The
Face Behind the Mask
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Hi! Friends, I am Madan, a student of class
Vlll at Aniket High School in Gopalnagar.My Grandpa is a polymath and
bibliophile. He told me that Madan means Cupid. I am not Cupid, the God of
Love. Neither am I erotic. Yet my parents chose to give me the name, maybe
without much thought, just affectionately. Grandpa endorsed the naming. Gopalnagar,
you know, is a village. It is in no way a ‘nagar’ or town. Grandpa tells me
that we often tend to attribute a quality/feature which is not appropriate to
something or someone. We do it to decorate with add-on the thing or person. So
we give the name Padmalochon to a person who is blind. We know Padmalochon means
lotus-eyed. We may point to a thief saying,” Look, a saint is going.” In this
case, we do this satirically. In Rhetoric it is a figure of speech known as
Irony.
In our politics the use of such a
figure of speech is rampant. Politicians like most of us wear mask to hide
their thought and feeling. Their feelings and emotions are, grandpa says, governed
by the thought of expediency, not spontaneous like that of the common people. We
hear of politicians wallowing in corruptions and scams yet they wear the mask
of honesty and dedication to the cause of the people. A former Minister of
Railways and Chief Minister of Bihar who was projected as the messiah of the
poor and the downtrodden was incarcerated, having been found guilty in fodder
scam. Meanwhile, the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia has been taken into custody in relation to a
liquor scam. Chief
Minister Arvind Kejriwal has asserted that there was no "liquor scam"
in Delhi and that the case over his government's excise policy was created as a
result of "political vendetta and conspiracy"
Eight opposition
parties have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging misuse of central
investigation agencies to go after them, amid the political war over the arrest
of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia. West Bengal Chief Minister Ms
Mamata Banerjee is one of the signatories.
In West Bengal several scams are being investigated
by CBI and ED under the supervision of Kolkata High Court. Several political
bigwigs are taken into custody. The question in public mind is, “Are the
persons being investigated and taken into custody innocent?” Let us wait for
the verdict of the court and see the faces behind the masks, if the real faces
are hidden.
