In one of the Akbar and Birbal tales, a poor Brahmin stands all night in a freezing pond to win a reward from the emperor. Akbar refuses to pay. A light in the palace, a mile away, kept the man warm, he says.
Birbal does not argue. He sends word that he will come to court once his khichdi is cooked. Days pass. When Akbar goes to see him, the fire is far away from the pot. Akbar sees his mistake and pays the Brahmin.
Dabi zubaan se: with a pressed-down tongue. The Rekhta dictionary defines it as speaking in a low voice, in a muffled voice, timidly.
Munh pe aur, peeth peeche aur: one thing to the face, another behind the back. Rekhta glosses it as a friend outwardly and an enemy inwardly. Peeth peeche badshah ko bhi bura kehte hain: behind his back, people speak ill even of the emperor.
Bichauliya: the one in the middle. Rekhta gives mediator, arbitrator, go-between and middleman. Its Hindi entry adds the person who arranges a marriage or an engagement.
On October 26, 2018, Viral Acharya, a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, gave a public lecture in Mumbai on the independence of regulators. “Governments that do not respect central bank independence will sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets,” he said. Reports of tension between the bank and the government followed.
On December 10, 2018, the governor, Urjit Patel, resigned. His statement gave one reason: “On account of personal reasons, I have decided to step down from my current position effective immediately.”
On April 28, 1976, during the Emergency, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court decided the case known as ADM Jabalpur. Four judges sided with the government on the detention of citizens without trial. Justice H.R. Khanna dissented alone. “Detention without trial is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty,” he wrote.
In January 1977 the government of Indira Gandhi passed over Khanna, the senior judge, and appointed M.H. Beg Chief Justice. Khanna resigned.
In the Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata, Bhishma rebukes Karna before the Kuru court. Karna does not fight the grandsire with words. “I lay down my weapons,” he says, in the Ganguli translation. “The Grandsire will henceforth behold me in court only and not in battle.”
Karna leaves the court for his own house. When the war comes, he still sets the same condition: “Let Santanu’s son Bhishma soon withdraw from the great battle.”
In the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata, Draupadi’s question goes unanswered by the assembly. Vidura, waving his hands, silences the hall. “Ye are not answering her,” he says, in the Ganguli translation.
Then he states the rule. A person who knows the rules of morality and attends an assembly, but “doth not answer a query that is put, incurreth half the demerit that attacheth to a lie.”
In the Yuddha Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, Vibhishana advises his brother Ravana, in the presence of the ministers, to return Sita to Rama. Ravana is enraged and dismisses him. The text says that Ravana “sent away Vibhishana, who had spoken honestly.”
Vibhishana goes over to Rama. He explains: “Reviled by him and humiliated as a slave, I, leaving my sons and my wife, have come to take refuge with Rama.”
In India a side-to-side movement of the head often answers a question. Wikipedia’s article on the head bobble says that “most frequently it means yes, or is used to indicate understanding.” It can also take the place of a thank-you.
The meaning depends on context. “An unenthusiastic head bobble can be a polite way of declining something without saying no directly.”
In a column in The Tribune, Lakhinder Jit Singh Vohra wrote: “Instead of saying no, we are taught to nod our head and take it.”
In India, he wrote, “everything is a yes, even when everything is meant to be a no.” A refusal arrives as an assurance, such as “200 per cent it will be taken care of.”