Posts sharing a video of turban-clad men arguing over a tractor sale in India’s Punjab state have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times alongside a false claim that the incident was from the ongoing farmers’ protests. The clip — which predates the protests by several weeks — was filmed by a man who told AFP that it was unrelated to the demonstrations.
The video surfaced online as thousands of Indian farmers riding tractors prepared to resume their push towards New Delhi after failing to reach a deal with the government on their demands for higher crop prices.
The protest hoped to replicate the year-long siege of highways into the capital that pressured Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government into abandoning its agricultural reform plans in 2021.
The one-minute 19-second clip — posted on social media platform X on February 22, 2024 — shows two men having a heated argument while surrounded by a group of other men.
In the footage, the man wearing the red turban suddenly puts his hands around the other man’s throat before releasing him. A bundle of cash can also be seen in his hand.
The post’s Hindi-language caption claims the video shows farmers being offered payment to join the protests. It translates as: “This video exposes these brokers. There is a debate on the rate of sitting at the border for a month, the person in front is saying ‘40,000 Indian rupees ($400)’, but the broker offering the money is saying, ‘35,000 Indian rupees ($422) for a month is fine, your farming is fine, labourers are doing it for you. If you just sit here, you will get food, if you get liquor, then take 35,000’.”
The post’s caption goes on to say, “This is their truth. Repost this as much as possible so that the country knows how despicable people are. Their aim is not to help farmers but to reduce the popularity of Modi and they have already told him.”
The video was shared with similar false claims elsewhere on X and on Facebook here and here.
Indian media reported the recent farmers’ protests started in mid-February, but AFP found the video predated the demonstrations by several weeks.
Tractor market clip
A reverse image search of the keyframes of the video on Google Lens found an earlier version of the clip shared here on February 7, 2024 (archived link).
The Instagram post’s Punjabi-language caption translates as, “The brokers are doing very bad things in the tractor markets, they are forcing the deal.”
AFP then found a clearer and original version of the video posted on a channel called Jatt Zimidar vlog on January 17, 2024 (archived link).
The post’s Punjabi-language caption reads, “See how the tractor deal is going #trendingreels.” The channel’s logo can be seen in the video’s bottom left-hand corner.
Below is the screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the Instagram video (right) with the logo highlighted in red by AFP:
Hardeep Singh, the vlog channel’s creator, told AFP on February 26 that he filmed the video in Punjab’s Barnala tractor market.
“Such squabbles between brokers and tractor sellers are common in the market,” he said.
“Here this type of deal is done to fix the price of the tractor. Only brokers and tractor sellers are seen in the video — it has no connection with the recent farmers’ protest.”
Singh also posted a longer version of the video on the Facebook page for his vlog on January 16, 2024 (archived link).
Barnala is a city in the Sikh community-dominated northwestern Indian state of Punjab where there is a big tractor market.
Other videos of the Barnala tractor market can be seen here, here and here (archived links here, here and here).
Singh also refuted the claim on X in response to one of the false posts, saying the video was “not related” to the farmers’ protests (archived link).
