CONSPIRACY IS A VERY COMMON FORM OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR

We feel more comfortable when our experiences fall into some sort of order or

comprehensible structure or can be explained clearly. That is why we turn to

faith, to feelings and to conspiracy theories if some kind of political response is

involved. At various levels of plausibility, we are willing to believe rigged

elections, faked landing on the moon, oil companies/big pharmaceuticals/big

corporations in general working overtime against interests of the common man,

government covering up the foreign incursions or conflict among various

members of the Cabinet and a dark hand swinging the stock up and down on the

Wall Street or Dalal Street. We are inclined to take the conspiratorial view of

political events without much proof because some of them make rational sense,

even without visible smoking guns.

It is only human to hold emotional beliefs and unprovable theories. At times it

makes one feel guilty as political stories are without evidence, but still they are

logically possible and even very probable.

Conspiracies, real or imagined, are not new. In classical times, Athens accused

Socrates of conspiring to introduce new gods and corrupting the youth of the city.

Ancient Rome was a hotbed of conspiracy and political assassination. Roman

Church and European Kings and Dukes were perpetually conspiring against each

other until Napoleon decisively cut the Pope to size. However, a distinction needs

to be made between conspiracy and conspiracy theory. A conspiracy is an event

(or series of events) that has actually taken place. A ‘conspiracy theory’ is a belief

in a conspiracy that may or may not have taken place. Conspiracy theories or

theoretical conspiracies usually have an ideological basis that could be political or

religious. Since modern politics derives from European history, it will be

appropriate to cite a few examples from European history. For example, alleged

papal plots against Protestant Europe from the Counter-Reformation onwards

were universally believed. In the 17th century witchcraft conspiracy theories

prevailed. Freemasons, Jews, Fabians, ‘One World Government’ supporters

(whoever they might be), Communists, Small Greys (aliens), the KGB, the CIA

and/or the US government were and are still to some extent suspect in the eyes

of some people for conspiring to take over the entire world order.

We are constantly beset by conspiracy theories and a ‘respectable’ literature of

conspiracy theory has evolved and serious research is going on conspiracy theory.

Seminars and conferences on conspiracy theory are held from time to time.

Among the important and high profile conspiracy theories is the longstanding J.F.

Kennedy set of theories of varying levels of credibility—about why and how he

was killed; by contract killers hired by Cubans or the Mafia. Now several theories

have emerged about 9/11. One intriguing 9/11 suggestion throws up an Israeli

government connection because, as the theorist says, “only the Israelis were

clever enough to make it work.” The plethora of such ‘theories’ has generated its

own literature, including Richard Hofstadter’s influential The Paranoid Style in

American Politics and other Essays, first published in 1964, after JFK’s

assassination, and still in circulation. Hofstadter, a critic of conservative

Americans, argued that assassination was a ‘recessive gene’ in US politics.

Conferences on conspiracy theory have led to two developments: the academic

view that conspiracy theories deserve serious study and examination as

social/cultural phenomena and, that some conspiracy theories might have a basis

in evidence. For instance, a two-day session at the University of London’s Birkbeck

College in 2001, on conspiracy theories, the topics included: The popularity of

conspiracy theory as a mode of explanation; Did the supposedly scientific and

rational thought of the Enlightenment, or other intellectual movements,

undermine the foundations upon which these theories were constructed, or did

they merely alter their forms? Why were witches, heretics and religious minorities

perceived in conspiratorial terms? Why was the outbreak of the French

Revolution frequently explained in conspiratorial terms, and why did European

rulers and their subjects remain obsessed with conspiracies both real and

imagined?

For the classroom teacher, conspiracy theories can be both pleasant and

unpleasant distraction. A teacher recalls a most enjoyable though very heated

debate in his history class, about Roswell and Area 51 (US government/alien

conspiracy), which had nothing to do with the French Revolution that he was

supposed to be teaching to that class, but it led to an intense discussion about

assessment of evidence. The US lecturer Marcus LiBrizzi uses conspiracy theories

to motivate his students. However, classroom discussion involving conspiracy

theories needs careful preparation because of the intricacy and complexity of

many of the theories.

The greatest problem with conspiracy theories is their shifting grounds, mainly

because there is usually great eagerness amongst advocates of conspiracy

theories to mistake coincidence for conspiracy and they are difficult to

prove/disprove. For example, as a sceptic, one might say, ‘JFK was NOT KILLED by

a second shooter on the grassy knoll.’ But how to prove it?

Then, most conspiracy theories are wrapped in circular logic. Typically, the

arguments go: ‘Freemasons secretly control the world.’

‘But there’s no evidence that they control the world.’

‘That’s because they are doing it in secret!’

Or, ‘Yasser Arafat did not die of natural causes. He was poisoned’. This despite no

evidence of poisoning in a 500-page post-mortem medical file of the concerned

French medical authorities. The conspiracy theorists would say that the French

medical authorities tested only for KNOWN poisons and Arafat was killed by an

UNKNOWN poison. Circular logic!

Conspiracy theories especially attract the adolescents (and delayed adolescents),

because they appear more colourful than a fact-based alternative. That JFK was

killed by a whole host of assassins and conspirators rather than by a solitary

gunman is surely more raving; and so is to believe that Harold Holt was spying for

the Chinese and was whisked away by a Chinese submarine instead of drowning

in the surf.

Thriller writers know the emotional lift of gaining ‘inside knowledge’ and use the

clandestine nature of their narrative to make the reader feel as an ‘insider’ in

their esoteric world. Dan Brown, in his The Da Vinci Code [2004], uses this factor

most effectively and succeeds in turning a badly written book into a best seller.

In our times, what makes the conspiratorial mode of thinking common at popular

level is largely owing to the way governments, whether democratic or auto-

cratic, work and communicate with the public at large. Citizens become skeptical

and even cynical about official explanations for governmental political/military

actions and tend to believe that all governments conspire against their own

citizens or act against their best interests. This conspiratorial view of political

action is further reinforced and proliferated by popular culture films, especially

the US films featuring the CIA and FBI which show them as the bad guys.

Conspiracy theorists resort to a thrifty style by which complex circumstances are

“explained by a single, concise proposition” which appeals to the receiver/ reader

who finds everything told to him as easy to read and grasp, without much mental

effort.

Finally, we must not forget that sometimes conspiracies do really exist—for

example the famous three conspiracies to assassinate Hitler, none of which

succeeded. And so are many other conspiracies that lend credibility to the wilder

versions of historical or political events.

Currently, at the time of writing, a British judge presiding over the six-month

inquest into Princess Diana’s death has dismissed the popular belief that the

princess and her lover were murdered by MI6 [British secret agency equivalent to

CIA, KGB, ISI, RAW etc.] at the behest of the British establishment. Yet, even this

sober judge admitted that “there will always be someone somewhere who will

refuse to believe Diana’s death was just a tragic accident.”

Closer to home, almost every other day, we have news twisted and entwined with

suggestions of political conspiracy. Just as this is being written, a leading news

paper quotes Chief Minister Mayawati calling Income Tax Department’s filing of a

case of tax evasion against her in Delhi High Court “as a conspiracy to exert

pressure on her.” The department, she said, was acting under political pressure to

pursue the matter needlessly and “Centre was using double standards as inome-

tax department had singled her out just to favour Congress loyalists like Lalu

Prasad and Pranab Mukherjee who faced a similar predicament”.

Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination remains a mystery in spite of the case having been

disposed of judicially. There is a theory that links Swedish Prime Minister Olofe

Palme’s assassination with Rajiv Gandhi’s as both were involved in Bofors arms

deal and the real murderers were big arms dealers, but facts before the

adjudicating court were never presented.

To turn to Indian history, Chandra Gupta Maurya’s coming to the throne at

Patliputra was the work of Chanakya who seemed to have woven a complicated

web of conspiracies for playing the game of political power successfully.

People usually refuse to believe something awful happened at random—there

must be a secret agent lurking behind the event. They believe the universe works

only to a plan.