Bold and cheeky truths

'Don't Forward That Text!' offers a fascinating and humorous takedown of the misinformation on WhatsApp and beyond, but with limitations

Don't Forward That Text! Separating Myths from History on Social Media

Author:  Amit Schandillia

Publisher: Harper Collins India

Pages:328 (Paperback)

Prices: Rs 399

Once you have read through Amit Schandillia’s Don’t Forward That Text! it’s hard not to imagine an alternative blurb for the book on the lines of one of those TV-shopping commercials. “Are you tired of those WhatsApp forwards spreading misinformation? Have you gotten your history muddled with falsehoods? Want to sound superior on the family WhatsApp group by correcting your favourite overconfident cousin?  Grab your copy of this book now!”

Make no mistake, Mr Schandillia’s book is a serious project. The author breaks down some of the most obvious “facts”, not into an over-simplified judgement of “true” or “false” but carefully crafted analyses. He respects the layers of history, science and culture that helps shape the current face of these facts. He is aware that misinformation is not merely a deliberate and often maliciously blurring of lines between history and myth but also the tendency to ignore or miss important nuances.

Thus, to a question like “Is Damascus steel really from India?” Mr Schandillia does not simply answer with an origin date or trace the steel and its closest metallurgical relatives to their points of origin. Instead, he also provides a keen-eyed retelling of the various accounts and historical records that help understand the journey of the steel through cultures and geographies. 

Another example is the parallels between the “Trojan Horse” and the “Kosambian Elephant.” Mr Schandillia’s aim here is not to decipher whether these two seemingly identical war contraptions — hollowed out mechanical war beasts used to infiltrate or weaken the opponent — are mere myths or actual implements. Instead, he focusses on how two identical devices, literary or actual, crop up on two different ends of the Eurasian continent, that too 300 years apart. The array of historical references, mentions and Easter eggs he cumulates to trace the journey of the Greek horse into an Indian elephant is fascinating. 

But not all of Mr Schandillia’s titular questions in each chapter, are as benign as these two. From questioning the Aryan invasion theory to the origins of the river Sarasvati, he doesn’t shy from taking on the tough questions — “Did Hindus ever desecrate Hindu Temples?” “Was Urdu always a ‘Muslim’ Tongue?,” “Did we invent our script or import it?”. 

Most crucially, the author hasn’t shied away from calling a spade a spade. No matter how disappointing the answers might seem, he tries to keep true to the picture his research assembles.

For all that, the book definitely has its limitations. One is the scope and range of the subjects themselves. Although the author has a background in computers and finance, he sticks to Indian history — that too from ancient and medieval periods, venturing on to the early modern only a couple of times.

Mr Schandillia, who has authored an audio series on Indian history called India Uncharted with the aim of making history as accessible as storytelling, leans heavily towards demystifying a very specific strand of cultural bias and misinformation — those of the hard right religious and ethnic flavour.

But when one is addressing the vast world of misinformation and “WhatsApp facts,” one cannot limit oneself to such a narrow strand. The reader therefore misses at least a few chapters on political facts, facts about sports, about India’s neighbours, demystifying educational and business jargon and, most importantly, medicine. Can we please have a chapter at least on how the oil of some random flower will NOT help cure Covid-19?

The other drawback, to a lesser extent, is clarity. At times, one of the book’s most endearing qualities can prove to be a hindrance as well:  The abundance of information, as well as the myriad of sources quoted to piece together each chapter-length answer can become a bit of a jumble at times. The readers may find themselves flipping back pages, trying to determine which sources say what.

 But this is not a very pervasive hindrance, and mostly the author manages to present an intricate and seriously thought-provoking reconsideration of facts known and less known.

Lastly, despite the seriousness of the project, one must also acknowledge the humour inherent to the very idea of the book. That there are entire websites and YouTube channels dedicated to clarifying and identifying fake news, doesn’t take away the ticklish nature of writing a book to systematically break down all the misinformation one casually gathers through forwards on WhatsApp, Telegram, and other social media platforms. 

Mr Schandillia therefore takes a well-aimed, bold yet cheeky shot at fake news, and comes up not too short.