Arundhuti Dasgupta: Reputations on the line

Reputations are hard to build and even harder to crack. But once they do, they are near impossible to put back together again without the fissures showing. As two big boardroom battles in corporate India simmer down in uneasy silence, chances are that the scars inflicted on the companies will stay a lifetime. And perhaps, boards at both Infosys and the Tata group may find better understanding about the crisis they are in by turning to epics and myth. 

Take the case of Yudhishthira, heir to the Kuru throne in the Mahabharata. He is a tragic hero of the classical tradition who is devastated by the destruction wreaked by the battle between the Pandavas and Kauravas, he is also known as dharmaputra (the son of dharma). Right through the epic, he is upheld as a symbol of righteousness, even after he stakes Draupadi in a game of dice. But his one lie (or half lie as some insist) on the battlefield is seen as a permanent stain on his reputation. It brought his chariot that always stayed an inch above the ground crashing down to earth, for once the lie had been spoken Yudhishthira literally lost the high moral ground. 

His fault was that he said Aswathama had been killed, adding sotto voce that it was the elephant that had fallen in battle. Aswathama was the name of an elephant and also that of guru to the Kuru princes, Dronacharya’s son. Krishna, chief battle strategist had asked Yudhishthira to say this in such a manner that Drona would believe it was son who had died in battle. If anyone else had delivered the news, Drona would not have believed it, but coming as it did, from Yudhishthira, Drona did not doubt it. And devastated by the death of his child, the general of the Kaurava army lost his will to fight and that ultimately led to his death.

A triumphant Achilles dragging Hector’s lifeless body in front of the Gates of Troy. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

If we were to examine Yudhishthira’s Big Lie in the times of fake news and alternative facts, it would hardly qualify as a crime — the gambling habit and use of Draupadi as a pawn would certainly do, though. However, the point is that it is not the nature of the crime that matters, but the understanding that no man is too big or too good to be sullied by his actions. Similarly no founder, no CEO and no peacemaker will escape the mud that is being slung around, especially since reputations are far more easily broken in the digital age.

For Greek heroes, reputation was everything. The warriors of Troy fought for kleos (glory or renown). Gregory Nagy, who has written extensively on Homer, epics and Greek heroes, says about Achilles, “Here is a monolithic and fiercely uncompromising man who actively chooses violent death over life in order to win the kleos ‘glory’ of being remembered forever in epic poetry.” For such men, a loss of kleos was equal to death. Glory in the heroic age (of Homer) called for a strong will, courage, physical prowess and adherence of principles. It was worth killing for, for committing murder was better than losing one’s reputation. 

In many ancient cultures, loss of reputation amounted to loss of face and that was akin to death. This was especially true of the Chinese where the concept of face and losing one’s face is commonly referred to as the cause and effect of actions taken by heroes and their friends. Sometimes even the perceived loss of face can be fatal as this story from Greek myths about Phaedra-Hippolytus shows. 

Phaedra was the wife of Theseus. She fell in love with Hippolytus, Theseus’s son from another woman, but the feeling was not mutual. Stung and insulted by his rejection she accused Hippolytus of raping her. When Theseus found out, he feared for the shame that this would ring upon him and his throne and invokes a curse upon his son that brings about his death in the most gruesome manner. In some versions of the myth, Theseus is told about his son’s innocence after his death while others say that he found out before but it was too late to save him. And, in some versions Phaedra kills herself when she finds out that Theseus has killed Hippolytus because she had not expected such a strong reaction and in other versions she kills herself because she is ashamed by the manner in which her passions were thwarted. Whatever be the version one goes with, the end is tragic.