This video actually shows Sikhs at a 2018 event marking the anniversary of a historical military victory

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 9, 2020 at 08:05
2 min read
By AFP India

Footage showing armed men marching and riding on horses has been viewed tens of thousands of times in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter alongside a claim that it shows Sikh men heading to Delhi in support of India’s ongoing farmers protests. However, the claim is false; this video in fact shows a group of Sikhs at an event in 2018, marking the anniversary of an 18th century Sikh military victory.

The 59-second video was published on Facebook here on December 2, 2020.

Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post

The post’s Hindi caption translates to English as: “Twenty thousand Nihang Sikhs along with two thousand horses have started marching to Delhi from Punjab in solidarity of the protesting farmers today. #KisanAndolan #standwithfarmers #FarmersProtest”.

The post circulated as thousands of farmers, mainly from the Sikh-dominated northern states of Punjab and Haryana, protested against agricultural reforms introduced by the Indian government, as AFP reported here.

The video was also shared alongside identical claims on Facebook here, here, here and here and on Twitter here, here, here and here.

The claim, however, is false.

A reverse image search with video keyframes found that the video was posted on YouTube here on July 2, 2020. “Delhi Fateh Divas 2018 Budha Dal Nihang Singh,” reads the video description.

Fateh Diwas — or “victory day” — is celebrated every year by Sikh communities to commemorate the Sikh military victory in 1783 over the Red Fort, a historic fort in Delhi built during the Mughal empire.

A further search found that the same video was also published on YouTube here on November 16, 2018.

Other examples from past years of Sikhs from the warrior Nihang sect marking Fateh Diwas in the traditional blue and white garb can be seen on YouTube here, here and here.

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