Don’t cut nails after sunset. Don’t walk under a ladder. Don’t do anything important when you are in a group of three. Don’t go ahead when a cat crosses your path. Don’t leave the house when someone sneezes. And don’t call out to someone leaving the house from behind.

Our parents have passed us more Fake News than WhatsApp forwards. Not only do they feed us with superstitions, but they also spread fake news to get their way. Remember being told that if we don’t complete eating the food on our plate, it would be rubbed into our hair? Well, that was never going to happen anyways, because parents only would have to give us a bath to remove stale food from our hair. Unfortunately, we were too naïve to recognise fake news then.

Most of these lies are based on some harmless superstition, others are just made up on the spot for pure convenience. What actually happens is that we have become conditioned to irrational arguments. When we are taught that keeping onions or knives below the pillow will save us from nightmares, we also believe that Islamic rule robbed India of its real tradition. We also believe that beef eaters are anti-national. We believe WhatsApp forwards about child-snatchers. And like we would forcibly drink the tasteless daal, we now take blind action against the accused in a social media post.

Would not it have been better if our families had taught us to argue logically. Eat daal because it is good for your health. Then now, we would realise that all religions lead to the same Truth. That WhatsApp forwards may be fake news. And that we need to think rationally before following someone blindly.

Image Credit: idiva

If Maggi is bad for health, so is Patanjali noodles. If the Mullah’s azaan is public nuisance, so are the pandals and mandals that block roads during religious festivities. If it is anti-national to not stand up for the national anthem in cinema halls, so is allowing a rape convict to run free because he knows the local MLA.Fake news begins with prejudices and superstitions.

We cannot blame social media for our own blind misconceptions.

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