How it all started

June 5, 2020, marked the day when the Indian government introduced the three controversial farmers laws, with the intentions to corporatize agriculture and further enriching the super-wealthy. Even though the non-democratic way of passing these laws during the Covid-19 crisis and pushing them through using emergency ordinances, bypassing state governments' input and without any consultation with actual farmer organizations or experts of the field. Therefore, by that time government started a campaign online of promoting there new law by overexaggerating it, and by September 27, 2020 they got the presidential approval, Hence, making it into a law.

that was time which lead to a yearlong historic "Farmers Protest", where technology played a pivotal role when people, stood against the exploitation done by the Indian government that potentially could have jeopardize the food security of 800 million people.

Joseph, Alphonse ( 2021, January,18)

WhatsApp: a tool for Government's Misinformation Campaign 

In an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the farmers' protest, the government resorted to a coordinated misinformation campaign using WhatsApp

 The Conversation (2023, February 13)

Government spread false stories claiming that the protesters were violent and influenced by foreign forces. These messages aimed to make the peaceful demonstrations look bad and damage the reputation of the protesting farmers.

Infiltration and Division Tactics

Government agents joined the WhatsApp groups that farmers used to plan their actions. Pretending to be supportive or concerned people, these agents spread messages and rumors to cause disagreements among the farmers. Fake images were spread on the internet.

Kritika & Divya Chandra. (2021, November 26)

How this Effected Me

I am a young Sikh boy from Punjab. The farmers' protest of 2020 deeply impacted me and my family. When the new agricultural laws were introduced, our village was filled with confusion and fear. My family, like many others, depends on farming, and we quickly realized the potential dangers of these laws. Everyone in our village, including my family along with my uncle and cousin brothers used to visit the protest taking place 200km away from our village in Delhi. Matter of fact, it was one of the first actual protests that I saw and actively participated in my life, the scale of it was totally indescribable.

My Persona Experience

Moreover, all families of the village including ours and around almost all villages of Punjab and Haryana started a movement of send tractors with trolleys that food for people and made it compulsory for each family to send at least one member to the protest to show support and solidarity with them.

Reuters (2024, Februaury 16)

    How whatsApp played a pivotal role in our village

Sharing information:

WhatsApp allowed us to quickly disseminate information about the new laws and their impact on farmers. that helped our community understand their rights and how to peacefully protest.

Organizing Support:

We used WhatsApp to coordinate efforts within our village. From organizing fundraisers for protest supplies to arranging transportation for those joining the protests in Delhi, WhatsApp helped us mobilize support efficiently. We even with the help of some professionals and activists developed a toolkit which was an alternative to physical paper pamphlets, being digital it contained all information regarding how to support the protest. which was then sent and spread across all our contacts 

Amplifying Voices: 

Through WhatsApp, we shared stories, photos, and videos of our protest efforts. This not only raised awareness within our village but also garnered support from neighboring communities and beyond.

Singh, Rajbir (2021, January,15) 

my brother participating in the protest.

Same story but different Platform

    Twitter is another example of exploitation of a platform by a government to promote its personal interest. And that is something done by governments all around the world, as they want to shape the narrative of an event to best match their needs.

Hashtags(#) are also a way to sort of register your support for a particular movement, they are used widely by millions of users across the globe to express their opinion or side of an event, for instance, some of the popular hashtags used during the protest were #FarmersProtest, #Farmers

Sabherwal, Anandita (2022, January)

during the protest, all the youngsters widely posted and mentioned Hashtags to express their solidarity with the movement.

Similarly, technology has been used in many cases during many forms of revolutions, protests and movements. However, it is also important to know the fact that as per a study conducted in U.S. states that "Americans Who Mainly Get Their News on Social Media Are Less Engaged, Less Knowledgeable" Mitchell, A., Jurkowitz, M., Oliphant, J. B., & Shearer, E. (2020, July 30). therefore, it is important to not believe whatever you see on social media platform, especially WhatsApp which has gained a popularity for quick spread of fake news.

Menon, Shruti (2020, December, 5)

    WhatsApp nowadays, has become a tool to spread information quickly no matter if it is right or wrong, as the information comes from a saved contact or a known group majority of the times it is blindly trust, regardless of its authenticity.

Censorship of Voice, Expression and Ideas

government of India also pressurized social media platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram to censor content that was against their policies, hence, directly attacking ones freedom of questioning and right to free speech and expression.

Account Suspensions:

accounts of prominent activists, journalists, and celebrities who supported the protest were temporarily suspended or blocked. This included both Indian and international figures, aiming to silence influential voices.

Legal Threats: The government issued legal threats to platforms, demanding compliance with its directives. WhatsApp faced pressure to conform to government demands or face legal consequences, leading to increased censorship of protest-related content.

Deleting Content: Government also directed many major platforms including WhatsApp to delete or block spread of resources that might help the protest, like the makers of toolkit were jailed just because they made a tool that was widely used to support the protest.

Use of such Tactics in Past

In 1989, during the Tiananmen Square protests, the Chinese government "blocked all known communications channels, isolating the demonstrators. International TV and radio was jammed so the demonstrators had no idea whether there was support for them around the world." However, "the new communications technology called the fax machine" was used by demonstrators to "get the word out to the world" and gain global support, Houle, D. (2009, June 3).

"Traditional hostile foreign threats have been persistent over the years, but they are now taking advantage of evolutions in technology," (E. Koronewski, as cited in Tunney, 2020), Furthermore, due to such cases it is us who need to be self dependent for our voices to be heard For Instance during Framers protest, local activists and farmers made a proper use of technology to spread the truth in right way, "The dissemination of Trolley Times, a newsletter started by a group of activists to disband false propaganda dished out by state-controlled media, informs them of the social and political progress of their protest" A.K., A. (2024, February 1)