News Karnataka
Thursday, March 28 2024
Cricket
Open Space

Facts, Factoids, Misinformation and Propaganda

Facts Factoids Misinformation And Propaganda
Photo Credit :

It will be interesting to read through a few facts.

The Government of India did something spectacular during 2020, especially when the pandemic was hitting everyone, more especially the farmers. It set apart a 15,000 crore agricultural fund to be used by farmers and others for developments in the agricultural sector. Anyone could borrow from this fund against any project that would benefit the sector. The borrowing was unlimited with a provision of 19 per cent funding of the total cost of the project with 3 per cent interest for the loan amount. The only condition laid down was that it should benefit the agricultural sector. It could be even associated activities of agricultural sector like fodder or manure factories. One of a rare initiative by a government for lifting up the status of the farmers, this provision of funds did not get enough publicity even when the farmers were agitating against the government. Even if someone argues that most of this fund would have gone to the corporate sector for their agricultural products, the fact remains that such activities would benefit the agricultural sector and the farmers. One wonders why the minister for agriculture who has been briefing the press on a regular basis during the beginning of the agitation of farmers did not speak about this support to the farmers as one of the achievements of the government. Facts ought to be available to every citizen, especially when they are agitated over one issue or other.  

It is worthwhile to consider some more facts.

Agricultural subsidies are provided to farmers as per rules of the World Trade Organisation under an agreement titled AoA, Agreement on Agriculture. It is expected that every member country of WTO will publish such subsidies provided. India has notified that 99.3% of the subsidies are provided to low income or resource poor farmers whose holdings are less than ten hectares. According to the Government of India, the entire farm sector consists of economically weak farmers. The US and the European Union provide larger magnitude of subsidies. An interesting statistics available says that while US provides 98% subsidies and European Union provides 45.3% subsidies, India provides 12.4% subsidies. Again, while US and EU provide the subsidies based on an Agricultural Policy, in India, there is no agricultural policy and there are only executive decisions. More interestingly, India’s share in 1950-51 in the GDP was 45% and in 2019-20, it is less than 16%. Especially noteworthy is the erosion of farm income as share in GDP; in 1950 it was 18% and in 2019 it was only 07.6%.

Presenting additional facts will be useful.

Minimum Support Price is for around 23 commodities though the greater importance is for MSP of wheat and rice. The National Sample Survey tells any reader that only 6% of farmers benefitted from the MSP. Data is available only about paddy and wheat. On an average, 14% and 16% of paddy and wheat respectively were sold with MSP during the last five years. Originally, the farmers who sold wheat and paddy under MSP were mostly from Punjab and Haryana and a part of Uttar Pradesh. Government of India made systematic efforts to expand to more states purchases under MSP under a project called DCP, Decentralised Procurement Scheme. Ernest attempts by July 2015 resulted in fifteen states getting involved in systems of MSP. It was Chattisgarh and Odisha which were the star performers in DCP as far as paddy was concerned when Madhya Pradesh did 20% procurement in a big way through DCP for wheat. Yet another interesting data is that large farmers constitute only 3%. Paddy MSP collection in 2018-19 was Punjab at 9%; Haryana at 7%, Odisha at 11%, Chattisgarh at 33% and as far as wheat is concerned Madhya Pradesh at 33%, Punjab at 22% and Haryana at 18%. The MSP procurement happened from small and marginal farmers who were about 56% from all states. It is true that the size of benefit is more for large farmers but the benefits went to larger numbers of small and marginal farmers.

Whatever has been provided above is all checkable and are in black and white, and therefore, they will remain facts for everyone.

Now to the understanding of factoids. Norman Mailer is widely credited with coining the word sometime in 1973 while writing a biography of Marilyn Monroe. Factoid is a matter of unreliable information that gets repeatedly stated by people, specially people in authority who generally have access to facts, so often that common people, especially those who have no access to facts, accept them as facts. 

Factoids would be better understood by taking the following examples. The agricultural minister as well as the ministry went on making statements about the farm laws that they are not against any MSP and that the farm laws are always farmer-friendly. This is a factoid because there is no mention of the concept of Minimum Support Price in any of the three farm laws. The ministry went on repeatedly stating that the MSP benefits large farmers. Statistics shows that small and marginal farmers are large in number who benefited from MSP. The ministry in one of its statements says that the MSP Mandis will exist alongside private merchants, and therefore, farmers could sell to any one of them, and hence, there will be greater choice for sale for the farmers. The factoid is easily understandable when one considers the fact which was released by farmer’s association. Basmati rice is purchased from the farmers at Rs. 18.80 and sold in the market at different prices ranging from Rs. 110.00, some of the varieties at even Rs. 350.00 to Rs. 950.00. The ministry termed the agitation by the farmers as engineered by large farmers from Haryana and Punjab. However, it is to be noted that it is only 21% to 37% of the farmers of these two states who grow paddy or wheat. Therefore, from the statistics provided above, one should be able to understand the difference between facts and factoids. Factoids are dangerous because they can replace facts very easily, especially when the factoids are presented by people in power, more especially in the recent times when such matter can travel very fast from person to person and through digital media. There is a need to clarify the factoid necessarily and it is not any matter which is trivial, and therefore, considered dismissible. Factoids are deliberate in their production.

Now to disinformation. There is a necessity to distinguish between misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is wrong information which has spread without the person who spreads it unaware of the fact that it is so. It could also be that it was a matter said unwittingly. However, disinformation is different. This is information passed on with the full knowledge that the matter spread is untrue, and additionally, the person who spreads it has certain benefits out of it. This may include false matter, rumours, insults and pranks intended to mislead and the inaccurate information is spread around with deliberate intent to deceive the recipient of the information. In other words, when a matter is deliberately used as wrong information by a person who knows the truth and wants to get certain benefits by hiding the truth and spread something else, it becomes disinformation. It could also be biased information or manipulated narrative of facts. Similarly, it can be wrong information on purpose which could be powerful, destructive or divisive.

A large amount of details of the farmer’s strike and the ways in which the ministry of agriculture of Government of India has been putting out statements have largely been disinformation. The ministry sometime in the past gave out information about production and sale of milk in the country stating that the country is self-sufficient as far as milk is concerned. A calculation of hundred and thirty-four million people and the total litres of milk produced in the country will make anybody understand that the country is not self-sufficient though the minimum necessities of large numbers of people are truly satisfied. Also milk seems to be self-sufficient because more than 50% of the people in the country cannot afford purchasing milk. In addition, there had been news spread out that milk does not have a support price, and therefore, why not grains also be sold similarly. One purposely hides the fact that milk can be sold under the two systems of Product Support Estimate and Market Price Support, both of which fluctuates. PSE for that matter was +1.9 in 2000 and in 2019 it is -5.5. In between in 2008, it was -27.8. So, there cannot be any equation between milk and grains as far as market prices are concerned.

Consider propaganda as a strategy, of course, strategy is a plan of action; naturally it has to have an agenda to influence a particular section or sections of people.

They say that there are three types of propaganda.

As a country, a totalitarian dictatorship like China or North Korea may be the best examples for propaganda that leads citizens to believe what the governmental agencies provide them as official information. A community of people can be fully led or even misled through propaganda. Hiding of facts, presenting different types of factoids and a large amount of disinformation can result in a type of propaganda that is called by statisticians as Black Propaganda. There is Grey Propaganda which are spread out without the person knowing whether what is given in the propaganda is true though it could happen that he or she has limited scope for finding out the truth. The most important type of propaganda is the White Propaganda. Most democratic nations believe in white propaganda as a policy. The best example which is handy and close is the bulletins on covid and its vaccinations by the Ministry of Health of the Government of India and those of the states in recent times. The Minister for Health of the Government of India needs everyone’s appreciation for making considerable amount of propaganda and largely they are white. Most white propaganda have to be attributed to qualities of an individual or individuals who manage position power.

It is necessary to make a key statement to close.

Propagandistic disinformation of factoids can kill even the most realistic facts and in democracies, tragedy awaits humanity when the intelligence and consciousness of the people do not support each other in the face of propaganda based on factoids, disinformation and propaganda which destroy facts that should necessarily be available to people.

About the author

Prof. Sunney Tharappan is the Director of College for Leadership and HRD, Mangaluru. He trains, writes and lives in Mangaluru.

Share this:
MANY DROPS MAKE AN OCEAN
Support NewsKarnataka's quality independent journalism with a small contribution.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

To get the latest news on WhatsApp