INDIA TV Fact Check: Our day-to-day dependence on social media has increased over the years. Today people get almost all that is happening in the world from social media. People even depend on social media for news and political updates. Notably, social media has very little credibility over the authenticity of the news. Videos claiming fake news often circulate on social media exaggerating things. Recently, a video has been circulating on social media, where a person is shown facing the pressure of a water cannon. The video is being linked to the farmers' protest, in Delhi.
What is the viral claim?
The video has been shared on X by a user named Veena Jain with the caption, "Since yesterday, some less intelligent BJP supporters have started calling farmers as non-contributors to tax revenue, but when they talk about tax, they consider direct tax as income tax. What about the indirect taxes that every person pays? Who is the biggest contributor to tax revenue..?? Farmers don't care about your agenda, they know how to fight." He also used many hashtags related to the farmers' movement.
A user named Pooja Queen also shared a clip of the same video with the caption, "Power of Indian farmers. Also imposed #FarmersProtest #FarmersProtest2024 #Farmers #Kisan_Mazdoor_Morcha_KMM." This video is being claimed to be about Delhi Chalo March. Also, by the time the news was written, this video had been viewed more than one lakh times on the platform.
What was found in the investigation?
When India TV Fact Check team started investigating this video, they found it to be old and having no connection to the ongoing farmers protest. The vidoe has been traced back to the farmers protest 2020 when thousands of farmers agigated against the Indian government's new agricultural laws. When we applied Google Lens to the keyframes of this video, we found similar videos on many platforms. In one of these videos which was shared on YouTube, the date was also mentioned.
The video was shared on 11 December 2020 with the caption, "Sikh man not affected by water cannon during steel man, farmers protest, Punjab, Singhu Border." It clearly shows that this video is not related to the Delhi Chalo March 2024. This video is from Sindhu border of Punjab from the first farmers protest march.
What is the conclusion?
In our investigation, we found that the viral video, this video is not of the farmers' movement happening at this time, but it is of the farmers' movement of the year 2020 at the Singhu Border.
