Justified or a Sham?

SATIRICUS’s friend Tarun Vijay is in the soup, because his English is as poor as Satiricus’s. Recently righteously an eminent in-house “intelligent” of a leading daily took him to task. This intelligent who is an expert in pontificating in pompous English on everything under the sun castigated Tarun Vijay, an Indian MP, for (virtually) saying that “if Akhlaq had actually been guilty of eating beef, it would have been fine to lynch him.” Oh, my! Satiricus has known Tarun Vijay for long years and still had no idea the man harboured such murderous intents. The accuser’s charge against him is that when Tarun Vijay wrote “lynching a person merely on suspicious is absolutely wrong” he meant it would be equally absolutely right if there was evidence instead of suspicion.

Well, now, this poor Indian MP’s verbal plight reminds Satiricus of a certain very English MP. It was Addison, the 19th century essayist who was a British MP. He once said, “Half the members of this House are fools.” Naturally there was an uproar, and he was asked to recant, which he did, saying, “Half the members of this House are not fools.” Then again, Justice Katju (retired) once said, “90 per cent Indians are idiots.” If Tarun Vijay’s accuser is a believer in democracy, would he like to include himself in that majority? And finally, if playing on words is enough to make infantile accusations, Satiricus could ask him for a yes-or-no answer to a simple question—Have you stopped beating your wife?