Words of power
WORDSWORTH
| A booming voice, many theatrical gestures and a capacity to rouse the rabble "" these are considered the traditional qualities of a good orator. The rhetorical power of a speech is derived from the way it is delivered. This is where a written text is distinct from a speech. The impact of a speech is not dependent on the words alone "" though these are vital components of a good speech "" but on certain other skills to do with voice and even gesture. Thus a good orator brings to a speech the modulations and power of his voice and also "" very significantly "" a sense of theatre. |
| The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein declared that words are also deeds. A speech, one could say as an extension of this, does something. As a piece of oratory, a speech is intended to evoke emotional responses, even actions. A speech can rouse people, make them reflective or sad and can even reassure them. What a speech does or intends to do depends on the author of the speech and the context in which the speech is delivered. The context of a speech is often a clue to what a speech does and also of the intentions of the speaker. A truly memorable speech is one in which the importance of the occasion, the literary quality of the speech and the speaker's rhetorical power all come together to evoke an emotional ambience which survives the passing of time and is recalled even in the absence of the speaker's oratory. |
| Many of the skills associated with good oratory have undergone a change under the impact of technology. In classical times in Europe, when rhetoric was taught as part of regular curriculum, orators did not have the advantage of the microphone. They depended upon the power of their voice. This obviously restricted reach; it also meant all speeches were transient. The good ones remained in memory and were then lost. Those speeches that were written or taken down remained as written texts. Both these limitations were removed with the coming of the wireless. Speechmakers could reach more people and what they said could be recorded. Thus Indira Gandhi, on the morning of 26 June 1975, could announce to the nation over All India Radio, that Emergency had been declared and spread fear and chill within minutes. |
| The coming of television brought about an even more dramatic transformation. Television cameras not only captured the voice of a speaker but the speaker herself. Every gesture, grimace and smile made in the course of a speech was captured on camera. |
| Here an important distinction needs to be introduced. One is a speech made exclusively for television cameras, say, the addresses made to the nation by a Prime Minister or President. The other consists of speeches that are made on various occasions "" election meetings, political rallies, conferences, seminars and so on "" and are captured on camera in the course of television journalists doing their routine beats. |
| In the first case, when a speech is made only for television, the speaker, or at least the good one, is always conscious that the camera not only captures every gesture, it also exaggerates every gesture and look. This means that, for most self-conscious orators, the camera acts as an instrument that restricts theatrical gestures. Similarly, speakers tend not to use the power of their voice, making their points instead through modulation. Speechmaking on television becomes a more controlled and deliberate affair. Television is not a rabble-rouser's vehicle of choice. |
| But in the second case, the presence of TV cameras is incidental. The speaker uses the occasion to make the point she wants to make without keeping the camera in mind. Thus if the occasion calls for histrionics "" say, an election rally "" and the speaker is adept at it "" say, Atal Behari Vajpayee at his best "" then the speaker indulges in it quite freely. It is seen on television, sometimes live, sometimes later, and the impact "" as conveyed on the television screen "" may in fact be quite different from the original intention. The first and intended listeners of the speech may have been incited, excited and so on when they heard it with all the theatre thrown in. But on television all this might actually look quite ludicrous. |
| The coming of television has thus been something of a dampener on the art of oratory. The list of skills with which this piece began are no longer noticeable in those who are known as good speechmakers today. A speech by someone like Mani Shankar Aiyar has verve and wit but it is by no means rich in histrionics. It is an irony that the promise of permanence, as represented by television, has led to a decline in the qualities that made for a good speech in the days of yore. Technology has killed an art. |
| Rudrangshu Mukherjee's Great Speeches of India has been published by Random House this month. |