Old Farmers’ Protest Photos Shared Amid the Row Against Farm Bills
The images being used to make the claim could be traced back to October 2018.
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A set of old images is being shared in the context of the ongoing farmer protest against the farm bills with a claim that this is how the BJP government is treating farmers like “terrorists.”
However, these images could be traced back to another farmers’ protest held in 2018.
This comes in the backdrop of the nationwide protest that began on Friday, 25 September, with over two dozen farmer organisations having announced their support to the call for the bandh just days after Parliament passed the contentious farm bills.
CLAIM
The claim along with the images reads: “This is cruel. BJP & its pro-corporate agenda is treating Indian farmers like terrorists. I've no hesitation in saying, "The British was better than the BJP". (sic)”
While one image shows an injured man, the other shows how a tractor is running over barricades.
Several social media users shared the images on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.
In this Facebook post, The Quint has debunked only two images out of the three used since the third image is a recent one and can be viewed in this NDTV report.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We found that both images are old and do not show the current situation. Let’s take a look at them one by one:
IMAGE 1
A Google reverse image search led us to a tweet by Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha, who had tweeted the image in October 2018.
A relevant keyword search led us to reports by The Indian Express, and The Wire who had used the image shot from different angles in their reportage on ‘Kisan Kranti Padyatra’ in 2018.
The Quint, too, had covered the incident in 2018 and had used an image credited to news agency PTI.
Speaking to The Quint, PTI photographer Ravi Choudhary who had covered the incident in 2018 confirmed that the viral image is old and is from the UP-Delhi border.
Quint Hindi, too, had covered the protest then and uploaded a video on 2 October 2018. We compared the visuals of the 2018 video with the viral image and saw several similarities.
IMAGE 2
An article published in 2018 in Gaon connection, an outlet that covers rural issues, had carried the viral image. The article is on the same farmers’ protest at UP-Delhi border.
While the image is definitely old, The Quint has not been able to verify its authenticity.
On 2 October 2018, as thousands of farmers had tried to enter Delhi as part of ‘Kisan Kranti Padyatra’, police had stopped them on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, triggering violence that left some of them injured.
After midnight march, the farmers had then called off their protest at Delhi’s Kisan Ghat, the memorial of Chaudhary Charan Singh, in the wee hours of 3 October 2018.
Evidently, a set of old images have been revived to show the current nationwide farmers’ protest.
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