As the adage goes a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. The lie factory sponsored by the sangh parivar, called by the euphemism of IT cell, is so well-oiled and vigorous that this proverbial premise needs to be repeated several times. If any one asks what is the biggest terrorist outfit that destroys the country, the answer would be this network that concocts such fake stories, spreads them all over the county, puts the people under the shadow of fear and suspicion in order to torment people by making them fight against each other. Their role in creating rumours and stoking riots is notorious. Those on the hit list of this IT cell, apart from the minorities of the country, especially Muslims, Opposition parties and leaders, media persons who refuse to budge or write songs of praise, there is the state of Kerala itself. They have absolutely no qualms to tout any amount of lies that is likely to be met with disbelief. And the sangh workers in Kerala have no hesitation either to take up the same propaganda. The recent story spread by the cyber warriors is that a Keralite soldier during his leave in home state was intercepted on his way, tortured and the letters PFI were inscribed in green ink on his back. They circulated it through social media as Kerala's 'green terrorism'. And that was lapped up promptly by sangh parivar leaders and cyber soldiers. National media held debates without breathing break. The sum and substance of the allegation was that the organisation was functioning even after its ban through its sleeper cells and that the state's left government was facilitating its activities. When the hue and cry became so loud as to put the government itself under pressure, and even the central intelligence agencies sought details about the incident, Kerala police also swung into action with a diligent probe. Finally the truth of the incident has come to light: a soldier, a sympathiser of the sangh parivar had made a ploy to win instant fame through crooked means with the help of a friend following the same ideology and under the influence of alcohol. It may not be alcohol alone but a more toxic doze of hate that would have given them the strength to do this; and the same may have been the driver for those who set out spreading it the moment they heard it.
Once it transpired that the inscription drama was in pursuit of instant fame, Kerala's print and visual media covered it with due prominence. And online media have taken down the earlier post. But by that time, this terrible lie had travelled far and wide. But Kerala's BJP leader, himself an accused in a hawala transaction running to crores, did not even bother to delete his social post. The picture of the green inscription beneath a torn shirt, is still doing the rounds with footnotes of lie and hate in diverse languages. It was in the same manner that bogus stories and narratives had circulated earlier against Muslim community, and propaganda about love jihad, land jihad, food jihad and halal jihad got currency even among Keralites. We are now able to to read it as a joke only because the truth behind the fiction came to light so quickly. We are able to draw cartoon and make trolls. But imagine what would have ensued had the infantry battalions of hate set out for more adventure in search of fame, and had some more ingenious ones joined to create such terrorist drama. Wouldn't law enforcement machinery have stepped into house after house saying the village was the shelter of the banned organisation? And wouldn't they have rounded up the youths whoever came their way, denying the sleep of their hapless parents? And wouldn't the sangh parivar who held a march to the police station under the cover of the fabricated story and those given to the language of hate from Ramesh Bidhu to Anil Antony have had a field day with anti-Muslim narratives? At the end of it all, by the time the judiciary gets convinced that all this was nothing but falsehood, half of the lives of humans caught in the fire would have burned out. There are scores around us like those booked in a similar concocted story of 'SIMI camp in Panayikkulam' who had to spend nearly two decades under harrowing conditions and were finally exonerated by the highest court very recently. What many would recall are the words of a police officer who several years ago had scuttled a move of the sangh parivar in Tanur, Malappuram aiming to trigger a riot, who said " God has once again saved Kerala".