In 2016, the Oxford dictionary declared post-truth as the word of the year. But when it was first coined by Steve Tesich in 1991-1992 to describe the propaganda of the US-dominated NATO powers which was used to balkanise Yugoslavia during the inter-ethnic feuds and violence there, no one was willing to publish his articles.Once a darling of the US for winning an Oscar at the young age of 36, for script writing the film Breaking Away (1979), Tesich became persona non grata till his death in 1996, at age 53. He had the temerity to see through the false propaganda used to ruin the last socialist state left standing in the Western world. No one was willing to question it because they were afraid to face the truth. Post-truth was the word he used to describe the mental state of the people, hence the time too.His sister Nadja Tesich – novelist, actor, filmmaker – whose Paris sojourn was the subject of a film, Nadja à Paris by Eric Rohmer – was a friend of mine. She had acted in the film as herself. I first met her at a Feminist Conference in Dubrovnik (then in erstwhile Yugoslavia, now Croatia) in 1988. She saw the impending civil war instigated by the divide and rule strategy, before Steve did, because he had once believed in the American dream. He died of heartbreak (or heart attack), when his dream turned into nightmare with the fraud perpetrated in Yugoslavia, through distortion of truth and the practice of divide and rule. He saw the post-truth era was upon them and died when no one paid heed to his warning.Who knows better than us, the devilish stratagem of divide and rule?But we learnt nothing from it.Here and now, we are living in a post-truth era, as we blindly believe what we are told by our rulers because we are afraid to face the truth.I strongly believe that when a dictatorship is imposed on a people, an eventual revolt is possible, however long it may take and however bloody it might be.But when a dictator is chosen through elections, a revolt is well-nigh impossible because a large number of past voters suspend disbelief and begin to live in post-truth. It is less frightening to do that than face the truth that the democracy they had voted for was now non-existent. By constantly distorting the truth, advertisements also make us believe we are choosing something we really like, while in truth, we choose it because we are taught to believe we like it through subliminal propaganda.But that is a lesser evil than the state of political post-truth we live in. We are told to hate certain sections of society through persistent false propaganda and we blindly do so.Also read: The Truth Is That Modi’s ‘Double-Engine’ Naya Bharat Is Shabbier Than Old IndiaRemember the 1930s in Germany. Hitler was elected almost unanimously and people believed what he asked them to believe. To hate homosexuals, gypsies, musicians, actors and Jews of course. The final aim was the annihilation of Jews.We know and abhor the Holocaust that followed.But were not similar post-truth conditions created for the post-partition massacres of 1947 in India and Pakistan and again for the Sikh massacre in 1984?Let’s not forget that the post-truth era is far from over. Quite the opposite.The current one is built with greater technological acumen and propagation of hatred, which has blinded large sections of society. If we are told cloud cover did not allow radar to pick up signals of an air attack, we are idiots enough to believe it. We also believe that the enormous and ubiquitous problem of hunger can be solved through distribution of free rations. No need to provide means of employment or improve education.In any case all our problems would disappear once we build the Ram temple and declare mosques and madrasas hotbeds of terrorism.I wonder can we still say ‘beware’ before it is too late? Or is it already too late?Mridula Garg is a Hindi writer and Sahitya Akademi award winner.