The caption of this text may appear strange to some. The question would be asked as to why truth should needdefense?
This is a good question. Truth in itself should be self-sufficient and stand out for itself. Indeed, all communities all over the world teach their children to be truthful. Notwithstanding this obvious practice in operational terms, truth is often a casualty at the level of convenience.
Human interaction is often spent in trying to be pleasing to each other. This is so because no one wants to be the “foul guy’ to the other. An illustration will prove the point.
If ‘A’ asks ‘B’ “how am I looking?” the chances are more than likely that the reply will be irrespective of the truth. The reply will be ‘You are looking fine.’ The person so responding may not mean it, but he will still say it.
Hence, in interpersonal dynamics, pleasantness becomes the guiding force, and this is often at the cost of ‘truth.’
In fact, a person who is truthful is seen as tactless and often meets with some reservation on the social front. The person who is pleasant, “no matter how untruthful,” scores over the truthful person. It is then that the’truthful’ person’s parents, spouse, children, friends, and more, all start persuading him to be pleasant and not just truthful. In fact, being truthful is almost taken to be unacceptably blunt.
If the matter were to end at a social level, there would not be much to talk about because, socially, what one would lose on the round and one gain on the swing.
When the matter goes beyond social platitudes, it becomes serious and has deeper, more basic implications.
Recently, there has been much media space taken up by detection of people’s wealth earned through other than truthful means. The role of the CBI, CID, and Enforcement Directorate is not the theme of this text. These agencies do their job just as any other agency is meant to do their job. The subject of ‘truth’ in this text is more commonplace and more of every day usage than the role of financial probity in life.
One of the bigger problems of being ‘un-truthful’ is to keep track of what one said to whom. If one says one thing to ‘A’ but does not say the same thing to ‘B’ in a manner that is replicable, then consistency becomes a causality. While talking to ‘B’, one has to remember what one said to ‘A.’ And, if the number of people increases from ‘A’ to ‘B’ to ‘C’ to ‘D’ and more, the problem keeps getting more and more complex. The truth is, memory is never perfect and if the framework of reference is not truthful, then even the change in emphasis or a few words can alter the meaning and the impact.
Hence the proverb, “Honesty is the best policy.” In that case, one does not have to strain the memory and keep reminding oneself of the version of the truth one has presented. The truth has a way of standing out.
Nevertheless, as already mentioned earlier, on in the text, for many conveniences is more comforting than the truth.
As time goes on, more and more people are seeking comfort in ancient texts, which have with stood the test of time.Be they Vedic in character, or the Gospel, or the Quran or the Guru Granth Sahib, and more. These are treasures of humankind and have sustained the homosapien species on this planet over millennia without letting them get lost. They may have varying prophets and more, but all of them unequivocally have supported the wisdom and the necessity for ‘truth’.
In the culture of the Indian sub-continent, the dictum is ‘Satyameva Jayate.’ In a free translation, it would mean ‘truth alone triumphs’. What is to be noted is that the statement does not say simply ‘truth triumphs’. It says truth ALONE triumphs. The meaning is so simple; it needs no explanation. This is empaneled in our national emblem. The wisdom of this choice is unexceptionable, it remains the ideal framework of the societal development of India.
And that is for good reason.
Like anywhere else, practice of truth in business, as anywhere else, is critical. That is what brand building and sustenance is all about. That is the essence of basic business transaction. Following this route, business too will be successful. Empiricism is the testimony to the fact that any other route is not only risky or sub-optimal, but basically unwise.
Falsehood may appear fashionable, but truth and faith in it,arealso as old as the seas. And that is the ‘defence’ of truth, if any, be needed.
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