PARAGRAPH,WORDS AND MEANINGS

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Topic Of The Day:-“Congress was Patel’s life”

No Patel, no national Congress. No Congress, no Sardar Patel. Congress patriotism was his patriotism; Congress politics was his politics. No one, howsoever anxious to wrench his legacy off from that of the Congress, can dispute and much less deny that basic and incontrovertible fact. No one, howsoever desperate to annex his legacy to that of another body, cultural or political, like the Hindu Mahasabha or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the Bharatiya Janata Party, can succeed in staging so ridiculous a trapeze show. Sardar Patel was the Congress’s spine. The Congress was Sardar Patel’s life. Does that mean that the Sardar’s membership, leadership and stewardship of the Congress was free of tensions? Of course not, because he was human and his party was led and peopled by other humans, each with tempers and temperaments that were distinct. Despite Gandhi’s pre-eminent position in it and in the hearts of the people of India, the Congress was not a hegemonic party and its most charismatic leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, was, by instinct, self-training and practice, its most natural democrat. Nehru’s was a lunar luminosity in Gandhi’s Congress. Nehru’s glow could brighten and lessen, and on a moonless light plunge the party in inky gloom. Patel, with his seven great skills — resoluteness, clarity, direction, focus, loyalty, grounded-ness and guts — was the party’s saptarshi, its Ursa Major. The Congress not only accommodated personality and political variations, it regarded itself as their natural home. It was a place to which people belonged, not a place in which people assembled for a drill. Its sifat, to use a Persian word that stands for essence or ethos, was its diversity. And its Working Committee embodied that sifat. It had, Gandhi apart, Nehru the socialist and agnostic, Patel the conservative, C. Rajagopalachari the liberal, Rajendra Prasad the traditionalist, Abul Kalam Azad the scholar, J.B. Kripalani the scoffer. At different times it had Subhas Chandra Bose the nationalist, Sarojini Naidu the poet. Each Congressman and Congresswoman was himself or herself first, and then a soldier of the party. Each person was ‘rare’. Which is why, describing Acharya Narendra Deva in his obituary speech in Parliament, Nehru spoke of him being “…a man of rare distinction — distinction in many fields — rare in spirit, rare in mind and intellect, rare in integrity of mind and otherwise.” The Congress’s ranking leaders, as indeed its countless ‘file’, differed, debated, wrangled and even warred, but stayed true to the party’s sifat, because the party gave them that ‘play’, not as a policy but as an inherent personality trait, India’s trait. The mutual differences between Nehru and Patel are no secret. The Congress did not believe in secrecy. Their mutual trust was no secret. The Congress believed in trust. Their differences are not to be exaggerated. They are not to be minimised. They are to be contextualised. In the democratic spirit of that plural party. Sardar Patel led a party as its Ursa Major that was anything but a homogenising factory. It was as plural as it was because it saw itself in the words Gandhi used to describe its eclectic rolls in London in 1931.

1) Wrench

Meaning: Pull or twist suddenly and violently.

Example: Casey grabbed the gun and wrenched it from my hand.

Synonyms: Tug, Pull

2) Legacy

Meaning: An amount of money or property left to someone in a will.

Example: My grandmother died and unexpectedly left me a small legacy.

Synonyms: Bequest, Heritage

3) Dispute

Meaning: A disagreement or argument.

Example: A territorial dispute between the two countries.

Synonyms: Debate, Discourse

Antonyms: Agreement

4) Deny

Meaning: State that one refuses to admit the truth or existence of.

Example: Both firms deny any responsibility for the tragedy.

Synonyms: Contradict, Gainsay

Antonyms: Confirm

5) Annex

Meaning: Add (territory) to one’s own territory by appropriation.

Example: The left bank of the Rhine was annexed by France in 1797.

Synonyms: Occupy, usurp

Antonyms: Relinquish

6) Ridiculous

Meaning: Deserving or inviting derision or mockery; absurd.

Example: That ridiculous tartan cap.

Synonyms: Laughable, Absurd

Antonyms: Serious, Sensible

7) Trapeze

Meaning: A gymnastic or acrobatic apparatus consisting of a short horizontal bar suspended by two parallel ropes.

Example: Performing tricks on the trapeze.

8) Stewardship

Meaning: The job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property.

Example: The funding and stewardship of the NHS.

9) Peopled

Meaning: Fill or be present in (a place or domain).

Example: In her imagination the flat was suddenly peopled with ghosts.

10) Tempers

Meaning: Improve the consistency or resiliency of (a substance) by heating it or adding particular substances to it.

Example: Hardboard tempered with oil or resin is more durable.

Synonyms: Harden, Strengthen

11) Temperaments

Meaning: The tendency to behave angrily or emotionally.

Example: He had begun to show signs of temperament.

Synonyms: Violently, Irritability

Antonyms: Phlegm, Placidity

12) Hegemonic

Meaning: Ruling or dominant in a political or social context.

Example: The bourgeoisie constituted the hegemonic class.

13) Plunge

Meaning: Fall suddenly and uncontrollably.

Example: A car swerved to avoid a bus and plunged into a ravine.

Synonyms: Crash, Plummet

14) Gloom

Meaning: Partial or total darkness.

Example: He strained his eyes peering into the gloom.

Synonyms: Darkness, Dark

Antonyms: Light

15) Ethos

Meaning: The characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its attitudes and aspirations.

Example: A challenge to the ethos of the 1960s.

Synonyms: Spirit, Character

16) Agnostic

Meaning: Someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, if a god exists.

Example: Although he was raised a Catholic, he was an agnostic for most of his adult life.

Synonyms: Sceptic, Doubter

Antonyms: Believer, Theist

17) Scoffer

Meaning: To laugh and speak about a person or idea in a way that shows that you think they are stupid or silly.

Example:  The critics scoffed at his paintings.

18) Wrangled

Meaning: Have a long, complicated dispute or argument.

Example: The bureaucrats continue wrangling over the fine print.

Synonyms: Argue, Quarrel

Antonyms: Agree

19) Warred

Meaning: Engage in a war.

Example: Small states warred against each another.

Synonyms: Fight, Battle

Antonyms: Peace

20) Trait

Meaning: A distinguishing quality or characteristic, typically one belonging to a person.

Example: The traditionally British trait of self-denigration.

Synonyms: Characteristic, Feature

21) Exaggerated

Meaning: Represent (something) as being larger, better, or worse than it really is.

Example: She was apt to exaggerate any aches and pains.

Synonyms: Overstate, Amplify

Antonyms: Understand, Play down