The Indian farmer’s protests: a battle for narrative
by Eliza Bacon
Junior Producer & Editor Global Digital Futures
“So these were some major changes made by Twitter. I think they did some compromise just to save their company in India. To avoid any backlash from the government.”
It was such an honour to interview Bhajvit Singh this week. Bhajvit set up the Twitter account @Tractor2twitr in support of the ongoing farmers protests, in order to counter the narrative being promoted by the mainstream media and the IT cells of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The account’s catchy name signals the skill-change that young farmers had to undertake in order to fight for their livelihoods. It now has over 50,000 followers and is run by several hundred volunteers across the globe. Listen to Bhavjit’s conversation with Chipo here.
Farmers have been protesting in India since August 2020, in response to 3 new bills introduced by the government that aim to deregulate the farming industry, allowing private corporations to trade directly with farmers. Farmers fear that this would put their livelihoods at risk, leaving them at the mercy of free market forces.
Anger at the so-called #GodiMedia (media organisations that are “lapdogs” of the Modi government) has been at the heart of the protests. For example, media organisations and high-profile celebrities have been pushing the conspiracy that the protests had been co-opted by Khalistani activists. And farmers also have to contend with the powerful, highly organised BJP IT Cells. @Tractor2twitr was born out of a need to counter these government-sponsored narratives with fair media representation from farmers’ perspectives.
Anger at mainstream media runs deep within farming communities. Deficiencies in representations of the rural poor predate, and are accountable for, the continued marginalisation of farmers that has culminated in these cruel laws. Somnath Batabyal, Santosh Desai and Ravinder Kaur have all commented on the ways in which, since economic liberalisation in the 90s, the Indian media industry has forged a middle class, metro-oriented, cosmopolitan construction of Indian nationhood.
P. Sanaith Twitter
P. Sainath, who was recently awarded Japan’s Fukuoka Grand Prize for 2021 has been working to give a voice to India’s rural poor for decades.In particular, he has been covering farmer suicides, which occur at a horrifying rate. The latest National Crime Records Bureau report (2019) declared that 10,281 people involved in the farming sector committed suicide in 2019. Deepa Bhatia’s 2009 documentary film Nero’s Guests follows Sainath’s work, it is upsetting and uncompromising and a must-watch. In it you see how farmers are acutely aware of their non-existence in the national imaginary. At a Union meeting one man laments: ‘Is it a sin to be born a farmer? No one cares about us. No one notices. No one hears our cries’.
It has now been a year since the new farm laws were first promulgated, and farmers are still protesting. The future is uncertain, but an unprecedented international spotlight has certainly been shone on farmers in India. Modi was furious when the likes of Rihanna and Greta Thunberg expressed their solidarity. And since January he has been desperately trying to regain control of the narrative. The government sent Twitter a list of accounts that they demanded were taken down, on the basis that they had been “spreading misinformation” about the farmers protests, and might “lead to imminent violence affecting public order situation in the country”. Twitter initially complied; the take-down included @Tractor2twitr, and the well-renowned magazine The Caravan. Later, Twitter rescinded some of the blocks, and have since posted on their blog that they would not take action on accounts belonging to news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians. But Bhavjit believes his account has continued to be shadowbanned - hear about it on the podcast.
Since then, tensions have escalated. On May 24th, police raided two of Twitter’s offices in response to them labelling a BJP spokesperson’s tweet as “manipulated media”. Although the escapade wasn’t very well thought through - Twitter staff have been working from home since March last year… Now the government has passed new IT laws that require social media sites to take down requested content within 36 hours, and require messaging platforms to break encryption and share the originator of any forwarded message. Read about how this sets the stage for ‘rampant government censorship’ (Newslaundry) and ‘threatens the idea of a free and open internet’ (Electronic Frontier Foundation).
Eliza is studying the Global Media & Communications MA at SOAS, and holds a BA in English Literature from Cambridge. Eliza worked as a Communications Intern at UNICEF's South Asia office in Kathmandu, and hopes to become a writer on tech and global internet cultures.