The Spiraling Descent of Truth

As a student of Communication studies, I have always been interested in digging a little deeper into the various mysteries that shroud the discipline. Today, I was engrossed in reading about one of the communication theories called Spiral of Silence, proposed by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1974.  Quite forgetting the fact that I was supposed to be studying this theory from the standpoint of my upcoming exams, fascination got the better of me and I lost myself in the depths of this theory.

Neumann essentially says that this theory is an attempt to explain how public opinion is formed. According to this theory, people tend to become withdrawn and remain silent when they feel that their views are in minority.

Now, this is something which is quite simple to comprehend. Indeed, right from a first grade school-goer to office-going elders, people think twice about articulating their views in public. They fear isolation more than not getting an opportunity to voice their judgement. Man is after all a social animal and the fear of being marginalized from mainstream society is always great.

Undoubtedly, Neumann has outdone herself by proposing this theory as early as the 1970s. However, my appeal for this theory increased manifold when I was able to draw a connection to this theory and trace its roots back to our puranic times, more than 5000 years ago- an example in the Mahabharata which gives examples for this theory and also disproves it.

The example which proves the existence of the spiral of silence theory as early as 5000 years ago can be seen in the scene where the Pandavas have lost everything in the game of dice-their sovereignty, wealth, themselves, and their wife, the fire-born Draupadi, to the Kauravas. Rapacious Duryodhana brashly orders his brother Dusshasana to drag the empress of Indraprastha to the sabha.

Once Draupadi is dragged into the sabha, Duryodhana says that the Pandavas have gambled her away and lost and thus, she is the slave of the Kauravas. Subsequently, he orders Dusshasana to strip her naked in front of the most powerful Kuru veterans like  Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, Dhritarashtra and others.

The Pandavas, despite watching the humiliation that their wife undergoes, do not utter a word in protest as they feel that doing so will go against the code of Dharma as they have, after all, gambled away their wife and lost. 

However, what about all the other veterans present there? Bhishma was the pitamaha, the grand-old-sir of the Kurus. He did not voice his dissent against the sacrilege that was being committed in the sabha. Neither did Drona, the all-powerful acharya of the Kurus. According to the epic, each of them had a reason for remaining silent- Bhishma had promised Satyavati, his step-mother and father Shantanu that his loyalty would always remain with the throne of Hastinapura. Drona had regained his lost respect and had risen to great renown only under the king of Hastinapura Dhritarashtra’s patronage. Thus, voicing their opinions against what Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra’s son was doing, was out of question.

This instance can also be seen from the point of view of Neumann’s theory- Drona probably felt that when eminent Kuru elders like Bhishma, Kripaacharya, Dhritarashtra, etc did not express their outlook, if he, Drona protested against the injustice being meted out to Draupadi, he might probably be in the minority.  In fact, the only person who spoke out against Duryodhana was his brother Vikarna who said that this heinous sin on their part would bring about the ruin of the Kauravas, and Draupadi had to be accorded nothing less than the utmost respect.

Vikarna is thus, a classic exception to the rule of theory of spiral of silence while Dronacharya, Bhishma and the others are excellent examples that prove this theory.

This, more than anything else, bears ample testimony to the Sanskrit adage about the Mahabharata - “Yad iha asti tadanyatra, yenne haasti na tat quachit ” -  What is here(in the Mahabharata) is everywhere else, what is not mentioned here(in the Mahabharata) will not be found anywhere else.