“The protesters identified these channels and started boycotting them as they were spreading lies about their agitation”
Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – Farmers, who are protesting against the new agri laws at Delhi borders since November 27, are angry with news channels like Zee News, Aaj Tak and Republic TV for portraying them in bad light, and has given a clarion call for boycotting these three channels.
Several videos and photos have emerged on social media in which the farmers can be seen expressing their anger against the government-friendly channels. The protesters are carrying banners which say “don’t cover us” and “you are fake media” and are addressing the three channels as ‘Godi Media’ (an acronym coined by popular news anchor Ravish Kumar to refer to servile media).
“You people think we are fools. We are the people because of whom you get food on your plate. Try to remember that. Don’t try to manipulate innocent Punjabi people. Sharm Karo, Godi Media! (Shame On You, Godi Media),” said a protester slamming Hindi television news channel Aaj Tak anchor Anjana Om Kashyap for giving misleading coverage to the farmer protests. He urged protesters not to give interviews to these three news channels. This video has been shared by a social media user Nukul Singh Sawhney on his facebook account.
Another video surfaced from the Delhi-UP border where a group of farmers are seen going into arguments with the Zee News crew. Shouting the slogan ‘Godi Media Go Back’, they are shown telling the channel anchors and camerapersons not to report about the agitation.
One protester is heard saying that he had seen that Zee News was calling farmers ‘terrorists’. “You are calling us terrorists. Are we terrorists? You don’t need to come here,” he said in an angry tone. This video has been shared by The Hind Voice.
Farmers’ union leader Manish Shrivastva told Clarion India that the sons of the soil were angry with some reporters because they are defaming their protests by labelling their movement as an ‘agitation of the Khalistanis’, and calling the protesters ‘drunkards’
“There are some channels who are reporting against their agitation. The protesters identified them and started boycotting them. They are spreading lies about their agitation,” he said.
Shrivastva said, “This is not part of the agitation. The leaders of the agitation are telling the protesters to allow them to report. Yesterday, an Aaj Tak reporter was surrounded by angry protesters but some farmers reined them in. The leaders said we don’t need to do this. We don’t need to disturb peace. But the people who are watching the channels will naturally get angry with farmers when they watch the misleading reports about them. Some channels are trying to run down the agitation at the behest of the government”.
Shrivastva said that the government was trying to vilify the protests so that people did not sympathise with the agitation. “This is what happened with the Shaheen Bagh protests. They had spread rumors about the Shaheen Bagh movement that women go to the sit-in for taking money. People turn up at Shaheen Bagh for eating Biryani. The Shaheen Bagh movement was Pakistan-supported. Now similar things are being said about this (farmers’) movement.”
BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya, who had shared a fake video through his Twitter handle about the anti-CAA Shaheen Bagh sit-in held by Muslim women in Delhi from January to March, has shared two days ago a video about the farmer protests claiming that the protesters were Khalistanis.
