Kochi: It began with two words that sent the crowd into a frenzy: “Hi Chellam!”

The signature greeting from his Tamil blockbuster ‘Ghilli’ was the only light moment in an otherwise fiery session at the Manorama Hortus Festival on Saturday evening. In a session titled 'Rumour Had It.. The Politics of Spreading Lies', actor and activist Prakash Raj stripped away the glamour of cinema to reveal, what he called, the raw, often ugly mechanics of modern Indian politics.

Blending biting satire with sombre warnings, Raj took the audience on a tour of what he calls the "manufactured narratives" of the day - from a surprising email in his inbox to a Panchatantra fable that serves as a chilling warning for the electorate.

“I’m not a great speaker, but I question a lot,” Raj began, pacing the stage. He then shared a personal anecdote that perfectly encapsulated his critique of the current central regime’s “theatricality.” As usual, Raj launched a scathing attack on the BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“On November 26, Constitution Day, I received an email. You will be surprised to hear who sent it. It was the Prime Minister,” Raj said.

The audience erupted in laughter. “The world knows I am not his friend, and he clearly knows I am not his. I have only shared my personal email with my friends. I wondered, how was my privacy hacked like that?”, Raj asked

Raj described reading the mail’s subject line: 'Dear Fellow Citizen.' “I was surprised he still considered me a citizen of this country,” Raj quipped, referencing the multiple ED raids and the "anti-national" labels often attached to dissenters like him. “I wondered if my name had been removed from the voter’s list after the Special Intensive Revision!” he said.

He said that the email praised the Constitution as a guiding light and Modi recollected how he placed the Constitution on his forehead in 2019. Raj found the irony unbearable. “He wants Manusmriti to be the Constitution, yet he dares to praise the Indian Constitution, which he wanted to amend from the very first day in office. It takes courage to lie like that. He talks about Mahatma Gandhi, but at the same time, his ideology celebrates Godse,” Raj slammed.

Raj moved from personal anecdotes to a structural critique of the centre. He argued that modern politics operates on a "contract" based on xenophobia, the fear of the stranger.

“It starts with X. Xenophobia is a state of mind. We all have it. When a stranger walks into our village, we look at him with doubt. Politicians exploit this and they create a fear ‘your religion is in danger,’ ‘your country is in danger.’ They manufacture this fear to manufacture consent,” Raj said.

Once the fear is established, the leader offers a deal. “They take a contract. ‘I will save your religion. I will save your country.’ In exchange, you don’t ask about hospitals, you don’t ask about education, you don’t ask about jobs. You just hand over your rights,” Raj said in his typical satirical tone.

To illustrate how voters are seduced by this contract, Raj narrated a "Panchatantra story" that he is currently adapting for children’s theatre. “There was a big well,” he recounted. “In that well, there were only frogs. But one frog wanted to be the leader. He had rivals he couldn't defeat, so he had an idea. He went out and invited a snake, a King Cobra, into the well. The other frogs asked, ‘Why did you bring him?’ The leader said, ‘He is here to eat my enemies.’ And the snake did exactly that. He ate the rivals. But once the enemies were gone, the snake was still hungry. The leader frog said, ‘You can leave now.’ The snake smiled and said, ‘I am not leaving as I am hungry,’” Raj said.

Raj let the metaphor sink in and warned the audience, “If you invite a predator to settle your petty scores, do not be surprised when it eventually eats you. This is the state of our democracy today.” He also warned the voters of Kerala to never let the BJP win seats in Kerala in the next Assembly Elections.

When asked about the film industry, Raj did not mince words about movies like ‘The Kashmir Files’ or ‘The Kerala Story’.

He argued that these weren't just movies, but investments in an ideology. “Thousands of crores are invested to bring in their ideology to create fear,” he said. He also said the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has become a tool for the central government. “The state censor board has become a central censor. In the last decade, you will not see any film with a different, dissenting ideology winning National Awards,” he said.

The session turned emotional when Raj spoke of his friend, the slain journalist Gauri Lankesh, and activist Umar Khalid, who has been imprisoned for years without a trial.

“They create ghosts. They rewrite history because they know the power of memory. They want to change how we see Gandhi, how we see Savarkar. If they can lie a thousand times, we must speak the truth two thousand times,” he said.

When an 18-year-old girl in the audience asked about women's safety, citing the 31,000 rape cases reported in 2022, Raj’s response was a call to accountability for men. “Bad things happen when we are surrounded by dirty men. Men have been privileged from childhood. If a newspaper comes, give it to daddy; if a milk packet comes, give it to mummy. We must apologise for what our generation has done and take responsibility. Not reacting to dirty things is dirty too” he said.

When asked about Tamil politics and the role of films and actor Vijay’s entry into politics, Raj said that a person cannot be a politician just because he is an actor. “The films and the fan following have always played a role in Tamil politics. MGR enjoyed it, Ranjinikanth and Kamal too had it. Let’s see if Vijay has it,” he said.

Raj concluded with a message to the youth, urging them to be "relentless." “I might not see them (the BJP) losing in my lifetime. History may forgive them, but it will not forgive me if I remain silent. We cannot afford to lose hope. Because humanity cannot take this much nonsense for too long,” he said.