Conspiracy

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

These days one regularly hears one word: Conspiracy. Mob lynching, they say is the conspiracy of one community to kill members of another. Conspiracy, they cry hoarse, when cows are smuggled out and sold in another country for rich tables. What was it, when Duryodhana’s soldiers and advisors attempted to steal the cows from Virat’s kingdom in the  absence of the king and his army in the Mahabharata, if not a conspiracy to smoke out the Pandavas from their period of incognito exile? The Jatugriha; the invitation of the Pandavas for a dice game by Dhritarastra: the claim to the Ayodhya throne by Bharat’s mother for her son on the day of Ram’s coronation; Sita’s abduction by Ravana (yes a vengeful conspiracy);Krishna’s plot to take away the armour from Karna- you name it! The list is endless. Political conspiracy apart the god- myths are full of conspiracies to defame, demean and dethrone rivals in anger or jealousy. Corporate conspiracy is a modern day scourge on our systems of capitalistic economy. Communal conspiracy, caste-creed conspiracy and the laughably intriguing small time conspiracies which we watch everyday on the Tele serials to defame a close family member are our daily bread, however stale or bitter: But conspiracy has its wide network as the second nature of human civilization.

What is conspiracy? Why does man conspire to bring the fall of another human specimen? Conspiracy is like a guerrilla attack on a known and powerful person or group when he/ it is least prepared or even aware of it. Who conspires? One who is weak and jealous; one who cannot take his target head on; one who feels small because of his/her own shortcomings. A strong man, a man of honour and valour never conspires: for he is confident of himself. He may not be flawless but he never stoops to conquer. At times ideological misconceptions too lead to conspiracy. The murder of Mahatma Gandhi, John.F.Kennedy, even Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s murders have been plotted by groups whose ideologies are shy of confronting the heroes of nations. Such heroes at times fall victims to conspiracy of the mean and weak people. The conspirator is a coward. But often we see men of great honour too conspire in the name of some skewed logic of morality. Brutus kills Caesar in the Capitol in a stance of conspiratorial heroism. After the death of Achelles, in Homer’s great epic poem Iliad, Ulysses says: with the death of Achelles gone is Greek courage; but not Greek cunning- and the result in the Trojan Horse, a fatal gift which destroyed the towers of Troy. Greek cunning proves to be anti-heroic thievery slurring their victory to posterity.

The murder of Abhimanyu is a hateful illustration of conspiracy. Seven chariot warriors of the Kuru army, each one wearing a laurel crown of military glory conspired to kill Arjuna’s boy, Abhimanyu whose display of warfare shamed them to guileful meanness. This illustrates the shady machinations of tinsel heroes and brings self – condemnation forever. Conspiracy always robs the world of its most priced virtues. This also proves that a true genius is never accepted by the human beings. We see that in our myths, stories, literature in general and in social life too. We justify the early and untimely death of a great man, saying – whom God loves dies young. If this be true even, God does not appreciate genius in man, his own creature.

In the story (true) of Dharmapada who laid the pot at the peak of the Konark temple, we notice the same pettiness, jealousy and inhumanity in man. The twelve hundred artisans could not place the  Kalasa, could not complete the time bound work. The boy Dharmapada, all of twelve years , son of the chief Architect Sibei Samantaray, who had gone there in search of his father could do it with ease and perfection. These artisans, including the architect, fearing decapitation at royal command, almost compelled the boy to make a sacrifice of his life to save the so called artisans and sculptors from ignominy. Genius is always sacrificed at the altar of immoral, self-seeking cowards. Is this the price of genius: death by deceit, conspiracy or meanness?

In the modern world in which the Sapiens are more educated, trained and much better off than their early centuries counterparts, conspiracies are technologically hatched for political gains. After the Second World War the computer and the Internet have given scope for cyber conspiracy. Pentagon can be hacked, the fighter planes cannot take off, bombs may explode, data would be manipulated by remote control and even wars can break out by spreading fake news.

The powerful conspire to retain power; the poor and the jealous cowards conspire to destroy towers of civilization: and the great intellectuals play safe by resorting to the conspiracy of silence! Borrowing Huxley’s Brave New World, I may say, hurry! Let us conspire against each other to bring mankind to God’s shame and regret for having conspired to create man for his own sadistic entertainment.