The Internet has spawned a new menace ' spreading misinformation and slanderous messages about events and individuals. We all receive, time and again, e-mail messages and assorted Forwards, telling us some sob story or concocted tale of how a famous individual disparaged a people, or a nation or a race or a religion. There will be a fervent plea at the end, appealing to our integrity and sense of fair play, to forward it to as many of our friends, colleagues, relatives, et al. As sensitive human beings, we feel outraged and offended at this famous person, and wonder how he or she could have disparaged another in such contemptuous manner. We all get taken in by the apparent sincerity of the mail, and more often than not, do not make an effort to verify the authenticity of the alleged event or incident. Pronto, we forward The Forward to all and sundry whose names figure in the Address Book. Thus, this misinformation campaign launched by some mischief-maker or may be a vested interest gains wide currency, not through word of mouth, but through the Internet.

Some time back, I got this Forward which had already traveled half the world, if I were to go by the number of previous recipients, about Tommy Hilfiger. (I am sure many of you too would have received this one ' not once, but many times over). In case you haven't, this mail tells you with such conviction and anger that Tommy-man had made manifestly racial comments against Asians, coloured people and very many others in an Oprah Winfrey show. All details are made so out very convincingly with appropriate quotation marks and what not that you will never ever, even for a second, doubt the veracity of the story, because it is written with so much of passion, and angst. As the story goes, even the normally cool Oprah was offended to such an extent by the indignities heaped on the poor Asians and others that she asked Tommy to leave the stage and wound up the show for the day! Reading the quotes, I too was very very offended by the audacity of Tommy to say that if he had known that the wretched Asians and coloured people were to wear his clothes, he would never have taken the trouble to style them ' that too after getting them made by the very same wretched lot at the sweat shops in Bangalore, Bangkok and Beijing, paying them less than one-third of what he would have paid the labour if it were made anywhere in the West. I felt so sorry for my Third World cousins, spewed venom on the racist Tommy, and heartily applauded the courage of conviction of Dame Oprah. And in all my anger, I forwarded The Forward to everyone in my Address Book, with a request to boycott Hilfiger and exile Tommy from our wardrobe. I felt a sense of having contributed to a cause.

A few days later, I felt something amiss in the whole incident; I asked myself whether Tommy would ever have had the guts to make such racist remarks in a show so widely watched, more so when, as a businessman, he stand to lose millions of dollars if he were to take objection to anyone other than whites donning his creations. Why should Tommy risk his fortune like that? I thought I should do some enquiry on the Tommy episode. And I used the same medium that his detractors were using - our dear Internet! The results were even more outrageous than Tommy's alleged intolerance. An entire section of Hifiger's Homepage is devoted to refuting this allegation, with evidence. And I came across any number of write-ups to prove that this sort of an incident did not take place at all. Oprah herself made the most interesting revelation: Tommy Hilfiger had not even once figured on her show, forget making racist comments! Poor Tommy has been crying hoarse since 1999 - yes, since 1999 ' when this calumny started appearing on the Internet, protesting his innocence. He got Oprah to certify that the alleged appearance of his on her show was only some fertile mind's figment of imagination, that he never said anything like this even after having had a few drinks elsewhere, that he holds Asians and their ilk in high esteem, that he is not even in his sleep a racist, that he is an honest, straight forward businessman, his only business being making money by making other people wear clothes ' styled by himself - and that included whites, Hispanics, Asians, Africans, coloured peoples, etc., etc. Poor Tommy, I felt sorry for him. That Hilfiger incident was an eye opener for me, to verify the authenticity of such Forwards in future. Anyway, I took care to send an e-mail to everyone in my Address Book communicating the results of my research on Tommy and Oprah, and to tell them they are free to wear Hilfiger styles, contrary to my earlier appeal.

A few days back, I was at the receiving end of another Forward, addressed patriotically "to all Indians". The victim this time was someone nearer home, though dead and buried for nearly one and a half centuries. The man in question was none other than Lord Macaulay who is credited to have been instrumental in enabling English education in India. The Forward carried an excerpt from a speech he allegedly made in the British Parliament on 2 February 1835. In this speech, he is alleged to have prepared ground for English teaching in India by first saying that of all the places in the world, it is only in India that you don't find beggars and thieves; it is a country with high moral values, inhabited by people with great caliber; that the British cannot conquer India when people are like that; that the best way it can be done is by breaking their backbone which is their culture, their heritage; for that the British should try to make Indians learn English; then they would lose their self esteem and self confidence and then the British could truly conquer India. While it was nice to receive some compliments on your cultural heritage from a foreigner, a learned one at that, the whole argument embodied in the so-called speech didn't seem to gel well. Having burnt my fingers, thanks to Tommy's clothes, I did some research on the Lord's contemptible references on how to break India's backbone. The results, as in the case of the stylish Tommy, were equally revealing; the so-called speech, it has turned out, is a creation of some ingenious mind. Yes, unlike Tommy, his British cousin did hold racial views, though in an entirely different context. In fact, there are studies which show that he was much more modern in his outlook towards the various ills plaguing the Indian society than some of our present day leaders who consider people more as `vote banks' than as human beings. He did talk of the advantages of English language in consolidating the Empire in her Jewel in the Crown. But there is no record to prove that Macaulay made any such reference in any of his speeches in the British Parliament on the need to break India's backbone of a great cultural heritage. At the end, I didn't forward The Forward to anyone in my Address Book, but just replied to the sender, a well-meaning contact, that the mail in question was not very authentic.

So, I am wiser for the experience, thanks to the stylist in Tommy and the linguist in Macaulay. We need to show some respect to the reputations of people ' or the lack of it ' when we rush to click the Forward button, every time we receive a mail which carries suspect information. I agree, it may not be possible to verify the authenticity of every event, but still, we can always try to be fair to history, to people, to events, and not let the Internet become a medium for spreading misinformation.