios to political platforms to the soundless bytes on the social media. Though the next elections are at least a few months away, many in the opposition have already sounded the bugle for the battle of the ballot. But our PM’s bugle sounds –rather mews -only once a year from the ramparts of Red Fort on the 15th of August. Of course his voice is heard with rapt attention outside India when he addresses the UN general assembly or Press conferences on board when he flies to and fro his visits to foreign countries. But in India when he convenes and addresses state Chief ministers or the National Integration Council, he is dubbed a silent speaker by most of the Chief Ministers  from the  opposition ruled states who show utter disrespect to his invitation by being absent at the meetings. This is the best way to ensure that the PM remains for all of them a Maun Mohan Singh.

PM is indeed a silent man. He is not a man of words to cross verbal swords with his opponents who keep baying for his honest blood. From 2G through Coalgate scams, he has remained a mute spectator to the vociferous demands in the two Houses of the Parliament for his resignation. This calls for a herculean strength to remain silent in the face of a deafening cry from the rank and file of the opposition that he is a ‘chor’.  His silence does not mean that he is indifferent or not pricked by those needles of suspicion on his integrity and honesty. In the ninth year of his PMship for the first time, he broke his silence with the question that reflected a sense of hurt over being personally attacked by the main opposition. "Have you heard of any country where the Prime Minister is not allowed to introduce his council of ministers?...Have you heard of Parliament in any country where the opposition shouts in the well 'Prime Minister chor hai' ”?  These are a few occasions when he freed himself from his cave of silence, since the remarks from the opposition about his position and stature had gone beyond the basic standards of decency.

 

Why is PM silent?

Is it a genetic quality that he has been born with, unlike his illustrious predecessor Jawaharlal Nehru who has been often referred to as a silver-tongued orator? Maybe PM had his early lessons on the quintessential proverb: ‘Speech is silver; Silence is golden’.   

 

Or is it a deliberate strategy to make his critics let off steam while he silently moved full steam ahead with his own economic calculations and nuclear policies? 

 

Or is he following Shakespeare who said: ‘The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.’ ?

 

Or is his silence an articulation of his disapproval of indecency and unseemly conduct unbecoming of the elected representatives? 

 

Or is it an economic calculation that the more words you expend, the less will be their significance and import? 

Or like a true economist does he believe in the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility and says that the first unit of consumption of words yields more utility than the second and subsequent units, with a continuing reduction for greater amounts?

Gandhiji often resorted to ‘maunvrat’ as a way of discovering the right path to living. For him it was also an act of cleansing his thoughts of negativity and anger. Silence helps one to remain calm and not fight words with words. In the aftermath of ‘maun vrat’ the words that one utters are always heard with rapt attention. Gandhiji said: ‘Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.’ Man Mohan gives up his silence and speaks only when he has to. The words he utters are truthful, and no one can fault him.

It is good that Man Mohan is for the major part Maun Mohan. His Oxonian and Cantabrigian education has not taught him the art of bluster and filibuster. In these days when the world is agog with twitter and its messaging limited to 140 characters, when sms has monopolized communication, then why grudge our Professor of Economics for being economic with words?  He is indeed the best among twitters who doesn’t need even 140 characters.

When I joined English Honours I listened to the first lecture on Shakespeare’s Richard II. The Professor’s hour long lecture was to distinguish between Richard II, the King and Bolingbroke (later known as Henry IV) the usurper. The Professor ended his lecture with a smug look on his felicity with words: ‘Richard was a man of words, Bolingbroke was a man of action’. Our PM like Richard II is the present holder of the PM’s chair, but unlike him, not a man of words. The claimants to his chair are men of words, though they have not demonstrated that they are like Bolingbroke- men of action( except rushing to the well and shouting  ‘PM is a chor’ or walking out of the parliament.)

What will be the future of Indian history? Who will succeed -the silent defendant or the vociferous challenger?  Will history record the unspoken thoughts, feelings and the major milestones of the silent PM or record the spoken, acerbic, no-holds-barred verbiage of his critics? Will future history be a record of twitters or buried in silence? Will it present for a third time in row a man with towering silence or a man with a tower of words? Time alone will tell for it has no use for words.

Note: I have not attempted to defend the indefensible silence of our PM. My article has raised the question of the Hobson's choice before the voters-between silence and garrulity. It also speaks about the present crisis in our post-independence history as to whether the PM will be relegated to a footnote in the annals of history dealing with this period-despite whatever he has achieved and whatever he has missed out(including the art of speaking). The reading on the wall is clear unless we get a host of good articulators from the Congress to compensate for the deafening silence of our PM( and also of  the PM of congress-in-waiting)