Disastrous Maze of Fake Narratives and Us

PART 1: When a false illusion is built around a person or a group, even myths can begin to sound like truth.

In today’s digital era, we are drenched in a downpour of information bytes — good, bad, positive, negative, high-tech, and often unnecessary. Over time, we’ve grown used to assuming that all the information we consume is accurate and trustworthy, shaping our opinions and decisions accordingly. But what if I told you that much of this information is deliberately manipulated — crafted to influence our thinking and behaviour, so that certain groups can profit or gain control over our society or nation? This is how agendas are driven through fake narratives.

To understand the situation, we need to understand what exactly a fake narrative is and how it works.

In the good old days, I heard a story from the Panchatantra about a man and his son returning home from the market with a goat. A group of eight to ten thieves planned to steal the goat and enjoy a feast. Along the way, each thief approached the man and his son separately, insisting that what they carried wasn’t a goat but a dog. Hearing the same thing repeatedly from different people, and with no way to verify the truth, the man began to doubt himself. Convinced at last that he might be wrong, he threw the “dog” onto the road. The thieves, of course, seized the goat and went off to celebrate.

This story perfectly illustrates how fake narratives work. When a false illusion is built around a person or a group, even myths can begin to sound like truth. In the end, someone always stands to gain — in wealth, influence, or control.

While this story involves deceiving just one man, it can be dismissed as a simple act of trickery. But what happens when an entire group of people—or the citizens of a state or nation—are misled by a fake narrative designed to seize control over their government and resources? That becomes a serious cause for concern. It is therefore crucial to understand how such narratives evolve, how they operate, and what we can do to counter them.

The first step is creating a maze. At this stage, the narrative builders identify their target—who they want to manipulate and what outcome they wish to achieve. Next, they focus on influencing the person or institution that others see as trustworthy. This key figure, unaware of being manipulated, is gradually fed false or distorted information until their perception—and eventually their actions—align with the manipulators’ agenda.

What  if that person understands that manipulation?? Then the next step would be   'Burning down the pillars of trust'.

In this stage, key figures such as scholars, historians, administrators, and influential institutions—those people or bodies one would normally turn to for justice or verification—are compromised through manipulation or bribery. As a result, the manipulated individual has no reliable source left to confirm the truth and is forced to rely on the false information being spread.

When the confused and manipulated finally give up, the next stage begins — creating a false hero. At this point, the manipulators project a puppet figure as a trusted leader and saviour of the people. This person is often celebrated with international recognition, awards, and media praise to establish credibility. Outwardly, they appear to act in the public’s interest, but in reality, their actions serve the manipulators’ agenda.  History offers several examples where individuals with little political grounding were elevated to power through media influence and external backing — often leading their nations into turmoil rather than progress.

However, there are times when the manipulators encounter individuals or groups who are strong, grounded, and not easily swayed. When their earlier three steps fail to create confusion or control, they move to the next phase — creating anarchy.

By this stage, the manipulators have already built their maze, dismantled the pillars of public trust—such as the Election Commission, police, government, and administration—and installed their puppet leader. Through these three steps, they succeed in creating massive confusion among citizens. People are then urged to take to the streets, undermining legal and democratic institutions. Once chaos takes over, external forces step in to legitimise the puppet leader, declaring him the nation’s new saviour. In the end, the country’s governance and resources fall under the control of these external manipulators—the so-called deep state.

We’ve traced the chronology of a fake narrative. But if those four steps are deliberately applied to a country over decades—or even a century—the result is catastrophic: institutions hollowed out, sovereignty eroded, and the nation brought under the control of external actors. That long-term strategy is precisely what is meant by “NextGenWar.”

What is the NextGenWar we are facing, and what can we do against it democratically? Let us see in our next article.

(The writer works in the Information Technology sector. Views personal.)