The Narendra Modi government on Friday ordered an Internet shutdown at all the three sites of protest along Delhi’s borders and adjoining areas for 48 hours, deploying a tactic tried and tested in Kashmir to cut off the farmers.

The decision forced union leaders and prominent activists to travel outside the blackout zone to upload posts to bust the rumours that are being simultaneously spread about the situation at Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri.

The Union home ministry invoked the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules 2017 in the Indian Telegraph Act to shut down the Internet in these areas where tens of thousands of men, women and children have been agitating peacefully since November-end for the repeal of three new farm laws.

The clampdown comes after the protesting farmers succeeded in turning the narrative built against them, through television media in particular, since the chaos during the Republic Day tractor rally.

Flow of information out of the protest sites had helped mobilise farmers over the past two days, with visuals of the crackdown at Ghazipur on Thursday night shared over social media turning the tide against the government.

Through the Kisan Ekta Morcha platform, the protesting farmers were not only disseminating information and galvanising support with targeted hashtags daily, but were also seeking out videos and photographs from the public about the tractor rally. The farmers believe the chaos on Republic Day was orchestrated to defame them.

Saturday’s hashtag was “ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide” with the image of Jaggi Singh — a protest participant bleeding from the head, hair flowing and fist raised in defiance — after his turban was ripped apart during the attack at the Singhu border on Friday.

The attacks on the protesting farmers caught the attention of lawmakers overseas.

British Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi posted Jaggi Singh’s pictures and those of Ranjit Singh, a protester pinned down on the ground with a policeman’s boot on his face, and tweeted: “Shocked to see mobs and police trying to intimidate and clear Delhi #Farmers Protest, after stopping their water, electricity and Internet. Violence can’t be condoned, but if people in power abuse peaceful protesters, it’ll merely make their movement stronger. #TheWorldIsWatching.”

Jagmeet Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, tweeted: “I am deeply concerned about the violence against farmers in India. Those calling to harm farmers must be held accountable and the right to peaceful protest must be protected. I am calling on Justin Trudeau to condemn the violence, immediately.”

In a video message attached to the tweet, he called upon leaders of the world to “denounce the Indian government’s violent response to these peaceful protesters”.

Despite the flow of information from the three borders reducing to a trickle on Saturday, mobilisation across Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh continued uninterrupted. INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala, who quit his Haryana Assembly seat earlier this week in protest against the farm laws, left Ambala on Saturday for Ghazipur.

Nineteen khap panchayats in Haryana’s Jind district have issued a call to boycott the BJP and its ally, the Jannayak Janta Party, and announced they would hold a padyatra from the Khatkar toll plaza to Delhi’s borders on February 7.

They criticised the decision to block Internet services in the state saying it was affecting the education of students whom the pandemic has forced to study from home.
The Hissar and Bhiwani districts too witnessed big protest meetings in support of the farmers.

The Bharatiya Kisan Union-Ekta (Ugrahan), by far the largest farmers’ organisation in Punjab, said the police had stopped a convoy of hundreds of farmers on their way to the Kundli border.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, in a late night statement, took note of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at an all-party meeting that the government stood by its offer to suspend the implementation of the farm laws for 18 months.

Stating that the farmers had come to Delhi’s doorstep to converse with their elected government, the SKM said it was always open to talks but iterated the demand for full repeal of the three laws and a legally guaranteed MSP for all farmers.

A daylong fast was observed at all the three border protest sites to mark the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom. The farmers took a pledge to keep fighting for their demands peacefully.

Journalist

Freelance journalist Mandeep Punia was detained by police at Singhu on Saturday. Hartosh Singh Bal of The Caravan tweeted that Punia was a regular contributor and shared a video of policemen purportedly dragging him away. Bal tweeted: “We’ve learnt Mandeep had spent the morning trying to track down those from BJP claiming to be ‘locals’ at Singhu.” A policeman told PTI Punia was removing barricades.