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Of Metaphors





Figurative language does not just add colour, it is an important tool in aiding comprehension. A simile or a metaphor makes the comprehension pretty easy, by switching on the neural paths of comprehension. They can also help us build our knowledge by connecting the unknown to the known. Since majority of the common similes or metaphors are part of the collective (linguistic) wisdom, it is a shared playing ground.  When a figure employed in a specific context to help illustrate a meaning is culled out of the situation and is allowed to roam free, the effect could be strange and unedifying. 

A curious case in point which played around in the media recently and is just fading out is the case of the head of CBI. In the course of a media panel discussion, he was commenting about legalizing betting. He asserted that betting need to be legalized. If there are no existing laws pertaining to the same, it is necessary to take up measures to have legal checks in place. We need to have laws and we need to enforce the same. A potentially weak enforcement scenario should not be an excuse for not having laws. In the course of his explanation Mr. Ranjit Sinha resorted to the use of ‘rape’ simile. That was when all the hell broke loose, even though hell can break loose in the media at the drop of a hat. 

In the damage control mode, when all and sundry started braying for the blood of the  chief, CBI clarified: "The statement was made in the context of the voice vote taken by Shekhar Gupta , editor and writer on legalising betting in sports. After the opinion of R N Savani and Rahul Dravid , I gave my opinion that betting should be legalised and that if the laws cannot be enforced that does not mean that laws should not be made. This is as erroneous as saying that if rape is inevitable one should lie back and enjoy it. Laws should be strictly enforced and absence of enforcement or lack of will for enforcement does not mean that laws should not be made. I reiterate my deep sense of regard and respect for women and my commitment for gender issues."

Now, let us put the whole thing in perspective. It need not be asserted that the simile was in bad taste when we measure it against the kind of yardstick we commonly apply to people of responsibility speaking in public. No one would have held it against him, if this were a private remark. But in that case, this would not have even come out! Stripped of the emotional baggage, what is wrong in using the word 'rape' as a metaphor or as part of a simile? Does the use of it as a metaphor to validate a point signify an insult? Since rape is despicable 'act', are we to refrain from the use of the 'word'?  If that is the case, how do we sanitize the whole idiom of our language and discourses in such a way that the rape-like terminology is kept off? 

Now, what did the expression mean, actually? If a stance called neutrality is possible, one can assume that the expression was meant to state that, inability to enforce a norm is no excuse for arguing that laws need not be framed. In which case most of the laws around, we know that, are honoured in its violation. Enforcement of laws has never been one of the strengths of the over democratized country. Let us learn to sit back and allow the simile to sink in. It just states that ineffective implementation isn't reason enough to deny formulations of norms. 'Rape' stood for violation and 'lie down and enjoy' meant lack of resistance, here, willing - a kind of passivity which amounts to criminality.

If we are faulting the speaker for this, plenty of words in the idiom of languages will have to be cordoned off, declared off limits to the public. If the expression was found to be vulgar, especially the second half of it, we also need to look at the way we subject ourselves to be metaphorically raped by the politics, bureaucracy and the corporates. Are we not allowing ourselves to be used by them? When the politician take us for a ride, many rides, don't we, most of us , simply allow us to be used? When the shopkeepers fleece us, don't the governments allow this to happen? When the academia is short changed by politicians by allowing extra-academic considerations to gain upper hand in the institutions of education, are they not allowing the illegal violations, metaphoric rapes to happen? Is it not common to talk about 'murder of justice', ' recipe for disaster', 'illicit affairs of political parties' and so on? Are these not common ways of putting the ideas across, importing images from completely different domains? When we speak of 'illicit affairs of parties', do we mount on the moral hills and preach linguistic virginity? Can't we be mature enough to distinguish between the metaphor and reality? 

Fight one must against the cultural landscape, the inherent bad taste which makes certain culturally anomalous similes,  guaranteed to tickle,  to win an argument, which people the unconscious with the images of vulgarity. Fight we must too, against the vulgar rush to see a rape where no rape exists. 

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