It is a bewildering world out there. Forget the layman, even seasoned hacks of top notch media houses have been overwhelmed by the avalanche of misinformation, disinformation and motivated propaganda unleashed in both the mainstream and social media ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi stunned the nation with his announcement about the demonetization of currency notes of Rs 500, and 1, 000 denomination on November 8 evening. As for the humble aam admi with no great understanding of the money market, differentiating wheat from the chaff has never been harder.
Ironically, at least some of the confusion is the result of the Union government speaking in multiple voices. Let us consider just one example. Less than 24 hours after the Prime Minister, speaking at a rally in Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh on Monday, urged the maataaen and behnen of the nation to deposit cash up to Rs 2.5 lakh in banks without fear, assuring them that the Income Tax department would not ask them where they got the money from, Secretary of the Economic Affairs department Shaktikanta Das said that Jan Dhan accounts were being closely monitored for deposits of over Rs 50,000!
You can forgive the average Indian woman for getting confused by the two seemingly contradictory statements by the Prime Minister and the Secretary. But how does one explain the fact that several media outlets - including the venerable The Hindu, which has rightfully prided itself on its attention to the authenticity of information it carries – carry a completely misleading report (based, by the way, on the same press conference addressed by Das) that indelible ink would be used to prevent people from making multiple ‘withdrawals’? The truth is: the ink is to be used only to cut out multiple over-the-counter exchange of outgoing Rs 500 & 1000 notes to the extent of Rs 4, 500 (originally pegged at Rs 4000)!
On its part, leading business daily Financial Express made the cardinal error of not cross-checking things, the essence of good journalism, before going ahead with a tweet saying “Surat guy surrendered 6k crore” after the demonetization announcement before Laljibhai Patel, the ‘Surat guy’ in question (who, by the way, had shot into limelight after buying PM Modi’s monogrammed suit for Rs 4.3 crores), clarified that he had not surrendered any such amount! Curiously, The Indian Express carried a report shortly thereafter putting the record straight about the Rs 6000 crore amount allegedly surrendered by the man, but blamed social media for the faux pas rather than its own sister concern!!
Not that social media has been innocent of spreading falsehoods. If anything, it has actually been the place where most of the misinformation has originated. Some of it is plain unverified bunkum while others are downright politically motivated lies. Twitter and WhatsApp, which has become a national obsession of late, have been the worst culprits in spreading such falsehood. It was on Twitter that the rumour about the UP BJP president’s ‘daughter’ holding 10 lakh freshly minted Rs 2000 notes even before the new currency had been formally launched originated! After the bluff was called and it became clear that the BJP leader had in fact no ‘daughter’, Gaurav Pandhi, the man who had posted the mischievous message, quietly removed it!
Not to be outdone, television too jumped on to the falsehood bandwagon. Sudhir Choudhury of Zee News (he of the Jindal sting infamy) came up with the startling revelation that the soon-to-be-launched new Rs 2000 note would have a ‘nano chip’ that could be monitored even from space! Even as people were marveling at the giant leap that Indian nano technology had taken came the RBI dampener that there was actually no such chip on it! Commerce minister Nrimala Sitharaman had to step in to scotch the rumour about common salt selling at Rs 400 a kg due to a sudden crisis in the supply of this indispensable item in every Indian kitchen before it could do further damage.
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So, what exactly does the ordinary man or woman, who neither has the wherewithal nor the intellectual rigour, to distinguish between truth and falsehood, do in such a scenario? For starters, s/he can take every piece of information that comes his or her way via mainstream or social media with a bagful of salt. After all, with so much falsehood going around, it is wise to be safe than sorry. Next, s/he must wait till the truth comes out (and it does have a way of coming out of the clutter of falsehoods) about something before pressing the ‘Forward’ button on WhatsApp, the ‘share’ button on Facebook or the ‘Retweet’ button on Twitter. Last but not the least, s/he must give not give currency to any potential falsehood through word of mouth publicity, which remains the fastest way of spreading the word around even in this age of social media, before ascertaining its veracity. If it is not possible to verify the authenticity of the (mis)information, it is best to keep one’s mouth shut in these bewildering times.