FALSEHOOD VERSUS TRUTH
‘Falsehood’ is the opposite of truth. It is a lie, an
unreality, a deception, a baseless statement, a defamatory utterance, a
fabrication, an invention, a piece of fiction, an exaggeration, a deceit, a deception,
a perjury, and a misrepresentation.
Those who indulge in falsehood are liars. They may be even
cowards. They are afraid telling the truth because truth about one’s misdeeds
or fictitious statements is more often than not punishable.
Falsehood is also used to disgrace others, to spoil the
impression of rivals and competitors, to
have an upper hand over their opponents,
Unfortunately, falsehood is omnipresent. Those who always speak the truth are rare. Even small children
and great scholars tell lies.
As regards fiction writers they are not liars. The lies in
their writings are a form of literary requirement. It is their themes which
demand understatement or exaggeration or invention.
Poets tell many truths which are the product of their
imagination.
History, too, is not completely truthful. It is not a fair description of what happened because it tells the truth
which suits the personal viewpoint of its writer.
There is a lot of untruth in business, personal
relationships, politics, religious stories, superstitions, records of governance,
and astrological predictions.
Look at this famous saying: None but cowards lie.
The English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) said: He who
tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must invent
twenty more to maintain that.
Falsehood, said the English novelist and poetess George Eliot
(1819-1880), is so easy, truth so difficult! Examine your words well and you
will find that even when you have no motive to be false it is very hard to say
the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings --- much harder than to
say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.
To conclude, the Indian political Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
said : “Truth is God”. Truth, according
to him, was the most important name of
God and therefore it was more accurate to say: “Truth is God” than “God is
Truth”.
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G.R.Kanwal
2nd January 2025
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