Truth is the first casualty in not only war but elections too

Faisal C.K

The military maxim “in war, truth is the first casualty” is often attributed to Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy.

This is almost a universal truth. Lord Arthur Ponsonby, a British statesman of the World War period, in his book Falsehood in War-Time: Propaganda Lies of the First World War (1928) listed and refuted 20 pieces of false propaganda used by the Allied Forces against the Central Powers during the World War I.

Ponsonby described these falsehoods as a fundamental part of the way the war effort was created and sustained, stating that without lies there would be “no reason and no will for war”.

He wrote: “A moment’s reflection would tell any reasonable person that such obvious bias cannot possibly represent the truth. But the moment’s reflection is not allowed; lies are circulated with great rapidity. The unthinking mass accept them and by their excitement sway the rest.”

This axiom is equally true to elections, a sophisticated avatar of war in our times. War is fought with swords and shields; and election, with information and ideas.

But false propaganda is the staple fodder both for war and election.

Post-truth cyber politics

Cyberspace provides new battlegrounds for election wars in our digital era. The digital revolution was initially hailed as the great democratizing force.

It was conceived as a game changer and a paradigm shift in politics as it would put ordinary citizenry on an equal footing with political grandees.

As Gutenberg’s printing machine ushered the French Revolution, Zuckerberg’s Facebook facilitated the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia in our times.

The Jasmine Revolution triggered the tumultuous Arab Spring. These developments fuelled the dream that tyrants would be toppled by tweets and the excesses of despots would be exposed on Facebook.

The digital social media platforms have been celebrated as a new chivalrous knight errant of democracy. But counterfeit democrats and autocrats have subsequently taken over cyberspace to perpetuate their grip over power and find new ways to use digital tools to distort the truth and to rig elections.

The plethora of contradicting information avalanched to the masses has led to the emergence of a ‘post-truth’ politics where it is impossible to winnow true information from misinformation and disinformation.

It resulted in deplorable voting behaviour where voters act more on the basis of emotional stimulus to particular issues and leaders than on political facts and information.

The term ‘post-truth’ was first used by Steve Tesich in 1992 in a piece on the Iran-Contra scandal and the Gulf War I, in which he lamented that ‘we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world’.

Falsehood in Election Time

The post-truthism rules the roost in election seasons. Post-truth politics is a dangerous weapon in the hands of counterfeit democrats and despots.

Newspeak and doublespeak reach their peak during electioneering in countries that are designated electoral autocracies.

Electoral autocracies are regimes where regular elections are held, but they are short of keeping democratic standards of freedom and fairness.

The recently published V-Dem (or Varieties of Democracy) Report 2024 notes that India is no longer termed a democracy, but “dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018” and remains there at the end of 2023.

India is ranked 110 in the V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) with its score having significantly worsened. It underscores the malign growth of false political propaganda during elections in India.

Cyberspace is a lawless Wild West during dog-eating-dog electioneering. The 2016 US presidential election was a textbook example of unethical digital political manoeuvers and fake news manipulating election outcomes.

One such humbug began with a simple typo. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager received an email that instructed him to click on a link and reset his password.

He forwarded the email to Mrs. Clinton’s advisor. The technology advisor recognized the harmful nature of email and shot back a quick response: “This is a ‘legitimate’- instead of ‘illegitimate’- email.”

It was a typo that caused havoc. The campaign manager clicked the link and the hackers got access to the private email of Hillary Clinton’s campaign team.

The data from the Clinton account was sent to WikiLeaks, and from there the information, embarrassing to the Clinton team, was made available to the world.

The leaked emails were