Something “strange” is happening on social media. Almost out of the blue, three internationally known “celebrities”—pop star Rihanna, climate activist Greta Thunberg and another lady who goes by the name of Mia Khalifa and whose primary claim to fame is acting in pornographic films—have discovered a new cause: Indian farmers. Almost in a coordinated manner they suddenly tweeted their support to the cause, thus setting Indian media and social media on fire. It is but natural that these near-identical efforts would raise questions about the hidden hands that took advantage of their wokeness and ensured their support to the “cause”. But then in the 2020s, being woke—which means being alert to social injustice, especially racism—is not necessarily the same as being “awoke”, so the ladies concerned betrayed their complete lack of intelligence by jumping into the issue without doing their homework. In fact, it was bizarre to see the precocious teen, Greta Thunberg hollering for status quo on behalf of the protesting Punjab farmers, even though status quo has led to air pollution, depleted groundwater, turned the land poisonous because of the indiscriminate use of pesticides and increased cases of cancer in that state. Worse, she further aggravated matters by tweeting a “toolkit” which urges people to be part of the “largest protest in human history”, “to stand up against India’s failing democracy (at the behest of the fascistic ruling party RSS-BJP)” and “to stand up against unregulated corporatisation of the farming sector”—language that is straight out of the Marxist-Leninist copy book. There is no attempt to understand the situation, no effort to educate oneself of the facts of the case, instead what we have is just a one-sided rant. Call it farce, madness, call it propaganda, the bottom line is that the forces working behind the scenes know how easy it is to manipulate these “celebrities” by using catchwords such as “corporate”, “fascist”, “failing democracy”, “protest”—words that trigger a Pavlovian reaction in them. Of course, falsely conflating the situation in the US under ex President Donald Trump with that in India under Narendra Modi also helps trigger a similar reaction, both in Greta and Rihanna. The latter too has a history of activism, but is yet to find a word to say about the plight of the Uyghurs in China, to give one instance. Someone needs to explain to the world-renowned singer that the new farm laws have got major praise from the IMF and that her own country, just like the rest of the western world, has been pushing India to implement farm reforms for a very long time.
As for the farmer unions and their supporters, both political and “apolitical”, basking in the glory of international limelight, someone needs to remind them that foreigners running down India’s democratic credentials will not be taken kindly by this country. It will be considered as unwanted interference and an attempt to divide. Propaganda and outright lies may work with clueless celebrities abroad, but not with Indians, whose celebrities live in India and speak their language. Hence, it was heartening to see Indian celebrities push back with hashtags such as #IndiaAgainstPropaganda and #IndiaTogether on Twitter, pre-empting the Twitter war that Thunberg and Co are threatening to unleash on India on 4-5 February. If this was part of the “pushback” promised by the Ministry of External Affairs, then for once they seem to be getting their communication strategy right.
Amid this melee let us not lose sight of the fact that several anti-India forces are working behind the scenes to destabilise India, supported by certain elements from within this country. These could be Khalistanis, Pakistanis or Chinese, or all three, but their goal is the same, to tar India’s name globally and ultimately affect policymaking in countries that, unlike India, are susceptible to social media chatter. Seen from a broader geopolitical perspective, this is an obvious attempt to vitiate India-US relations, where the world’s largest democracy gets painted as a genocidal dictatorship, thus making it impossible for the US to do business with it. But events may not follow that script, however well-networked these forces are. It is not for nothing India is the world’s largest democracy and a thriving one at that. As for the farmers who have been made to believe the worst about the three farm laws, they need to realise that the farmers’ protests are just a tool in the hands of nefarious forces and vested interests and the protesting farmers are mere pawns.