Sunday, December 10, 2000		Article

Putting someone else’s feathers in your cap
By Suraj Saraf

A recent press report had inter alia said that a plague of plagiarism and manipulated data had broken out in German universities. It added that German universities scientists "squeezed for cash and fighting to compete with more productive American research centres" were taking recourse to this "success and sweat" technique.

However, a study of world history highlights that copycats prevailed everywhere and in all ages. No field of human endeavour was free from the bug of plagiarism obviously because many clever people could not resist the temptation of owing others’ enviable work — be it blatantly or in a veiled manner.

Could anyone think of luminaries such as Galileo and Einstein, ever being accused of sticking others’ feathers in their caps in respect of world shaking scientific achievements which had changed the ideas about universe. In literature even world renowned playwright Erocht and in art Rembrandt had also been accused of being plagiaries.

Over a decade back two scientists in a joint paper "Relativity before Einstein" had maintained that all the essentials of relativity had been propounded earlier by the French mathematician Poineare.

The joint paper had underscored that a British physicist Maxwell was the first to enunciate clearly the principle of relativity in 1877, in the essence it was understood today. Maxwell’s ideas were carried forward by Poineare and Lorents into a "consistent scheme", pointed out the paper adding that Einstein in his monumental paper "had only synthesised the earlier ideas into a coherent system, based in the principle of relativity of motion of material bodies and of absolute velocity of light."

A Dominican priest, Rev. William Wallace who claimed that he had been studying Galileo’s papers for 15 years, had accused that great scientist of copying many of the ideas from the text books and lecture notes that were being used at college Romana, a Roman University of those times, which Galileo had visited. Surveying lecture notes from that university "were similar to Galileo’s own notebooks," said Rev. William Wallace, adding that the professor concerned whose lecture notes had been plagiarosed was a Jesuit Valla.

In art the phenomenon of fakes is, indeed, age old and widely rampant. Wherever and whenever, art pieces became in hot demand, fakes also became rampant.

Faking had become widely prevalent, indeed, as in art in itself, in ancient Rome where old Greek masters had become a symbol of status.

However, it stuns one to find that even as great a master as Rembrandt (16th century) who himself has been a victim of forgeries and thefts, is also alleged having indulged in the same malpractice. Some have even raised the poser as to why is there a worldwide craze to own a Rembrandt (Rembrandts sell at millions of dollars) when it is known he owned and signed the works of his disciples in his guild during first three years of their apprenticeship. But even more than that, some years back an etching by Rembrandt ‘Virgin and Child’ was declared to be a plagiarisation of an engraving by an Italian artist Andrea Mantegna. According to an art critic "then stealing artistic ideas was perfectly all right, like a bee sucking nectar from a flower to turn into honey".

In the case of some high profile modern artists stories go around that their fakes by others sell more than their originals. It might stump one to know that there are training institutes for faking old and new masters. There have also been exhibitions showcasing fakes. In 1990, "Fakes? The art of deception" show was held in British Museum, London, showcasing 600 faked items including jewels, coins, sculptures, fossils, paintings, porcelain, furniture etc al. It inter alia depicted how priests in ancient Babylon had faked an inscription to make their temple look older than it actually was. There was also a letter purported to have been written by Jesus Christ.

Literary giant T.S. Eliot had also been accused of plagiarism. According to a researcher, Robert Ion Scott, Eliot had got the idea and metaphor for his modern classic poem Wasteland from a yet unsourced poet Madison Cawein. Peter Ackroyd, and Elist biographer, had gone to the extent of saying that Eliot did not have many original ideas. Even the 20th century playwright icon Bertolt Brecht had not been left unscathed. A biography of Brecht had maintained that "none" of his plays was his own "unaided" work and that he systematically took credit for massive contributions made by three women who were his lovers. The biographer John Fuegi had interestingly titled the biography "The life and lies of Bertolt Brecht" and claimed to have uncovered the relevant archival material kept unconcealed by the old East German regime, for whom Brecht was a cultural icon.

The celebrated music composer Mozart had been plagiarised much but some have accused him also bodily lifting a short passage from the work of an earliest composer. And the modern pop music icon Michael Jackson? Well, a Bulgarian song writer had accused him saying that a 1997 hit "Blood on the dance floor" by the star singer was virtually a copy of the tune "New Year" he had written in 1981.

A person, indulging in plagiarism, may be only obliquely, may think that his deception may pass unnoticed but hiccups might flash up from quite unexpected quarters at any time. As for instance makers of Oscar nominated British film Full Monty were sued in a USAfederal court by two New Zealand writers claiming that the movie was lifted from a play they had produced in 1987.

Thus goes on this world of plagiarism, fakes and manipulation from times immemorial. Despite legal and other steps against the endeavour to stick other’s feathers in one’s own cap, it will go on forever because human nature for easy achievements and lucre can never by wiped out. Suckers shall always be there.