Farmers’ protest: Viral video of elderly lady’s outburst is from November 2022

Two years after they had called off their massive protest, farmers affiliated with more than 200 unions once again hit the streets in Delhi on Tuesday, February 13, 2024, in a march spearheaded by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha seeking a legal guarantee of MSP and the implementation of the Swaminathan formula, among other demands.

Against this backdrop, a video of an elderly woman has surfaced on the internet. In the viral clip, the woman can be seen having an outburst at some individuals who seem to be having a sit-in protest in the middle of a road. Several users have shared this clip claiming or suggesting that it is a recent incident and related to the ongoing farmers’ protest.

Premium subscribed X user Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) shared the above-mentioned clip on February 12 with the following caption: “Punjab Public is Fed-up with daily blockades. An elderly lady from Punjab breaks down, slams andolanjeevi farmers – ‘Your Demand never ends. You want everything for free. The Centre is giving you so much for free, yet you are harassing the public and blocking the roads'”. The tweet received over 10 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 13,000 times. (Archive)

Punjab Public is Fed-up with daily blockades. An elderly lady from Punjab breaks down, slams andolanjeevi farmers –

“Your Demand never ends. You want everything for free. The Centre is giving you so much for free, yet you are harassing the public and blocking the roads” pic.twitter.com/3OkYpsPeUT

— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) February 12, 2024

Other users such as @izeenatrana, @ShivamSanghi12, @MrsGandhi, @Arya_Anviksha_, @RealBababanaras, @MithilaWaala and @FrontalForce also shared the same video with similar captions.

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Fact Check

We broke down the video into several key frames and ran reverse image searches on some of them. This led us to a Facebook video posted by Scroll Punjab on November 6, 2022. The caption in Punjabi can be translated as: “Farmers were protesting against whose arrival? Stuck on the road, the lady began to cry, ‘Is it our fault?”

We found that this Facebook post carried the now-viral video. Many others also shared the video back then. We came across another Facebook post shared by the media outlet News Nature that carried the viral video, the title of the video in Punjabi can be translated to: “The old mother is speaking the truth of the sit-ins in Punjab!” This shows that the incident happened in Punjab.

Further, we noticed a bus in the background of the video with the text ‘Jagadambay’ written on its body. On running a Google search, we came across the details of Jagadambay bus service from Punjab. Images of buses similar to the one in the viral video could be seen on the bus service’s Facebook page.

We reached out to Jagadambay Bus Service and they confirmed to us that the video was from Patiala and not in any way related to the farmers’ protest. It was a protest held by the petrol pump associations. We noted that in their fact check of the video, India Today had mentioned that the dispute was between petrol pump owners and a liquor shop owner and that the lady was frustrated by the blockade.

Hence, the viral clip is in no way related to the ongoing farmers’ agitation. It is nearly two-year old and is of a protest held by the petrol pump owners in Patiala.