Anupam- The Dreamer

Imagine you are on a vacation and walking in the downtown area of an unknown city. You are feeling hungry after walking all day exploring that new city. Then, you happen to pass a series of food restaurants on a bustling lane, some seemingly lavish, and some mediocre and some loathsome. You obviously are enticed by the lavish ones, unmindful of the quality and hygiene of the food served there. You get excited and you choose the lavish restaurant full of hope that the food quality would be the best. Everything in that restaurant looks nice, be it interiors, the music, the crowd, and the catering. But as soon as you taste the food, it tastes like shit!!!! What happened wrong with the food, when everything seemed to point out that the restaurant was excellent? Well, welcome to the post-truth world!!!!

In a post-truth world, the facts, reality and truth don’t matter. What matters is the presentation and façade of the “illusion” or the “perceived reality” that is presented before you. And you are made to believe that “perceived reality” as the “actual reality”. The perceived reality might not be complete truth or it may even be a white lie, but you come to accept that this is the actual reality or truth, rest all is farce. In this post-truth world, only the presentation and the outer façade or the illusion is the only thing that matters. And people are fooled by projecting these things as the reality and creating a perception of reality. It does not matter how intelligent and shrewd you may consider yourself, because in a post-truth world, you will not be able to separate wheat from the chaff and you may end up paying for the wheat and still getting only the chaff.

Earlier, it was said that “Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti”, which is a famous Vedic mantra from the Rigveda that translates to “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names”. It was said in the context of God, that God is only one, different wise men call him by different names. But, this mantra in the context of post-truth world has now become – “Ekam jhooth vipra bahudha vadanti”, meaning the lie is only one, the people are selling it in the different forms. And there are a lot of leaders like politicians, businessmen, celebrities, filmmakers etc. who are the torchbearers in this aspect.

The lie or half-truth is packaged in a lavish, good-looking and expensive covering, so that it hides the actual truth or intentions. It is then marketed well, publicised and eventually sold to the common masses, who naively believe the ill-intentioned sellers. For example, some politicians create fear and panic among the voters that if you vote for party X, your farmlands will be snatched away. These politicians will show a farmland being acquired from a farmer for building a road project. The farmer was given compensation as per the rules, yet the politicians will hide this fact and instead market the lie that the farmer was thrown away from his land and publicize it to create greater fear. In today’s culture of things getting viral on social media, no one bothers to even verify the facts, so they believe it as true.

Similar incidences are happening in the current times, when some leaders are spreading information/misinformation about the electoral malpractices, and some are defending by saying that there is nothing fishy out there. The people don’t know the actual facts, and are made to believe the half-lies or half-truths. Basically, people are made to hear what they want to hear! Similarly, there are some legends who believe that climate change is a hoax! They will go contrary to the facts, and create fears in the minds of poor people that giving up fossil fuels like coal would be costly for them. So, they encourage burning more coal and crude oil, and even reducing subsidies on the electric vehicles for their vested interests. It is a classic example of post-truth world.

Actually truth, in today’s times, truth is very difficult to decipher. Infact, there are so many half-truths and lies flying around, that it is very difficult for a common person to differentiate between them. There are issues where there may not be a just one truth. There are issues where there might be multiple versions of truth, or even multiple versions of lies. It requires a humongous effort at the individual level, institutional level, societal level, national and global level, to help to find out the truth or reality. Sometimes, even if there is an effort to uncover the actual true facts of a situation, it’s good in a way because we can then leave upon the individual person to judge for himself/herself what is the truth.

We have already entered a post-truth world. I hope that better information availability, rising education levels, culture of promoting discussions, and inculcation of ethical practices at institutional level, can prevent us falling into a world of only illusions and instead lead us to a better truthful world. A quote comes to my mind in this context, which is also recited as a prayer often-

ॐ  असतो मा सद्गमय । तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय । मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय ।

Which means, O Lord, lead me from the untruth to the Truth. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality.

Till next time…