How social media is trivialising farmers protest, painting it communal

Abhay Singh, a 30-year-old IT professional from Bihar, working in Gurgaon, firmly believes that the farmers’ protest, which has been happening at the borders of Delhi since February 13, is nothing but a charade being held by those desperate to carve Khalistan out of Punjab.

“These farmers are mostly Sikhs who are raising the Khalistani flag and hailing Khalistan. These people are also desecrating the Indian flag during the protest. Why will real farmers disparage the Indian flag during a protest,” says Singh when asked about the reason for his belief.

Singh admits he hasn’t been to the protest site and that his ‘belief’ is based on what he has seen on social media.

The post that Abhay was referring to was of an old protest held by Khalistani supporters in Canada after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Narendra Modi government of being involved in Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing. This video, as it turned out, had no link with the ongoing farmers protest.

Suraj Kumar, a farmer from the Sheikhpura district of Bihar, draws attention to how farmers are protesting using expensive cars and modified tractors worth lakhs, to justify his disapproval of the protest. Referring to a social media post, he disgustedly said, “Farmers are coming to protest in Mercedes and demanding Minimum Support Price on the crops.”“Why is it that farmers in Bihar are not agitating but only those from Punjab and Haryana are? It is because the farmers in Punjab and Haryana are Khalistanis who are being paid to demean the current government at the Centre right before the elections. These farmers do not represent the real farmers of India, because the real farmers are laboriously working in their fields and do not have enough time to protest.”

The posts that Suraj Kumar referred to were those of a modified Jeep passed on as a Mercedes Benz G-Class and a modified tractor from Turkey passed as that from Delhi’s farmers' protest.

While these are just some examples of how the issues of farmers are being trivialised under the garb of a secessionist movement, many such posts are rife on social media and are being shared by right-wing ideologues and social media trolls. Most such posts are trying to distract attention from the real demands of agitating farmers.

This is not the first time that the Khalistan narrative has been set around farmers' protests. The farmers' protest that happened in 2020-2021, was also given the colour. Earlier too, when farmers were demanding the repeal of the three controversial farm laws passed by Parliament in September 2020, they were accused of using the ‘Khalistani toolkit’ to create chaos in the nation and disrupt the image of the BJP-led government.

The impact

Many state-sponsored social media handles, in association with paid media, have become a strong weapon to set the narrative around the protest.

On the one hand, disinformation is being floated by right-wing ideologues, and the government has withheld over a dozen social media accounts that functioned as official pages of farmers’ organisations, leaders and unions upon the government's request. Gaon Sawera, a page run by Mandeep Punia, an independent journalist from Haryana who gained prominence during the farmers’ protest in 2020-2021, was also withheld. This has left farmers with a very slim opportunity to raise their own issues and gain the support of the larger public.

Moreover, the reports of Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun’s video asking more people to join the protests have acted as fuel to showcase the farmer protest as anti-national propaganda.

This narrative is so strong that many people are believing it. On observing the comment sections of these social media posts by these right-wing ideologues, the amount of communal venom being spewed becomes evident.

Moreover, in a recent incident, an IPS officer, Jaspreet Singh, who is posted as a Special Superintendent of Police (Intelligence Bureau) with the West Bengal Police, was called a Khalistani by BJP leader Suvendhu Adhikari. Adhikari countered the allegations by saying that Singh had violated the Calcutta High Court order that allowed him to visit Sandeshkhali.

Gurpreet Singh, an employee of an IT firm in Hyderabad, also said that one of his colleagues often asks if he is in favour of the ‘Khalistanis’. “She often comes and makes offensive remarks in a sarcastic tone because he belongs to the Sikh community,” he said.

“For someone who is born and brought up in Hyderabad, being called a secessionist hurts hard,” Gurpreet Singh said.

Sikhs are a religious minority with only 1.72% of the country's total population, with a majority of them living in Punjab. Setting these narratives will increase the risk of stereotyping and religious discrimination.

How can fake news be contained?

Ever since the advent of social media, spreading false narratives has become easy, which results in creating a divide in society. In this case, propaganda is meant to reduce the probable impact that farmers’ protests can have on the voting pattern ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Pratyush Ranjan, the head of the fact-checking department of the Press Trust of India, told The Federal, “We've seen a concerning rise in misinformation surrounding the ongoing farmers' protests. Similar trends of misinformation rise every time any big news or any such event happens. Videos and claims shared online are often taken out of context, fabricated entirely, or misleadingly linked to the current situation. We have seen many false and misleading claims shared on the Internet with no attribution to any verified sources."

“It's crucial to rely on trusted, verified sources of information like established news outlets and fact-checking organisations. Social media users should not share content before verifying its accuracy, and remember, a suspicious claim often has a trail leading back to its origin. Together, we can combat the spread of fake news and ensure a more informed public discourse," he added.

Why are farmers protesting?

The farmers from the border states of Delhi are trying to march towards the Centre with various demands, some of which include proper compensation to the families affected by the land acquisition, removing all the debt of the farmers beyond Rs 10,000, allocating pensions to farmers and labourers working on farms, removing the Electricity Amendment Bill 2020, providing 200 days of guaranteed employment to farmers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and increasing their daily wage to Rs 700.

Sarwan Singh Pandher, Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political), the two umbrella bodies that are a part of the fresh farmer’s agitation, said that they are being tagged as Khalistanis, supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party, and Congress-backed protesters by the right-wing ideologue. However, they represent the demands of farmers from across the nation.

Talking to The Federal, Pandher said, “We are demanding to make a law guaranteeing the minimum support price on the purchase of crops, waive the loans of the farmers, and many other similar demands. Now, as the government does not want to fulfil our demands, they are trying to give a communal narrative to this farmers’ protest.”

"Earlier, the BJP created a communal divide between Hindus and Muslims; now they are trying to create a rift between Sikhs and Hindus. These are just communal cards that the BJP has been playing to distract people from our demands,” he reiterated.

Manjeet Singh, another farmer leader, said that, unlike the narrative being set that the protest is being done only by the farmers of Punjab, there are farmers from different parts of India who are participating. “Farmers from Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and other states have also come to the protest,” Manjeet Singh said.

Why are Bihar farmers not protesting?

Apart from some farmer unions that have taken out marches to mark their solidarity with the farmers of Punjab, we could hardly see any massive agitation from Bihar in the recent past.

A state popular for the Champaran movement, the first peasant uprising in modern India in 1917, or the Kisan movement that happened in the late 1920s under the leadership of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, may not be able to mobilise its farmers to such a massive level again.

This has resulted in many believing that the farmers of the North are protesting to throw out the current regime, without even realising the different nature of farming in both states.

In Bihar, it is mostly women who work on the fields; the men mostly work as labourers in other states. As a result, due to a lack of time and human resources, it becomes very difficult to create massive unrest.

Due to the well implemented irrigation systems in Punjab and Haryana, the Green Revolution happened in these states in the 1960s. The revolution commercialized agriculture, resulting in massive crop production and an increase in the income of the farmers. However, farmers in Bihar are mostly dependent on subsistence farming, i.e., most grow crops for their own consumption, and the vast majority don’t have a market surplus.

“With no market surplus, these farmers are more focused on selling crops at doorsteps instead of the mandi system. Thus, even when the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act was abolished in Bihar in 2006, no major protest happened,” said Pushpendra, former professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Patna Centre.

Moreover, the major issue facing farmers here is the procurement of seed and fertilisers, for which farmers protest from time to time on small scales.

“Since the issues facing farmers on both lands are different, their demands from the government also differ. But this does not mean that farmer leaders from these states are not standing in solidarity with the farmers marching towards Delhi,” Naval Kishore Chaudhary, a noted economist and a retired professor of Patna University, said.

Chaudhary also blamed the lack of leadership and money in Bihar farmer unions, which could encourage any other massive uprising from the farmers.