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Farm and Forest Freedom Media

What do right wing trolls earn by insulting India’s farmers?

Right Wing affiliated actor Kangana Ranaut, BJP’s Amit Malviya, etc lead troll army in amplifying fake news, and anti farmer propaganda

Image Courtesy:platocast.com

While India’s farmers have reached a major milestone in their months long struggle against the passing of the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020 — by Parliament in the Monsoon session, right wing affiliated trolls have been busy vilifying them. 

The protesting farmers are demanding that the laws be repealed, and replaced with a new Act that ensures a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all agriculture produce in the country. They have so far faced the physical might of the states, which have ordered massive police and paramilitary deployment across all border areas of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and all roads leading to the national capital are now under surveillance.

Images of farmers being hit with lathis, water cannons, being met with razor wire barricades and marches by paramilitary forces seem to have inspired the self declared ‘nationalist’ right wing affiliated online influences to begin trolling. They have begun spinning fake news theories in the same way they did when the Shaheen Bagh protests were underway in December 2019. This time too they have begun with abusing the eldery women farmers who were seen marching alongside the men. 

Leading this online onslaught was actor Kangana Ranaut, who shared fake news that the old Punjabi woman farmer (seen in a month old photo) was Bilquis Daadi of Shaheen Bagh. For Ranaut, all old women look alike. And all old women who wear dupattas are Muslim, a community she has no love lost for. Her myopia and lack of information also lead her to believe and amplify the fake news that these women protestors were available for ‘hire’. Similar fake news of ‘pain protesters’ had been floated by the right wing during the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh. After thousands called out her fake news laden tweet, the actor was forced to delete the tweet. However many took screenshots and fact-checked Ranaut. 

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/WpnyJhNPZa4Ow-P0jCn1VwN5azFpa_fiviaMKTShfoeTq3ihUpSpz4tkgZC8hrpRIF5zSx7phMXRjiNoiXMlinoLLGPKYbnBu8BIwWEdsniOTkKb_uLfnWum2zxiFlD9D4ZHEBAi

Ranaut’s fake news was shut down thousands of times.

 

 

Amit Malviya, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s top IT man, as expected also shared a freeze frame from a viral clip that showed an elederly sick farmer being hit with a baton by a policeman in riot gear. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had shared that image along with thousands of others. Malviya, decided to use the freeze frame and clip taken from the cop’s POV of the laathi mid air, and implied that the old man was not even hit. He then launched a taunt at Rahul Gandhi calling him the “most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time”.

However, he too was served the cold facts by alert social media users who revealed that  Amit Malviya has posted an edited video “to prove the old farmer wasn’t beaten up by police” They shared the entire video clip that revealed the truth.

 

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/D47cQBmXb1yFW-u7o3o9-S383ZHTL3nv2oBAfnXx2vjzOiqzxFVCNwNETB0H2dpsmylJCii4UVDovgKJo68-TyIlH9mFFyjLhmYxecvSFGIQ4n04YNEWkXshsgrTBWbAaWnWVNFh

The laziest troll of the day however was reserved for Vivek Agnihotri, who laughed at a man speaking in English at the farmers’ protest. Agnihotri probably believed that all farmers were illiterate, spoke only one native language, were poor and landless. He too was given a sharp lesson by social media users.

Some disclosed that the English speaking farmer was in fact a cousin of actor turned BJP politician Sunny Deol. In fact, Deol’s actor-politician father Dharmendra, has often prided himself on nurturing his own farms. And Dharmendra’s wife actor-politician Hema Malini has in the past posed pics with farmers on social media.

Meanwhile, many mosques and gurudwaras continued sharing food and water with the farmers, and the Sikh community members have been feeding langar to the policemen on duty.

 

Related:

Agri Minister should meet farmers ASAP: Why wait till December 3?
Top 10 Moments of November 27, 2020
Second peasant strike in two months garners even bigger support!
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