Daily Vocab For Various Competitive Exams: 24th August 2018

MAKING INDIA CHANGE

Atal Bihari Vajpayee died in the early evening of August 16. Although a serious illness had left him (1) incapacitated and out of public life for the past 12 years, the announcement of his death was followed by a heartfelt sense of grief as Indians in different walks of life recalled his long political career. There were tributes from those who worked with him in politics, in Parliament and in the government. At the same time, Vajpayee’s death was also followed by what can best be described as a bout of political bodysnatching. Since he entered politics as an assistant to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee in 1951, deputed to the post by the leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vajpayee had (2) stayed the course. There was a period, between 1984 and 1996, when Vajpayee’s importance in the BJP diminished. It was the period of ‘distinctive’ politics, Ayodhya, aggressive Hindutva and Lal Krishna Advani. Vajpayee was never a forgotten (3) relic. In the (4) pantheon of the BJP he occupied a special place. No national executive and national council meeting of the party was complete without the concluding marg darshan by Vajpayee. It was an occasion every BJP worker awaited expectantly because Vajpayee never toed the party line uncritically. He would caution, warn and even (5) berate the leadership with cryptic asides that could be both amusing as well as cutting.

That is why when it came to the crunch, when the time seemed opportune to make the final dash for political power at the Centre, Advani turned to Vajpayee. The announcement by Advani at the 1995 Bombay Maha Adhiveshan that the general election would be fought under the leadership of Vajpayee, who would also be the party’s prime ministerial candidate, took many, including the RSS, by complete surprise. It was at this point, when it was clear that the BJP was well on the way to replacing the Congress as the principal party of Indian politics under the leadership of Vajpayee that there were the first noises about him being the “right man in the wrong party”. These utterances became louder as a section of the RSS articulated their differences with the government. Those who had cheered the fall of the 13-day government in 1996 and encouraged the formation of a (6) shoddy coalition to fight the ‘communal forces’ suddenly began detecting virtues in Vajpayee. He was pitted as the (7) archetypal Nehruvian who was quietly fighting the sinister hardliners in the larger saffron fraternity.

He even tried to effect a permanent settlement with Pakistan and his speech at the Minar-e-Pakistan, acknowledging the reality of Partition, was a piece of ideological innovation in the context of the Jana Sangh’s history of (8) irredentism. As prime minister, Vajpayee made Hindu nationalism mainstream. Most important, he helped establish a critical difference between Indian nationalism and the Nehruvian consensus. Vajpayee wasn’t in a position to absorb such shocks and his path to change was consequently more guarded and laced with (9) oodles of charm. Vajpayee never abandoned the beliefs that brought him into politics. He merely tempered them with political (10) pragmatism. He didn’t change; he made India change.

1. INCAPACITATED (adjective)   अयोग्य
Meaning: deprived of strength or power; debilitated.
Synonyms: disabled, crippled, paralyzed, powerless, lame, helpless, decrepit, enfeebled, frail, unfit, enervated, halting.
Antonyms: powerful, strong, fit, sturdy, stout, vigorous, powerful, abled, robust.

2. STAY THE COURSE (idiom)   कठिनाइयों के बावजूद अंत तक डटा रह करना 
Meaning: To persevere with as much determination, energy, or fortitude as one can until the end of a race, competition, or contest.
Usage: The training takes years and a great deal of work, but if you stay the course, the rewards are fantastic.

3. RELIC (noun)   चिह्न
Meaning: a trace of some past or outmoded practice, custom, or belief
Synonyms: survival, vestige, antique, artifact, keepsake, memento, remembrance, residue, fragment, heirloom.
Antonyms: modern, recent, latest, neoteric, current, trendy, novel.

4. PANTHEON (noun)  शीर्षस्थ व्यक्तियों का दल
Meaning: a group of famous or important people.
Synonyms: congregation, caboodle, compilation, compendium, assemblage, priory, shrine, ensemble, cumulation.
Antonyms: prosecution.

5. BERATE (verb)  धमकाना
Meaning: cold or criticize (someone) angrily.
Synonyms: baste, castigate, chastise, flay, hammer, jaw, lambaste, lecture, rag, rebuke, reprimand, reproach, scold, score, upbraid.
Antonyms: approve, endorse, sanction, extol, laud, praise.

6. SHODDY (adjective)   तुच्छ
Meaning: badly made or done.
Synonyms: inferior, cheap, cheapjack, tawdry, rubbishy, trashy, gimcrack, jerry-built, crude, tinny, tatty, junky, duff, rubbish.
Antonyms: polished, electable, exemplary, approved, prestigious, reputed, elegant, upright, sanctioned.

7. ARCHETYPAL (adjective)  आद्यप्ररूपीय
Meaning: very typical of a certain kind of person or thing.
Synonyms: representative, standard, conventional, classic, model, exemplary, quintessential, prime, stereotypical, prototypical, paradigmatic, illustrative, trite.
Antonyms: atypical, unique.

8. IRREDENTISM (noun)  उपर्युक्त विचारधारा
Meaning: a national policy advocating the acquisition of some region in another country by reason of common linguistic, cultural, historical, ethnic, or racial ties.

9. OODLES (noun)  बहुतायत
Meaning: a very great number or amount of something.
Synonyms: abundance, barrel, bunch, bundle, chunk, fistful, heap loads, multiplicity, myriad, pack, passel, peck, pile, plateful.
Antonyms: shortage, dearth, sprinkle, scruple, driblet, few.

10. PRAGMATISM (noun)  व्यवहारवाद
Meaning: the quality of dealing with a problem in a sensible way that suits the conditions that really exist, rather than following fixed theories, ideas, or rules.
Synonyms: realism, prudence, efficiency, materialism, expediency, realness, hardheadedness, sensibleness, practicality.
Antonyms: foolishness, idealism, inappropriateness, impracticality, timidity.