The title surely gives it away that I am going to discuss some orchestrated method which is being used to provoke people against Hindus, here termed *Zohnerism*. But before I attempt that comparison, I would like to share in detail about the notorious conceptualisation of  *Zohnerism* and how it came to be.

*Zohnerism* is all about a methodical manipulating and twisting  of straightforward facts into complicated pieces of information with the intention to confuse and mislead people. 

Further detailing, in 1997, a 14 year old junior high school student in Idaho, Nathan Zohner, introduced his science fair project to his classmates, aiming to ban a highly toxic chemical from it’s day to day use. The title of his project was “How Gullible Are We?” and it won the science fair.

Nathan Zoner put forth a compelling reasoning to ban a threatening chemical compound: Dihydrogen monoxide, known as DHMO. He gave 50 of his fellow students a detailed report labelled  “Dihydrogen Monoxide: The Unrecognized Killer,” precisely describing the dangers of DHMO.

The report mentioned that DHMO could cause serious burns while in its gaseous state, it could rust and corrode metal, often found in tumors, could lead to acid rain etc., could lead to excessive urination and bloating on consumption and it kills numerous people annually, all over the world. All through his presentation, Zohner extended scientifically supported arguments to the attendees, as to why this chemical should be banned.Provided with the information and asked what they should do about the threat of DHMO, 43 of Zohner’s classmates, considering the visible deadly nature of the compound, voted for its ban.

Interestingly, the chemical in question wasn’t generally considered harmful at all. Simply put, dihydrogen monoxide is in fact an unfamiliar, irregular name for water. Understandably, Nathan Zohner’s experiment wasn’t an approved experiment to ban water, but instead an attempt to get a depiction of how gullible and exploitable people can actually be.

Although genuine, Zohner skewed the information in support of his experiment by excluding few facts, driving his fellow students into delirium over the (actual) dangers of DHMO, which could actually burn, drown, or be harmful in its other usages and forms. His project highlighted the insight that how easily people’s minds can be influenced and manipulated for both good and bad usage.

In appreciation of Zoner’s work, Journalist James K. Glassman coined the term *Zohnerism* and referred to it as “the use of a true fact to lead an ignorant public to a false conclusion”.

Now coming back to our titled speculation?

Although the concept of *Zohnerism* may not be very old, it’s methodology of manipulating people’s minds with vested interests has been in existence for centuries. And the same have been used time and again to deliberately destroy and damage the image and existence of Hindu people, culture, customs, rituals, ideologies and philosophies. The history has through records, how non-Hindu clans have tried various means to attack Hindus including different timely mind games. The trend has not subsided till date and because of the availability of heterogeneous forms of substantial platforms, virtual social media and increased approach-ability, it has become easier for the adversaries to proliferate the defiling indoctrination in targeted people’s minds.

And this happens a lot more often than we may think, particularly when politicians, conspiracy theorists, schemers ets , twist the proven facts to convince people into swallowing and following the concocted claims.

Picking up from the time right after the 1857 revolution, when British adopted to an education system targeted to demonize Bharat by defaming its tradition, to the post Independence immediate government that continued the trend and filled young minds with the selected knowledge mixed with praises for the traitors and filth for their own country and upto the recent 2-3 decades, where so called leftist/ intellectuals have made it their prime motive to build an army against Hindus and everything related to Hinduism, the efforts to eliminate both has always been on upsurge throughout.

From targeting all Hindu festivals openly, to ridiculing Hindu customs, rituals through movies and advertisements, from deriding the age old food practices openly to brainwashing young minds through inglorious parodies on Hindu mythology, their characters, scriptures and teachings, the attacks have taken many forms and is spreading expeditiously.

Unfortunately, with so many Hindu descendants, especially the young pro-genies joining the bandwagon themselves under the blind veil of secularism, modernism, pseudo nationalism, and spurious conversions, fight for the believing Hindus to sustain these planned attacks, has never been tougher before .

Currently, the fact that people can mislead, and be misled so deftly, is being utilized most unabashedly through various platforms by Anti-Hindu entities to assault and decimate the psyche of Hindus. Recent example of this is the Delhi riots which were completely mis-represented by left media as Hindu driven riots whereas reality was the opposite of it. The aim was to poison people’s mind and raise hostility against Hindus, whereas gathering solace, support and commiseration for the group that was being led by the real perpetrators.

Hindus by nature have always been accommodating, forgiving and aiding. It’s high time, they realized virtues are best kept for the deserving and times like these are the loud wake up calls for Hindus to unite, abide by each other and endorse the bigger cause. It’s time they recalled the second half of the statement too and read it, practice it in full essence, “ अहिंसा परमो धर्मः, धर्म हिंसा तथीव च” meaning “Non-violence is the ultimate dharma, so too is violence in service of Dharma”. Thus, let not the avarice driven vultures ploy things like Zohnerism against Hindus, their heritage, their civilization and get away just like that.

Think about it!

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