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Journalism of Courage
Last Saturday, a group of intellectuals, teachers and students in Motihari, the headquarters town of East Champaran district in Bihar, paid tributes to George Orwell on his 73rd death anniversary. Originally Eric Arthur Blair, he was born on June 25, 1903 in the town. After his education in England, he joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (now Myanmar) before resigning in 1928 to devote his life to writing. He took his penname from River Orwell, which flows through Suffolk County where he stayed.
In his rather short writing career, he left an indelible stamp on 20th century English prose. Some of his well-recognised works are Down and Out in Paris and London; Keep the Aspidistra Flying; Homage to Catalonia; Animal Farm; and 1984 (or Nineteen Eighty-Four). The last, written a year before he died in 1950, may be regarded as his magnum opus.
Set in an imaginary world ruled by three authoritarian states perpetually at war, the book is a chilling warning about a future dystopia. Almost 75 years after its publication, the narrative continues to hang over our consciousness. The impact of the book’s theme and its language has been so powerful that quite a few coinages have become part of the English vocabulary and a whole lot of existing words and expressions have got new meanings and connotations.
A political system which is despotic in nature and employs a powerful propaganda machinery to make subjects follow its world view, which is the underlying theme of the book, has given us the eponymous word Orwellian. Used as an adjective, it describes a regime which tries to control every aspect of people’s behaviour and thought.
The book has left a rich legacy of compound words and phrases. Newspeak is the name of the artificial language used for official communication in the book by Big Brother and his minions. The words have caught on in general use.
The first refers to confusing or deceptive bureaucratic jargon, often applied to any corrupt form of English, especially the propagandist and ambiguous language of politicians, bureaucrats, broadcasters, etc. The second is used for a leader, an organisation or an agency which has invaded the privacy of citizens and exercises total control on their lives. It has also been used for an elder brother who is overbearing in his attitude towards his younger sibling. In the book, Big Brother is the undisputed leader of Oceania, one of the three fictional states.
Newspeak has inspired a range of neologisms ending in –speak, an oft-used example being doublespeak (hypocrisy or double-standards), itself a portmanteau of doublethink and newspeak. Because of its origin, most such formations have a negative connotation. Doublethink means the mental capacity to accept as equally valid two entirely contrary opinions or beliefs.
Thought police, a force established to suppress the freedom of thought, has a Japanese origin. The pre-war Japan had the Special Higher Police known by the shortened form Tokko (for Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu). The expression was popularised after the publication of 1984, in which thought police or Thinkpol refers to a secret organisation entrusted with the task of arresting and eliminating citizens indulging in thought crimes.
Similarly, words like oligarchy, infallible, inviolate, catechism, heretical, discountenanced, dissemble, solipsism, vapid and many more were popularised in common usage. Big Brother and Room 101, which is an interrogation-cum-torture chamber in the book, have also lent themselves to the names of popular TV shows.
The journalist-author’s influence goes much beyond coining new words and expanding on the existing ones. His work Politics and the English Language remains a popular writing guide too.
Wordly Wise is weekly column by Amitabh Ranjan published every Saturday in the Explained section. Please tweet your feedback to @ieexplained
