Representative image. (File | PTI)
Our obsession with political correctness has now led us to the censorship of words. We must now be diligent, almost paranoid, before writing a word or speaking it. A Big Brother-style nightmare, where everything we say is scrutinized, dissected, evaluated, weighed, criticized, and we are also reprimanded and canceled for it.
I mean, have you ever thought who these people are who keep having fun and changing the meaning of words? Is it the mischief of a single individual, or a secret society of wordsmiths who get together every 50 years, change the meaning of words, laugh and die?
This week, a 50-page compilation of words was released by the Lok Sabha secretariat, which certified certain words as unparliamentary. Words like jumlajeevi, covid spreader, shameful, abused, betrayed, hypocrisy, anarchist, corrupt, criminal, hooliganism, drama, eyewash, lie and incompetent are some of them.
As the hon. members rush in and pick up their copies of Wren & Martin to refresh the synonyms, here are a few to help them maintain the sanctity and decorum of the temple of democracy. “Duplicity” and “insincerity” may be the new “hypocrisy”, while “incapable”, “ineffective” and “inept” replace “incompetent”. How about replacing ‘betrayed’ with ‘duped’, ‘duped’, ‘bamboozled’ (this one I’m sure Mr. Tharoor will use) and ‘duped’.
A person with a “criminal record” can be described as a “wrongdoer” or an “offender”. When MPs throw chairs in Parliament (we haven’t seen this for a long time) or party cadres resort to ‘punching’ during the election campaign, we can call the incident ‘disorderly behaviour’ in the place of “hooliganism”. The word ‘corrupt’ can be replaced with ‘fraudulent’, ‘unethical’ and ‘untrustworthy’.
By taking the debate outside of Parliament, we can no longer use the word ‘psycho’ either. Even if the person has plunged a pencil into your hand and is now threatening to pierce your eyeballs with a geometric compass…remember that society will shun you if you call them “psycho”! Instead, choose acceptable words like “quirky,” or even the fancy “whimsical” as you sip your Orange pekoe Darjeeling tea with a stiff upper lip while trying not to drool as the tea slips out of the corner of your mouth.
Other words we can no longer use are dwarf, retarded, and my favorite, homeless. Instead, say “someone who is homeless.” I am sure that the person already knows that he “experiences” the phenomenon. Imagine approaching a homeless person and asking, “Sir, are you lost or are you homeless?” What do you think would be the answer? Frankly, it’s not an amusement park ride they live!
In the United States, a dwarf (now a derogatory slur) is called a “little person” or a “short person”. Now, if I was one, I would kick every person in the shins (unable to reach the person’s face) who called me small.
