Letters: Delayed truth

As Shreekant Sambrani points out in his piece, "Truth will out" (October 11), facts do surface but their effect depends on when they do. The time gap seems to be widening with the increase in frequency and instensity of communication barriers. If India had known before 1947 that Muhammad Ali Jinnah would not live long because of a terminal disease, the Partition might have been avoided.

The truth about the misdeeds of companies and their promoters appears in the public domain when all that is left to be done is a post mortem of the incidents or a damage control. Whether it was the global economic crisis of 2008 triggered by the collapse of the Lehman Brothers or the escape of Vijay Mallya from India, the damage was already done.

Nowadays, whenever an important truth is revealed there is an organised effort to bury it by the person or party adversely affected by its disclosure. Take, for example, the surgical strikes by India on Pakistani terror camps. Another tactic is "if you cannot convince them, confuse them". Look at the attempt to equate the 2011 incursion into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with the 2016 strikes.

Whether it is politicians or people in other fields, the number of those with a dubious past may not have increased that much; what has increased is the "risk" of their exposure by information technology tools. As in the case of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump case shows, the attempt is first to deny, then downplay, rationalise and so on.

However, the journey to the discovery of truth is now longer and harder than earlier, despite the tools of technology.

Y G Chouksey, Pune

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