Why do people spin conspiracy theories? Why do people believe in them? Obviously the subject is quite complex – the wikipedia entry is actually a pretty good resource.
As a neighboring country to Pakistan, where reason seems to have been wholly substituted with conspiracy theories, we are no strangers to these things. Does not mean that we do not spin conspiracy theories ourselves.
In the Indian political scene, we see the predominance of a certain class of conspiracy theories. This is actually a direct fallout of “activist” journalism – as practiced by magazines such as Tehelka.
Two good examples are the 26/11 conspiracy theory and the current Binayak Sen case. In each of these cases, the spinners ignore the vast and often overwhelming body of evidence and obsessively focus on a relatively minor unexplained item. In the first case for example, we saw conflicting reports about the jacket worn by Mumbai ATS top cop Hemant Karkare.
The allegedly missing jacket does not wipe out some thousands of eye witnesses, cctv footages, 9 dead terrorists and a live one – among other things. The fallacy is quite obvious.
In the Binayak Sen case, predictably his sympathizers are constantly focussing on a few faux pas committed by the prosecution. Arguably these mistakes should result in a motion of mistrial. Unfortunately that would probably mean dismissal of most cases in Indian courts. Judges are aware of this and that is why those items were struck off and prosecution side pulled up and chided by the judge in no uncertain terms.
Echonomix 
February 26, 2011 at 10:02 am
During the 1992 cricket world cup when India was out of the semis (after failing to finish in the top 4) while Pakistan was in, as a teenager, I was told that the Pakistanis had been caught of drug abuse and were out of the semis. Instead India would take its place. At school, this was the talk for all days, until the semi-final match with pakistan participating was shown on cable TV. At which juncture, all of us, disappointed, would resent that Pakistanis even when caught were let off so easily.In India, we are just too easily prone to gossip and in turn, conspiracy theories.