Old footage of India protest falsely linked to ongoing farmers' march
- Published on March 6, 2024 at 09:45
- Updated on March 6, 2024 at 09:59
- 4 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
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"The farmers' movement 'Dilli Kooch' is garnering widespread acclaim in Rajasthan, with a multitude of farmer laborers converging in Jaipur, the state capital, to lend their unwavering support to the cause," reads a post on social media platform X from February 21, 2024.
Thousands of farmers from across India have joined the March on Delhi (Dilli Kooch or Delhi Chalo), riding tractors towards the capital to demand higher crop prices.
The protests echo similar ones in January 2021, when farmers used their tractors to smash through barriers and rolled into New Delhi on Republic Day during their then year-long protest.
The video shows crowds marching through a street waving placards and chanting slogans to "waive off farmers' debts".
The video was shared in similar posts on Facebook here, here and here and on X here and here.
Years-old protest
A Google reverse image search of the video found similar footage posted on YouTube on June 30, 2017 (archived link).
According to the video's title, it shows a rally in Collectorate Circle in Jaipur led by former Rajasthan state minister Babulal Nagar.
AFP confirmed the video was filmed on Sawai Jai Singh Highway -- a short distance from Collectorate Circle -- thanks to Google Street View imagery from the area.
Features such as a Maruti Suzuki sign (highlighted below in yellow), white gate posts (in red) and the Platinum Shubhratan apartment block (in green) can be seen in both the YouTube video and Google Street View. The Maruti Suzuki sign has changed between the YouTube video's publication in 2017 and Street View images, which were taken in 2022.
A keyword search on Facebook found a longer version of the video posted on Nagar's Facebook page on July 1, 2017 (archived link).
"Thousands of farmers marched the streets of capital Jaipur with me on 29-06-17 against the anti-people policies of this government," Nagar wrote in Hindi.
He added that the farmers were calling for loan waivers, government grants and the implementation of a debit card scheme, among other things.
Nagar confirmed to AFP that the video showed a protest he led in June 2017, which was unrelated to the ongoing farmers' protest.
The sorry plight of farmers in India is a major political issue, with two-thirds of the country's 1.4-billion population drawing their livelihood from agriculture.
Thousands of Indian farmers die by suicide every year because of poverty, debt and crops affected by ever-more erratic weather patterns caused by climate change.
In September 2017, Rajasthan's state government accepted a string of demands from protesting farmers, which included loan waivers and minimum support prices for crops (archived link).
Meanwhile, in February 2024, farmer leader Rampal Jat warned that farmers from Rajasthan would join the March on Delhi if the state government failed to address their demands for a minimum support price for agricultural produce (archived link).
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