Post-truth India

From The Economist

‘Post-truth’ is a relatively new phrase which means “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. About three years ago, The Economist published an article which defined post-truth politics as the “art of the lie”.

India has internalised the art of the lie. The country’s Prime Minister himself peddles lies and half-truths as it suits him. Yesterday he spoke very emotionally to a teeming crowd that Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura are killing BJP workers. There are clashes between politicians belonging to different parties in these states as in any other, no doubt. But the BJP workers are not particularly at risk of being attacked more than any other party men. The PM knows how to foist half-truths and full lies on a nation that has become uncharacteristically credulous these days.

The truth is that people belonging to minority communities are being attacked all over the country since Modi was returned to power with a bigger mandate. Within three days of the announcement of the election results, at least five incidents of attack on Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims were reported from different places and all these attacks were made by BJP men or their affiliates. The irony is that when the PM was asking his new MPs to work towards winning over the confidence of the minority communities, his party workers and associates were busy attacking members of minority communities in various places. Mr Modi pretends not to see. And he chooses to peddle half truths about his own men being attacked.

A man being attacked for allegedly carrying beef

“When politics is like pro-wrestling, society pays the cost,” warns The Economist article mentioned above. India is paying a heavy cost for the post-truth bamboozle engaged in by none less than the PM himself. How to counter this? The Economist says that “mainstream politicians need to find a language of rebuttal” [pro-truth]. But is that possible in India where majority of the politicians are more post-truth than the PM?

My new book, Autumn Shadows, is available free of charge for just one day, today [28 May]. Please download your copy from the link given below:

https://www.amazon.in/Autumn-Shadows-Memoir-Tomichan-Matheikal-ebook/dp/B07RJGR2X6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2I7ZDTGHOMXWC

Comments

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below. Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti

Face of the Faceless

“When you choose to fight for truth and justice, you will have to face serious threats.” Sister Rani Maria, the protagonist of the movie, is counselled by her mother in a letter. Face of the Faceless is a movie that shows how serious those threats are. This movie is a biopic. It shows us the life of a Catholic nun who dedicated her life to serve some Adivasis of Madhya Pradesh [MP] and ended up as a martyr. If it were not a real story, this movie would have been an absolute flop. Since it is the real story of not only a nun but also the impoverished and terribly exploited Adivasis in a particular village of MP, it keeps you engrossed. It is a sad movie, right from the beginning to the end. It is a story of the good versus evil, the powerless versus the powerful, the heroic versus the villainous, the divine versus the diabolic. Having said that, I must hasten to add one conspicuous fact: the movie does not ever present Christianity or its religious practices as the only right way

All the light we cannot see

Book Review Title: All the light we cannot see Author: Anthony Doerr Publisher: Fourth Estate, London, 2014 Pages: 531 What we call light is just a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most part of the electromagnetic spectrum remains beyond ordinary human perception. Such is human life too: so many of its shades remain beyond our ordinary perception and understanding. Anthony Doerr’s novel, All the light we cannot see , unravels for us some of the mysterious shades of human life. Marie-Laure LeBlanc leaves Paris with her father Daniel who is entrusted with the task of carrying a rare diamond, Sea of Flames , to safe custody when the second world war breaks out. The National Museum of Natural History, Paris, has made three counterfeit diamonds of the Sea of Flames. Four men are assigned the task of carrying each of these diamonds to four different destinations. None of them knows whether they are carrying the original diamond or the counterfeit. Marie-Laure a

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog