This video has circulated online since February 2020 and shows a tractor stunt competition
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on January 22, 2021 at 08:40
- 2 min read
- By AFP India
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The video was published on Facebook here on January 2, 2021.
“The Indian farmers’ army will showcase stunts with their tractors like the Indian Air Force does with its helicopters at the 26 January parade this year,” the Hindi-language caption reads.
“The farmers too have the right to participate in the 26 January parade, as they feed the country like the soldiers protect the country.”
The video circulated online as farmers continued widespread protests against agriculture laws introduced by the Indian government. They plan to hold a mass tractor rally in New Delhi on January 26, the country’s Republic Day, as AFP reported here and The Indian Express reported here.
The video was also shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook here, here, and here; and on Twitter here, here, and here.
The claim, however, is false.
A reverse image search on Yandex with the video's keyframes found the same footage published on YouTube here on February 11, 2020, several months before the farmers’ protests began.
“He drove the tractor one single wheel// Subhash Haryana,” the video description reads.
A keyword search found a longer version of the video shared here by a Facebook user named Subhash Lathwal on February 3, 2020.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in misleading Facebook post (L) and the video shared on Facebook by Subhash Lathwal (R):
Between the video’s 06:15 mark and 07:30 mark, Lathwal, the driver of the tractor, speaks to a reporter in Haryanvi, the local language of the northern Indian state of Haryana.
“My name is Subhash Lathwal from Moglana village and I've been doing this stunt for a long… I bought this tractor for farming and other works, but I also perform stunts with this in competitions,” he says.
Lathwal posted several other videos of him performing tractor stunts on Facebook; for example here, here and here.
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