Does Truth Matter

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Reality is mediated by language. Words, sentences, phrases, metaphors, symbols, myths crowd language in such a way that we are now beginning to suffer from language pollution. Does language express truth? This question cannot wait for an answer as Bacon’s Jesting Pilate did not wait for an answer to ‘What is Truth?’ Our teachers told us to speak truth. We interrogate people charged with crimes to speak the truth. Witnesses in court rooms take oath on the Gita or some such texts to speak the truth and nothing but truth. But truth is an elusive ‘substance’ which reveals the surface hiding the essence. The Greeks called truth a goddess who is always naked: whoever speaks truth puts on her the garb of his/her own imagination. The Indian sages said, Satyam Ekam, Biprah bahudha Badanti, that is truth is spoken by various voices of individual tone and tenor. Then what is this Truth we talk about? If truth is the being of a substance what is fact? If fact is the state of truth what is fact and why should the word exist if truth is the being? Well, such conflicting confusions abound if we try to know what is truth. History reveals that truth is searched for and worshipped but never practised except for those who prefer death to speaking falsehood.

Truth seldom gives joy. Those who adhere to truth suffer unspeakable agony. Ram, Harischandra and our Gandhi never experienced life as a joyous manifestation of being. They had everything but they had to suffer for the very truth which they wished to establish as the greatest value in creation. They believed that truth leads to God; truth validates life’s divinity; truth wards off all evil; truth ultimately triumphs over the illusion which prompts man to have recourse to falsehood. And this belief gives human beings the courage to accept suffering. But if a person suffers all his life why should he live for truth?

Truth, morality, righteousness, sacrifice, honesty are all interlinked. We see however those who practise the contrarian values- falsehood, immorality, depravity, selfishness ,dishonesty live in better houses, eat better food, enjoy better clout and are feared, if not adored or admired. Kings who are just, truthful and honest they lose their kingdoms in no time. We have seen in our lifetime the life led by Lal Bahadur Shastri, Guljarilal Nanda and their ilk. History hardly remembers them beyond a line or two in a text book. Politicians, who lie their way about, indulge in false propaganda against their adversaries flourish. An honest officer is hated by the common man for he is useless to them. He will not and cannot give them anything unless it is legitimate. He is not useful hence not harmful for only when someone is harmful he is useful. Human society does not thrive on truth values. A cheat has more friends than a man of principle. You may argue, ultimately he is caught by the long arms of law: but ultimately all of us will die. What matters is the quality of life in terms of comfort, power and influence.  What we call happiness, advancement in life and a sense of well being are all mundane values, and for these the so called higher values can be sacrificed. For atonement of ‘sins’ committed willfully we have Ganga, temples, donations and charitable work. You earn happy sobriquets like philanthropists, social workers and million others. But a truthful man earns enemies, poverty, suffering and failure.

Our ideal value is ‘Satyameva Jayate’ . Yes we accept the maxim. But who and how many believe it and how many live by it? People excel in falsehood. Most of our literature comprises imaginative lies. Love too is a great value but most lovers (of either sex) are sweet liars and noble cheats. Lawyers earn their livelihood by twisting and spinning falsehood in plausible rhetoric. Actors on stage live a lie truthfully. The saints sleep with the virgins to test the strength of their celibacy. Teachers speak ‘truth’ as they understand it. They run to the temples privately but publicly teach rationality. And the bureaucrats, politicians often are compulsive liars otherwise they cannot brainwash the gullible public. Parents lie to their children, wives resort to sexy lies to cover their blue stockings and writers, journalists, in fact all agents and instruments of civilization go off tangentially to be politically correct.

Who cares for truth then? But we can not say that truth seekers are liars? No that would be blasphemy. Truth is difficult to accept and practice. But those who live truthfully at least hold their heads high despite their lonely miseries. They prove the presence of divinity by their personal fire tests.