The Hindu Business Line : The truth about lies

For, scientists have reached the conclusion that, after intensive research in the UK, "Lying is an important part of politics in modem democracy." Surely, the spirit of Machiavelli must be feeling vindicated? For he believed that the ends justified the means and neither morality nor ethics was any relevant in the attainment of the goals.

Bernard Shaw would say that the findings of the British researchers do not surprise him. On the finding that voters expect to be lied to in certain circumstances by politicians, he would caustically comment "while the latter are knaves, the former are fools."

Then, politicians will question why politics and public work should be considered any different from commercial business where "trade tricks" are accepted. That businessmen need not be truthful to peers and people alike, especially under conditions of "oligopoly" is tacitly accepted by the society. Thinkers like John Ruskin and Leo Tolstoy will find this attitude deplorable and plead for morality in business transactions too.

Again, between truth and falsehood, however, innocuous, which element is higher in most of the advertisements of consumer products? Is the use of a particular brand of detergent powder and the resulting glittering whiteness of the garment of a child going to guarantee the admission of a child in a convent? Or, will the use of a brand of pen ensure a pass in an examination? But these are the kind of messages that bombard people everyday in the media.

The question is why cannot there be a clear dividing line between truth and falsehood. A character of George Orwell ("1984") will say, "No," derisively adding, "do you mean a lie or distortion or prevarication?" Dictators will lie deliberately — Hitler was convinced that the masses are exhilarated by being lied to. Stalin's stand was "the rulers know the needs of the citizens better than the citizens themselves." Then, where does the question of any compunction come in?

Mahatma Gandhi believed in the dictum that truth triumphs. To him, "Truth was God". But politicians will maintain that varied contingencies often compel them to be ambivalent in their stand and that exigencies justify breaches. What else explains the differences between promises and the actual performance of a government?

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