A Secret in the Oxford Sense: Thieves and the Rhetoric of Mystification in Western India

摘要

Common sense commodifies the secret, alienating the value of its content fromnits social context. But a secret perfectly kept dies in its circle of initiates. Fewnsecrets, however, are dead on arrival, since their seduction lies precisely in theirnrevelation. Most things said to be hidden are in fact nurtured through the pro-ncesses of calculated concealment, allusion, and revelation, the secrets propagat-ning themselves through circles of conspiracy, rumor, and gossip. As TimnJenkins observed, “What is concealed, and the reasons for its concealment,nserve to distract attention from the dynamic of the secret: what at first sightnappears to be static and indeed dead, possessed by and known to only a few,nkept in some dark place, in fact has a life and movement of its own; thensecret propagates itself through a structure of secret and betrayal” (1999:n225–26).