 Kashmir files has generated an intense divisive debate across the country. Its filmmakers and those who supported say that it's an eye-opener which tells the tale of the genocide, the alleged genocide of Kashmiri pundits that took place more than 32 years ago and that it had been pushed under the carpet, neglected by successive governments till the coming of this government which has read the issue again. Those who criticised this film say that it's a thinly veiled piece of propaganda and it has been used essentially to target one particular community and to generate communal polarization and whatever the filmmakers might have intended to do and one can give them the benefit of the doubt it is without any doubt that it has resulted in intense communal passions We have seen across the internet videos being shared of people giving communally charged hate speeches in theatres where the film was screened and that these videos are being shared on social media by politicians and also on WhatsApp groups across India causing deep-seated anxieties, resentment and bubbling over of hatred So whether the filmmakers like it or not there is no doubt that it is working as a propaganda film but the question is why do people believe in propaganda? Why do they accept disinformation and believe it? To understand this, we have to rewind some 100 years and go to the United States where this man, George Washington Hill owner of the popular cigarette brand Lucky Strikes and this man Edward Bernays, better known as the father of PR or public relations met sometime in 1928 He'll believe that the fastest way to increase cigarette sales was to target women who weren't smoking enough to his liking Bernays knew something about human psychology and he had learnt it from masters like his uncle Sigmund Freud the founder of psychoanalysis He launched a campaign called Torches of Freedom where he positioned smoking as a feminist act of emancipation Now, cigarette ads targeting women was nothing new In fact, the one on your screen right now is from 1900 but what Bernays did was something revolutionary He took the modern young American woman's desire to be treated as an equal with women in public and he wrote it What he did was he transformed the cigarette as a symbol of freedom of emancipation for women and to do that what he did was he paid some young women and told them to be part of the Easter Sunday parade in New York in 1929 told them to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes as they marched in the parade and he called them Torches of Freedom Now, he was very particular as far as the women he was going to pick He wanted them to be good looking, attractive but he didn't want them to be too model like because he didn't want a distance to develop between the consumer he wanted to target and the symbol of the person they were looking at and he got a big boost when the fiery feminist Ruth Hale actually backed him and she asked women to join the parade and I'm going to read it out what she said She said, light another torch of freedom fight another sex taboo Lucky Strike became a symbol of emancipation and young women began smoking in larger numbers In 1923, only 5% of women smoked In 1929, after the Torches of Freedom campaign it rose to 12% and it would further rise to 18% by 1935 Lucky Strikes refined their campaign to appropriate other trends and anxieties For instance, the desire to be slim with ads that asked people to give up sweets and smoke instead This resulted in a war between tobacco manufacturers and candy makers The New Republic called it war correspondence from a new battle front The report tells us that American Tobacco Company which owned the Lucky Strike brand had set aside more than 12 million dollars to fight this propaganda war And of course, when the candy makers started breathing down Hill's neck what they did was they switched their campaigning and made it more about being slim than just about candy So it was entirely about giving up food and whenever you wanted to eat more you pick up a cigarette That is what you see in these ads of that time Well, corporates fight such battles every day and if you call it propaganda probably be very angry with you Bernays understood this and that is why he came up with a different term altogether and I'm going to read out what he had to say When I came back to the United States from World War I I decided that if you could use propaganda for war you could certainly use it for peace And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it So what I did was to try and find some other words So we found the words Public relations, you've heard it This is what governments and corporates do This is what they perform to make to mold the minds of consumers and citizens And the words are different It might be slightly different in terms of the methods used but it is ultimately in technique more or less what propaganda used to be So how does propaganda work? Here are the five keys, ways in which it works Number one, ride on existing emotions As I said in the case of Lucky Strikes it was the urge to be treated as equals which Lucky Strikes rode on and converted smoking into a symbol of emancipation Similarly, politicians can take anxieties in society Fears, grievances, the need for revenge and direct it towards certain communities, minorities We have seen that happen historically and we are seeing that happen right now across the world once again That is point number one Point number two, mix lies with the truth So you keep a base of truth and on top of that you load a lot of lies That's the criticism of Kashmir files There is no doubt that Kashmiri Pandits were pushed out of their homes They were terrorized They had genuine fear which made them leave and many people were killed in public Women were raped But the point is that the numbers cannot justify the term genocide Yet when you use the term genocide and multiply the numbers and say these are the numbers of people who were dead and the only reason it has not been documented is because things were neglected Then what you are doing is you are taking a base of truth and piling it up with misinformation without any sources to prove what you are saying But that brings me to point number three which every master of propaganda has said over the years The deception is temporary Attitudes are permanent You can lie for a while You can deceive people for a lie And yes, it does change the way they think for a short term But ultimately the aim of propaganda is to make people believe that whatever is being fed to them is coming from inside These are their own desires If someone stands up and says this minority is the reason why you have these problems They should believe this to be the truth They should believe that this is what they have always felt and someone is expressing and articulating what they felt But to be able to do that you have to come to point number four which is very important in propaganda Control the medium and you will control the message We are seeing that across the world Corporates controlling mainstream media Corporates controlling social media Deciding how to censor who to censor And in a country like India when corporates, a few corporates control mainstream media What happens? The government is able to indirectly control it as well because all corporates need government support for their businesses They don't go against the government and when that happens the government can dictate terms to them very easily and the media falls in line So effectively you are able to control the messaging in social space, in public discourse And that brings me to point five which is also absolutely essential for propaganda to work which is to completely suppress dissent to completely suppress opposite views different voices That is why you must always brand dissenters as enemies of the people for propaganda to work to say they are saying something different because they dislike you they want to control you they are the elites they want to take you over they have suppressed you all these years they are against the nation Now propaganda has become an absolutely easy tool in the hands of those in power and those who control the economy which is corporates with the spread of social media with the decline of old forms of knowledge whether it is books whether it is articles, newspapers where a certain form of debate could take place Today social media is easy news by a few texts photographs, pictures, memes they dominate public discourse they dominate messaging and it is very easy to control this with control over money and to spread it as existing old forms of political mobilization have become weaker as reaching people through social media through national mainstream media has slowly replaced the old system of workers, party workers going and campaigning the ability to control messaging political messaging and corporate messaging has become much more easy and it is an easier tool today in the hands of those in power that means for democracy to survive you have to question power everyone needs to ask questions without that you will be a victim of propaganda and you will be a carrier of propaganda you will never question, you will believe whatever is being fed to you that's the show today keep watching NewsClick, share this video like it and do subscribe to us as well