SECTION B
Essay
125 marks
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
WRITE IN
90 min
1,000–1,200 words
Reading the topic
Stirred muddy water clears only when left still, as the silt settles on its own. The topic suggests that some problems, especially emotional, interpersonal and social tensions, worsen with frantic intervention and resolve with patience, calm and time. The examiner expects the essay to explore restraint as wisdom while marking clearly where inaction becomes negligence.
ThesisMany turbulent situations clear when we stop agitating them, so patience and restraint are active wisdom, though problems with structural causes still demand action.
Dimensions to cover
- 1Mind: anxious overthinking stirs the mind further, while stillness through meditation lets clarity return
- 2Relationships: in a heated quarrel, stepping back and letting tempers cool often achieves what argument cannot
- 3Law: cooling-off periods and mediation give disputing parties time for emotions to settle before final decisions
- 4Governance: during communal tension, calm messaging and restraint often defuse a situation that provocative statements would inflame
- 5Decision-making: snap judgements made in agitation are error-prone, so deliberate slow thinking produces better choices
- 6Limits: pollution, corruption or injustice do not settle by themselves, and leaving them alone only lets the mud thicken
Counter-view
- Activists may say that 'leave it alone' is a convenient excuse for the powerful to ignore injustice. The essay should accept this firmly and distinguish between emotional turbulence, which clears with stillness, and systemic problems, which need sustained action
Open and close
- Open: Open with a child who keeps stirring a glass of pond water to see the bottom, until her grandmother tells her to put it down and wait
- Close: Conclude that knowing when to be still and when to act is the real wisdom, and that stillness is the right response far more often than restless minds believe
Where marks usually go
- Arguing for passivity in every situation, including injustice and crises that require action
- Interpreting 'muddy water' only literally as water pollution and writing on river cleaning
- Ignoring the inner, psychological reading that the image most naturally suggests
Examples that fit
- LiteratureThe Tao Te Ching asks who can make muddy water clear and answers that if it is left still, it slowly becomes clear, the classic statement of this idea.Tao Te Ching, Chapter 15, Laozi
- CaseThe Hindu Marriage Act provides a six-month waiting period for divorce by mutual consent, giving couples time to reconsider, though the Supreme Court has held it can be waived.Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Section 13B; Amardeep Singh v. Harveen Kaur, Supreme Court (2017)
- CaseIndia's mediation law encourages parties to settle disputes through facilitated dialogue before litigation hardens positions.Mediation Act, 2023
- ThinkerKahneman shows that fast, emotional thinking produces systematic errors, while slower deliberate thinking corrects them, supporting the value of pause.Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), Daniel Kahneman