THESE DAYS’ even educated people and high-ranking civil society denizens are calling people ‘mad’ as they feel it is a sure shot way of character assassination. This has became one of the favourite phrases of our politicians as proved by Mayawati, as this morning she called the owner of Wikileaks Julian Assange, fit to stay at Agra’s mental asylum. The Chief Minister was so angry after being called corrupt by Wikileaks, she couldn’t contain her emotions and went on to say that she would freely assure a place for Julian in the mental asylum as he was ‘mad.’

She also said that the US cable has wrongly accused her and it is one of the moves of her political rivals as elections will soon be held in Uttar Pradesh. Not only her, the cable also targets the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)’s general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra. He falsified every claim of the Wikileaks and said that the reports of WikiLeaks cables is absolutely false. "There is no truth in the controversy. I did not meet an US dignitary in 2007. I will file a legal notice and pursue the case till it comes to a logical end,” said Mayawati.

However, quite contrary to this are the facts that the cable released. It said that Mishra was a man who is normally very frank and addresses the corruption of the Chief Minister blatantly. Adding to the allegations, it also said, “Mayawati has very weak English language skills and limited exposure to non-Indians and may not be entirely comfortable interacting with Americans. To date, she has preferred to use Mishra in this role, although a future meeting, probably between Mayawati and the Ambassador (with Mishra likely acting as translator) cannot be ruled out.”

This is not the only instance when the words like raving mad, nut case and the likes have been used. On Monday Anna Hazare, who led the entire country to a movement that is sure to go down in history, also said that Digvijay Singh should be admitted to a famous Pune mental hospital. The important thing is that these words are not used behind closed doors but openly in public to the press. To quote the 74-year-old Gandhian, “I have said this earlier also that people like Singh should be put in 'Yeravada', (a well known place in Pune housing a government mental hospital).”

Whatever the reasons and the allegations, these people make history and their behaviour is a reflection of the entire nation. It is high time that we return to the basics and with anti-corruption laws do away with our bad manners. Grudges can be spelt out in sophisticated manner as should be the order of the day and expected out of the leaders of our country.