Trust Archives - understand-culture

Names for Traitors

Mir Jafar. The name is tied to “the betrayal he perpetrated on the young Siraj in Plassey in 1757,” as The Telegraph puts it. The paper calls it the the “most commonly used Indianism for traitor or turncoat.” In March 2021, before the West Bengal election, Mamata Banerjee said of defectors from her party: “Gaddars, Mir Jafars (traitors) have now become BJP candidates.”

Jaichand. The 12th-century Rajput king remembered in popular history as the man who betrayed Prithviraj Chauhan. In June 2024 the Haryana minister Ranjit Singh used the name against rivals in his own party: “These Jaichands will be taught a tough lesson.” Rajput community groups dispute the charge against Jaichand, Outlook reports, and say the popular accusation goes back to the Ain-i-Akbari.

Banned for Life

On December 5, 2000, the Indian cricket authorities banned Mohammad Azharuddin, the former captain of the national team, from cricket for life. The ban was based on a report by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

In 2012 the Andhra Pradesh High Court set the ban aside, on procedural grounds and without clearing him of wrongdoing, as Siasat reported. By then he had already been elected to the Lok Sabha from Moradabad in 2009. In 2019 he became president of the Hyderabad Cricket Association. On October 31, 2025, he was sworn in as a minister in the Telangana government.

Criminal Breach of Trust

Section 405 of the Indian Penal Code defined a crime called criminal breach of trust. “Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property, dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property” commits it. The definition also covers anyone who uses the property “in violation of any direction of law” or “of any legal contract, express or implied.”

Section 316 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita of 2023, which corresponds to it, opens with the same words.

The Thread of Love

Rahiman dhaga prem ka, mat todo chhitkaay. Toote se phir na mile, mile gaanth pari jaay. Rahim says: do not snap the thread of love with a jerk. Once broken, it does not join again. If it joins, a knot remains.

The couplet by the poet Rahim is in the Hindi textbook Malhar of the National Council of Educational Research and Training, for the sixth grade.

Moonlighting

On August 20, 2022, Rishad Premji, chairman of the IT company Wipro, wrote on Twitter: “There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating – plain and simple.”

In September 2022 he told a management convention that Wipro had “discovered 300 people in the last few months” who were working for a competitor while employed by Wipro. The company fired them. Premji called it a “complete violation of integrity in its deepest form,” Business Today reported.

Panna Dhai

In 1536 Banvir assassinated Vikramaditya of Mewar. The young prince Udai Singh was in the care of his nurse, Panna Dhai. She put her own son, Chandan, in the prince’s bed. Banvir ne Chandan ko rajkumar samajhkar maar dala. Banvir killed Chandan, thinking he was the prince, a Rajasthan history guide writes in Hindi. Udai Singh was taken to safety in Kumbhalgarh.

The story is taught in schools. The Sanskrit textbook Deepakam for the seventh grade has a chapter on her, titled Veerangana Pannadhaya, the heroine Panna Dhai.

The Same as the Staff

In July 2024, after India won the T20 World Cup, the Board of Control for Cricket in India shared a prize of Rs 125 crore. The 15 players received Rs 5 crore each, and the members of the support staff Rs 2.5 crore each. The board had set aside Rs 5 crore for the head coach, Rahul Dravid.

Dravid asked for Rs 2.5 crore instead. “Rahul wanted the same bonus money as the rest of his support staff. We respect his sentiments,” a source in the board told Business Standard.

Modi’s Hanuman

In October 2020, during the Bihar assembly election, Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party described himself as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hanuman. “The prime minister lives in my heart….I am like his Hanuman,” he said, as the Deccan Herald reported.

In the Ramayana, Hanuman is the devoted servant of Rama. The BJP’s answer was less warm. It called him a vote katua, a vote cutter, the Deccan Herald reported.

Opening the Innings

At the Champions Trophy of 2013, the captain M.S. Dhoni asked Rohit Sharma to open the innings for India. “He just came up to me and said ‘I want you to open the innings as I am confident that you will do well,'” Rohit recalled in an interview with the Press Trust of India in 2017.

“I believe the decision to open in ODIs changed my career and it was a decision taken by M.S. Dhoni,” he said. “He told me that I shouldn’t be scared of failures or get upset by criticism.”

A Visit to Pune

In January 2021 Ratan Tata, then 83 years old, traveled from Mumbai to Pune to visit a former Tata employee. The man had “been suffering from ill-health over the past two years,” Business Today reported. The visit became known through a post on LinkedIn. “The private visit was not publicised in any way, and there were no media present,” YourStory wrote.