P Kharel

Even as technological advance surges and communication tools become of baffling service, at times affecting behavioural contours. Deliberate or otherwise, silence has a variety of aspects, which spell special meanings echoing particular contexts and conditions. The language of silence acquires importance to those directly involved, including witnesses.
Sounds can be quiet, loud and subtle. Sometimes clear and, at other times, remote voices of the centuries gone by echo in the narratives the present inherits. Great men work and die to live; the corrupt and evil live to die; and the idle and ignorant neither live nor die easy. They all find silence as a convenient tool, depending upon a given situation they encounter.
Some make a habit of indulging silence, which at times can be both illustrative and illuminating. In terror, people bear the fear in a sea of stupendous silence. Silence is of various types described and prescribed by conditions that result in a welcoming silence; deafening silence; elated silence; embarrassed silence; enforced silence; inquisitive silence; indifferent silence; irritating silence; neutral silence; partisan silence; slumberous silence; suppressed silence; and suspenseful silence.
There can be as many nuances in silence as there are moods and situations. Each state of silence has a meaning denoted by a particular event and incident under a particular context. Silence speaks, entailing meanings and messages, with short-term and/or long-term implications. It could be characteristic or tactical on part of the beholder or the originator. Silence not only speaks but also shakes, screams and spares.
Andrew Boyle (1988: 136): “According to the historian A.J.P. Taylor: ‘In no time at all, the monopolistic British Broadcasting Corporation came to regard as an essential element ‘in the British way of life’. Like all cultural dictatorships, the BBC was more important for what it silenced than for what it achieved.”

Grounded in spiritualism
What warrants special emphasis in Eastern perspectives is that religious ethos are grounded in spiritualism. Silence to condone, condemn, commend, collude, depending upon the context and the beholder. Spontaneous communication, candid communication, contrived communication (message content and style of presentation) and constant communication are but some of the modes of expressions.
Messages may be unintended and yet meaningful. Curiosity begins with silent questions, which in turn create potential for creative action or initiative.
Mahatma Gandhi maintained silence for a whole day in order to realise himself and awaken sense of the divinity, self-purification, and freedom from geocentricism, devotion, enlightenment and self-effacement. Known for his non-violent methods of political protest that eventually led to the independence from the centuries old clutches of the British colonial rule, Gandhi said: “Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising.”
Silence can deny justice, inflict pain and create adverse effects on what would otherwise have been the right course. It does not prevent the lips from being coloured with a smile or sheer sullen drop. We can shout, sing and sermonise silently together with sharing the spoils of solitude.
Keeping the cupboards, racks, creeks and crannies clean; consume to the satisfaction of variety, add to the paunch in the midriff. Tone of terror has no truck with soothing assurances of safety. Charity adulterated by publicity like prosperity scorned so sharply by the presence of stark poverty all over the place.
The monster of too much spare time or the opportunity to ogle ideas merit a chance to ponder. TV addiction goes off. Earlier our attention used to be glued to the TV screen because of too little time for visual content. The COVID-19 threat has meant too much time and no time for a paying place of work.
Silence speaks with wordless warmth or warnings, caution and action. Enforced silence, such as the spells during the COVID-19 pandemic, generates different personal responses on different occasions under various contexts. Buddha says: “Distance does not separate people.” However, silence can separate people. Think deeply, speak gently, love much. Never stop doing your best because someone does not give you credit.
Communication for socialisation entails a variety of expressions and channels; so do the sounds of silence. It might embrace a conspiracy of silence or emphasise a positive stand. Deciphering the code of silence is generally not difficult but, on occasions, it could be a very hard nut to crack. Conditions of shock, surprise and suspense contribute to sudden and spontaneous silence.
The colour, course and contours of communication in sifting disinformation from information need to be closely scrutinised. The nuances and subtleties should be meticulously weighed and applied.

Stumbling block
Think anything, go anywhere and do anything as long as it is confined to imagination; but not without having to explain for it when putting the same into real life action. The explanation might be rewarding, punishing or inconsequential. Is the world as it, or is it as the news media say it is? When opinions differ between these two, the final arbiter is history and not the sector that claims no more than being the first draft of history.
As a process of internalising community practices and social norms, behavioural communication takes into account the expectations of others. However, this might not always be the case. Given situation might make one take intuitive decisions or go for carefully charted course with matching response.
Communication being action in thought, word and deed, its straightforwardness is clear and often appreciated, exaggeration demeaning, negativity narcissist, and secretiveness conspiratorial. Verbal communication might not rhyme with behavioural manifestation; one might not be able to control or conform with what the other seeks to express.
The informed have better abilities to process new information. People can not only see, hear, read and speak. Their communications are conducted through other manifestation as well. But whether they learn something or achieve what they want to register from such experience is the moot question.
Even well-informed, an individual without an avenue for conveying or sharing knowledge and information can be described as being locked up and hence without the choice for airing own voice on issues. One needs an opportunity to express oneself. This entails the need for an appropriate avenue.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)