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A FEW years ago, Forbes ran a story about a rumour circulating in Pakistan claiming that the old one rupee coin was actually worth Rs2,500 because it had inadvertently been made out of gold. In the past, rumours that bank accounts were frozen due to dire economic situations have caused public panic. Recently, rumours about remittances to India have proven the staying power of misinformation.
Unsolved cases of assassinated leaders, and constant commentary on political issues by military spokesmen fuel conspiracies and rumours. Governor Taseer’s murder was triggered by the misinformation that he had blasphemed although he had objected to how rumours led to false accusations of blasphemy. The Zina laws of 1979 enabled false allegations and the same legal challenge will haunt us now under Articles 62 and 63.
Virtue, piety, patriotism, and moral injury are intangible attributes. Despite the current judiciary’s superhuman ability to judge our very souls, these characteristics are impossible to prove. When there is lack of material evidence, rumours only intensify allegations and turn modern-day legal arenas into 17th-century witch trials.
Rumours work best in times of crisis, transition or anxiety. The most effective ones carry strong emotional content and score high in disgust. Educated or informed individuals are not immune to rumours. Studies find that no matter how fluid or sticky, acceptance or rejection of a rumour depends mainly on political affiliation or bias.
Rebutting the falsity of rumours is not easy.
Rumours are mobilisers of violence, such as the scapegoating of Muslim men as rapists and converters of Buddhist women in Myanmar, or the rumour spread by Taliban leader Fazlullah, accusing LHWs in Swat of being sex workers. Rumours exploited ethnic differences that led to genocide in Rwanda and similarly, justified the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. Rumours are addictive — Indira’s Gandhi’s killing by her Sikh guards triggered speculations that Delhi’s water supply was going to be poisoned by Sikhs.
Even for righteous causes, such as peasant rebellions, rumours have been drivers of revolt. Rumours generate urban legends, as in the case of the Jamia Hafsa and Umme Hassan’s book (Hum par kiya guzri) which falsely claims women’s martyrdom in the Lal Masjid siege. Hassan uses emotional gendered tropes to invoke opposition and contradict the official state narrative about Operation Silence (but no one will sue Hassan’s anti-state claims).
Development projects involving contraception, HIV Aids, polio vaccines, Ebola, and the iodised salt campaign, have been stigmatised due to myths generated through rumours, and put humanitarian agencies at high risk. Seven years later, the dragnet set up to capture OBL in Abbottabad using the guise of administering door-to-door hepatitis vaccines, still hampers polio efforts in Pakistan. Even scholars of honour-based violence have noted how rumours and disciplinary gossip are used as instruments of surveillance over women.
Political rumours are damaging because they become weaponised as propaganda. Since most rumours tend to be about sex, money and politics, it explains the panic created by Reham Khan’s alleged exposé of her marriage to Imran Khan. The PTI is aware of the power of rumour and misinformation and appears to have relied on this as a political instrument to mobilise public opinion against the government, bureaucracy, and even the Chaudhry judiciary.
Its ‘35 punctures’ rumour cannot be forgotten quickly and the skeletons in its closet are adding up with the induction of more defectors. Damage control means taking ownership of the rumour mill before it backfires to erode the moral high ground the PTI claims. This means spreading misogynistic and vile retaliatory rumours about Reham Khan.
Using the rumour mill as a counter-insurgency tactic depends on a key method; labelling any disagreement or demand for rights as betrayal. When Nawaz Sharif brokered CPEC, it did not make him a renegade but false rumours about remittances to India certified him as a traitor. When south Punjab demands rights, these are trusted as credible but suspected if they come from KP. Rumours of treachery are contingent to historical stereotypes and those who refuse to conform.
Rebutting the falsity of rumours is not easy. Barack Obama could become a Christian priest, all Muslims in India could turn vegetarian, Pashteen could wear a Jinnah cap but they will remain permanently suspect — the astin ka samp, the violent outsider, the permanent insurgent, the vengeful ex-wife. Discrediting the non-conformist clears the space for the owner of the rumour mill to step in and reinstate the old status quo.
However, if the rumour mill goes unchecked, it undermines official information channels and the state loses control over the power of truth. A credible state cannot be built on manufactured reality or denial of rights. It is time to free the electoral process and let truth happen. It is time to counter conflict with reconciliation.
The writer is author of Faith and Feminism in Pakistan.
Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2018
