The Hindu Business Line : A mandate for change, though not overwhelming

Elections. Voting. Counting. What emerges thereafter is the mandate that both the winners and the losers have to come to terms with. `Mandate' appears after `mandarin', in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

"The authority to carry out a policy or course of action, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election," defines the entry. But that's only the fifth in the list of meanings.

"The State has given a clear mandate," reports www.teluguportal.net about the results of elections in Tamil Nadu. While campaigning in the State, Manmohan Singh had wished for a `handsome mandate' as during the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

The vanquished don't, normally, call the mandate ugly or grotesque, however bitter it may be; a terse statement is instead issued that the party bows to the mandate.

That should remind one of "I obey the mandate," from Othello. "Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems, your special mandate for the state-affairs hath hither brought," says Brabantio in the same play.

"They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way," is a line from Hamlet. "The party in power has a clear mandate for reform," reads an example in Encarta. Alas, that doesn't happen always.

Official command

The first meaning of mandate is, "An official command or instruction from an authority," on http://encarta.msn.com.

"An authoritative command; especially, a formal order from a superior court or official to an inferior one," says Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

It explains the etymology as follows: "Middle French and Latin; Middle French mandat, from Latin mandatum, from neuter of mandatus, past participle of mandare to entrust, enjoin, probably irregular from manus hand + -dere to put - more at manual, do."

Manual, in turn, is from "Middle English manuel, from Middle French, from Latin manualis, from manus hand; akin to Old English mund hand and perhaps to Greek marE hand," as www.m-w.com educates.

And do is from "Middle English don, from Old English dOn; akin to Old High German tuon to do, Latin -dere to put, facere to make, do, Greek tithenai to place, set."

Online Etymology Dictionary traces mandate to 1501.

Latin mandatum means `commission, order,' and mandare means `to order, commit to one's charge,' literally "to give into one's hand," explains www.etymonline.com.

Political sense

"Political sense of `approval of policy supposedly conferred by voters to winners of an election' is from 1796." Queerly, `mandatory' is attested 1576! Sense of `obligatory because commanded' is from 1818.

The dictionary informs that manual, as a noun, "is attested from 1431 and originally meant `service book used by a priest'."

Mandatory means compulsory. Mandatary historically meant `a person or state receiving a mandate'.

On http://dictionary.law.com, one of the meanings of mandate is, "the writ of mandamus, which orders a public official or public body to comply with the law."

Mandamus is Latin for `we order,' and means a writ (also called `writ of mandate') that orders a public agency or governmental body to perform an act required by law when it has neglected or refused to do so.

In Roman law, mandates were the instructions that the emperor addressed to public functionaries, which were to serve as rules for their conduct, states The `Lectric Law Library's Lexicon.

"These mandates resembled those of the pro-consuls, the mandata jurisdictio, and were ordinarily binding on the legates or lieutenants of the emperor of the imperial provinces, and, there they had the authority of the principal edicts."

Financial context

Mandate means the formal appointment to advise on or arrange a project financing, according to MoneyGlossary.com.

"The agreed objectives in a management agreement which an investment manager is given by an investor that can include a benchmark portfolio and forbidden investments," defines the US Environmental Protection Agency Terminology Reference on http://oaspub.epa.gov.

`Investment mandate' is a phrase you'd often come across in the financial world, especially when speaking about managing others' funds. Wikipedia has links to pages that discuss `the Mandate trade union in Ireland', `Mandate magazine, a gay pornographic magazine published since the 1970s', and `Mandate of Heaven'.

"The Palestinian election is something that was really a turning point. It's a mandate for peace," is a thought from Warren Christopher, applying the word to an invisible fallout of the poll process. Likewise, there can be a mandate for change, though the divide isn't overwhelming.

"It is a myth, not a mandate, a fable not a logic, and symbol rather than a reason by which men are moved," argues Irwin Edman.

Spiritual and temporal

"Our movement has a deep spiritual origin. It came into being at this particular time by a mandate of God. I have a divine guiding light," is a claim of Sun Myung Moon, the founder of The Washington Times newspaper.

"Politicians usually like to maintain that they have a mandate for the policies they pursue, which gives the policies the legitimacy that they need," observes Political Dictionary on www.fast-times.com.

"When politicians win elections by big margins they tend to assume they have a mandate, and are sometimes thereby more bold in pursuing their goals than they might otherwise be."

Usually when you talk about a mandate, you're talking about an overwhelming win, insists Lincoln Chafee.

"Politicians elected in landslide victories often claim that their policies have received a mandate from the voters," says www.bartleby.com. "You cannot speak on behalf of a nation when you have no mandate to do so," says Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Those are powerful mandates, such as that of the `scarce-bearded' Caesar to `Do this, or this,' as Cleopatra would speak of to Mark Antony, who, however, is apparently not too keen on confounding the time `with conference harsh'.

But harsh, again, are the realities of coalition politics, when victories are the result of a patchwork of alliances, as we have been accustomed to these days. For, the policies would then have to be compromises rather than categorical.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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