Image Taking Dig at PM is From 2018, Not Recent Farmers’ Protest

The image is from Maharashtra when farmers were protesting in March 2018.

An old image from a farmers’ protest in Maharashtra has been used to falsely claim that it is from the ongoing farmers’ protest.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An image showing a road being blocked by a crowd is being shared to claim that it shows lakhs of farmers protesting against the contentious farm laws. However, we found that while the image does show a farmers’ protest, it is from March 2018 and shows a protest that took place in Maharashtra.

You can view the archived version here.(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

CLAIM

The claim shared along with the image reads: “रात्रि के 6 डिग्री तापमान में खुले आसमान में लाखों की संख्या में बैठे किसान का दर्द जिस प्रधानमंत्री को दिखाई न दे, उस प्रधानमंत्री से बेशर्म कोई नहीं हो सकता।”

(Translated: With temperatures hitting six degrees at night, the prime minister cannot see the pain of lakhs of farmers sitting under open skies... nobody can be more shameless than him.)

You can view the archived version here.(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

Several social media users have shared the image on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.

You can view the archived version here.(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

You can view the archived version here.(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

A reverse image search on Google led us to a tweet shared by ‘Mumbai Live’ in March 2018 that carried the same viral image.

The tweet mentioned that the image is from another farmers’ protest which took place in Maharashtra’s Thane.

(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot/ Altered by The Quint)

We noticed that the image in circulation also carries a watermark of ‘mumbailive.com.’

(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot/ Altered by The Quint)

The Indian Express had reported on the then farmers’ protest in Maharashtra and carried an image which was captioned: “Farmers, who began their protest march from Nashik, on 6 March, reached Thane on Saturday evening.”

We compared the viral image with the 2018 image and found several similarities such as red flags being raised and people wearing red caps. The Indian Express image also showed a signboard in which places such as ‘Nashik’ can be seen.

Left: Viral image. Right: Image from 2018 protests.(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

The Quint, too, had reported on the incident in 2018 when over 35,000 farmers, camping in Mumbai following a week-long march, called off their protest after the Maharashtra government, on 12 March 2018, vowed to meet their demands.

The farmers had marched 180 km from Nashik to Mumbai to demand a complete farm loan waiver, forest land rights and the implementation of recommendations of the MS Swaminathan Commission.

Evidently, an old image from a farmers’ protest in Maharashtra has been used to falsely claim that it is from the ongoing farmers’ protest.

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