Do these loaded words deceive YOU?

Open any national daily( apart from the TOI- more on that later) and you invariably see coverage of certain socio-economic- political issues like inflation. poverty, SEZ, reservations, criminalisation of politics, black money etc- this list could fill an whole blog. While the coverage itself is mostly unbiased, what is a burning concern is WORDS. Yes, you read that right.

We read words like "worker", " backward" " small" " justice" " freedom" " poor" all twisted out of context. Who would imagine for example that for BPL purposes, poverty is about Rs 25000/ year, but for creamy layer of OBC reservation- it is Rs 2,50,000/ year.

Similarly, people who have never done a day's honest labour in their lives- like social workers and politicians- claim to represent the working class. My question is- Who is a worker? A daily wage person or an IIT/IIM salaried employee?

Similarly, " social justice" is often used to justify reservations. This misses out the point that not only those who were oppressed by caste system ( like SC's) get reservations, but also those who did not suffer that stigma do so- like ST's/ OBC's etc.

Also, to justify public display of affection/ porn like movies, people say that freedom is must. Yes, "freedom" is OK, as long as it does not affect freedom of other people to have uncontaminated minds.

As far as " small goes'" , the local kiranawala opposes Wal- Mart as he says that they will gobble him up. But so what? These small shop keepers evade income tax, and mostly do not pass on the service tax/ VAT they collect from customers. That is unjust enrichment, which perpetuates the poor-rich divide. Also, the income of these "small" vendors is inflation prone- unlike salaried income.

So, to allow atleast an informed debate on these issues- let us clarify the meaning of words used in a certain context. It would throw up some surprises.