Saadia Azim could easily update the famous Rabindranath Tagore poem for the digital age. In her version of Where the Mind is Without Fear, she imagines a country that awakes to a place where “truth travels by foot again”, a different kind of minimalism where we can switch “a lighter digital footprint for a heavier democratic conscience,” a place where partnerships thrive and citizens come together to write a new, truthful narrative instead of blindly believing the one they are offered. To conjure this vision, Azim has waded through a decade of the cesspool that is the Indian internet in her book Forwarded As Received: How Misinformation Turns Viral, Violent and True. The book brims with case studies, from Indo-Pak stand-offs and witch-hunts in Purnia, Bihar, to NCERT textbooks, the making of “Pappu” and the coining of a new vocabulary of jihad (biryani, love, thook). Rhea Chakraborty, Tablighi Jamaat, Sulli Deals, R.G. Kar, all became trigger words in engineered storms of disinformation this past decade, and Azim urges us to stop mapping the anatomy of disparate lies and start understanding the architecture of this system.
Appropriately, she starts this story on 28 September 2015, when a storm of misinformation spread through WhatsApp and led to the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq. Those were the days when we knew the names of Muslim men lynched by mobs, euphemistically labelled “cow protection” squads. Akhlaq’s murder was a key marker in the branding of New India, ushering in an era of the deliberate recording and sharing of violence as it happened. Lynching is everyday digital behaviour courtesy WhatsApp, the writer says.
Azim’s book is a forensic examination of how we got here. A recounting of the rumours, lies, outrageous claims and preposterous ideas that have manipulated our minds since Akhlaq. The author urges you to think of her work as an “autopsy of misinformation, not its museum”, though the book is also a great compendium of the worst moments of the decade gone by.
At the start she asks how messages can turn people into murderous mobs and then proceeds to explain exactly how it works. Using the example of a lynching, she shows us how outrage is monetised, and how influencers and platforms can profit from the murder of an innocent man. She makes the point that the digital economy treats outrage itself as a form of engagement to be monetised.
Practical Markers
Azim does a service to citizens by analysing how the structure of disinformation and misinformation can be understood and navigated. She inspires you to move beyond traditional categorisations such as the five stages of grief for the country you believe you have lost. She wants you to focus instead on more practical markers such as the eight stages in the life cycle of a lie or the five avatars of misinformation (fake government schemes, communal fear mongering, economic scams, emotional hoaxes and identity manipulation).
The catchphrase in the book’s title—Forwarded As Received—is the fig leaf of our times. It absolves the sender of a message from responsibility even as they blithely amplify lies. “It is the defining disclaimer of a generation,” she says, adding elsewhere, “By forwarding a lie that was never ours, we become part of a chain that deceives, endangers and sometimes even destroys.” The message makes us feel so strongly that we don’t pause to verify before pressing the forward button. We are bombarded by emotionally charged “news” from handles that have no accountability and we live in a time where we no longer know what to believe. Azim gives you the tools to survive.
She dissects how distortion spreads through viral posts, and traces the damage to a democracy where everyday struggles get re-routed into nationalist fervour and every crisis becomes fodder for a skewed narrative. The metaphor she reaches for is visceral: she doesn’t just diagnose the rot, she cuts the body open to show it to you. You’re left with one question: how are we still standing when so much has died?
The author picks apart the incessant stream of misinformation that has become the very “grammar of online engagement” and that leaves you exhausted, unable to focus on real issues. She reminds you that the numbness of public conscience is a direct fallout of the non-stop digital violence. Of course, this violence worst affects the marginalised and those with limited access to fact-checks.
Azim distinguishes between misinformation and disinformation. The first is unintentional and spreads like a pathogen when shared in family WhatsApp groups and other online forums, infecting innocents who don’t know better. If misinformation is inaccurate, disinformation, its “darker twin”, is deliberate manipulation.
“Disinformation is not a bug in the system, it is the system,” she writes. The real danger is not the lie itself but the way it travels, gathering speed as misinformation carries it and the mainstream amplifies it. You only have to compare how television channels reported the Jantar Mantar student protests with the videos on your Instagram feed to understand what the author is saying.
As we sail on the rocky sea of lies, Azim illustrates the nature of content on the internet by sharing a great story about two cakes, one baked by her and one by her sister-in-law. Azim’s cake, which she photographed, edited and posted online repeatedly for a variety of occasions, was forwarded back to her on her birthday in yet another tweaked avatar, after journeying through the network. An image of her sister-in-law’s cake, which appeared repeatedly in birthday wishes across WhatsApp groups, was also repurposed by wellness and nutrition groups with very different messages. The image was also used with red text: “Hindus beware: eggs in Prasad! You are being tricked in the holy month of Sawan”. The cake had travelled, “gathering false narratives like barnacles on a ship’s hull,” Azim writes.
The author lucidly (and often poetically) examines the structure of misinformation and disinformation from all angles. There’s an excellent section on gendered misinformation, the space women are allowed to inhabit on the internet and how we are attacked simply for being who we are and irrespective of the tone we use. Another section examines modern warfare and the internet and how governments are “not only at war over territories but over truth itself”.
Rebuilding the commons
Among the many things she discusses are deep fakes; how exclusion works online; what social scientists say about the outrage magnet; jokes and forwards that shook the country; the real power of influencers; and the environmental excesses of data. But behind much of this machinery is the state itself. Governments make more than a special appearance in this book. They are key players in an age when telling lies is a policy, to be manufactured and deployed strategically. The IT cells of political parties provide the relentless infrastructure of this modern propaganda, which functions “not by convincing you of a lie but by making you feel alone in knowing the truth.”
Even before you near the conclusion on how we will need to rebuild the information commons, Azim offers much wisdom on how to frame the resistance. Ask who is telling the story and why. Understand your role as a pawn in these conversations. Get educated about how deception works and learn to see the patterns. “Re-humanise information” one conversation at a time. Don’t argue, question. Look for the cracks. Build bridges, don’t try to overpower those who have fallen under the spell of lies. Make media literacy a core civic skill.
In Azim’s dream for India, a public trust would partner with citizen groups and local fact-checkers to map how disinformation spreads. They would identify worst-hit areas and have counter-narratives ready. These would spread through the same channels and in the same languages. Think community radio, online inter-community groups and any other participatory model you can imagine.
“The real storm isn’t the lie. It’s the architecture that allows the lie to move faster than the truth,” Azim says. “And in such storms, those who survive are not necessarily the most informed, but the most pre-warned.” Don’t say she didn’t warn you.
Priya Ramani is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru and the founder of @indialoveproject.