The Indian farmers' raid on the Red Fort on the Republic Day of India after two months of protest against the new agricultural farm laws, had an eerie similarity to the US Capitol Hill siege in early January of 2021.
The demands and issues of the protesters in America and India are worlds apart. But the tactic of raiding a building of historical importance, national symbolism and democracy by a section of Indian farmers seems clearly learnt and emulated from the Capitol Hill protesters.
Learning and emulation is one of the easiest ways of diffusion of ideas. Arab spring is cited as classic example when protest tactics and strategies were learnt and emulated across middle eastern countries through the then nascent social media.
In case of the ongoing farmers' protest, the overall protesting strategies and tactics are clearly learnt and copied from the Shaheen Bagh protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that took place during the same time last year.
Understanding the similarities in strategies and tactics used in Shaheen Bagh and farmers' protests:
Road block: The Shaheen Bagh protesters blocked and major road in Delhi for four months to make their voice heard. Similarly, the farmers protesters are on a sit in protest at major highways at Delhi border.
Blocking roads is a very common tactic used in protests all over the world. Although, it must be noted that the decision of farmers to sit on Delhi’s border is involuntary. They originally wanted to protest at Ramlila Maidan, a location preferred by protesters in the heart of Delhi.
However, the Delhi Police most likely fearing another Shaheen Bagh like blocking of roads in the middle of the capital, did not allow protesting farmers inside the Delhi National Capital Region.
Narrative strategy: The Shaheen Bagh protest presented itself as a patriotic, secular, democratic and a majority supported minority movement.
Activities like the flying of national flag, singing of the national anthem, and very patriotic speeches were used to deflect any assumption that the protesters were anti-India or anti-Hindu. This was done because protesters were mostly Muslims and they were protesting against a law that gave persecuted religious minorities from Islamic countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh expedited citizenship to India.
Similarly, in the farmers' protest display of extreme patriotism is shown to deflect any assumption that the protesting farmers had any anti-India agenda. This is because most of the protesting farmers are from the state of Punjab which has a brief, but bitter history of violence.
But the siege on Red Fort, and the flying of Sikh religious flag where the Indian flag is unfurled during India’s Independence Day not only severely hurt the patriotic image of the protesters but also brought back painful memories of violent moments in Punjab during the 80’s and 90’s.
However, a long history of genuine nationalism and the love for India among the people of Punjab and Haryana saved the face of farmers despite what happened at the Red Fort.
Legitimacy strategy : The Shaheen Bagh protest presented itself as a people’s protest, untarnished by petty political motives.
Therefore, no political party or politicians were allowed to speak at the protest site.This tactic was used to give legitimacy to the protest.
The same tactic is used in the farmers' protest to establish the protest’s legitimacy. No mainstream politicians has been allowed to speak at the protest sites. Albeit, the protest is led by farmer ‘semi-politicians'.
Media and social media strategy: In case of both the Shaheen Bagh protest and the currently on going farmers' protest, most of the Indian media has been against the protesters’ demands. At the same time, the Indian media is much more sympathetic and sensitive towards the demand of farmer protesters as compared to the Shaheen Bagh protest.
Thus to bypass Indian media and to spread their message, the protesters in both cases have used highly coordinated and sophisticated social media strategy to attract support and sympathy, as well as ridicule and vilify people on social media who don’t support them.
A combination of ridiculing provocative motivating and sympathising images, videos, memes, infographics and songs has been used to achieve this.
In simple words, the strategy is to make it cool and popular to support protesters on social media, and criticise and make fun of people that don’t support the protest.
In both the cases, fake, misleading, and ambiguous social media posts were made to promote the protester’s narrative.
Involvement of a neighbouring country in creating chaos in both the protests by aggravating or misleading the protesters through social media is clearly visible in both cases.
Furthermore, both the protests drew huge sympathy from international media outlets, that have been traditionally reported against the Indian government, and generally show Indians in a poor light.
The season for protest: In India the winter season is considered as the best for protesting.
This because the during winters, days are warm and nights are cold in north India and in South India the weather is warm and pleasant. As a result making it comfortable to sit outdoors for a long time, compared to other months when the weather is either hot, humid or rainy.
The Shaheen Bagh protest started in December 2019 during the winter session of the Indian Parliament when the CAA bill was passed. Coincidently, the weather was perfect for the protesting group to immediately start a mass protest.
The farmers' protest against the farm laws started in August 2020 in Punjab during the monsoon session of the Parliament. But it was not successful probably due to rainy weather conditions. But the march to and sit in at the borders of Delhi started in late November during the beginning of winters.
Foreign support: The Shaheen Bagh protest garnered a lot of support from the influential Indian community overseas that mostly supports liberal ideology.
As a result many politicians from foreign countries specially from the United Kingdom and the European Union, took positions against the CAA to appease their Indian voter base.
Similarly, the farmers' protest has been garnering a lot of support primarily from the overseas Punjabi community and foreign leader pandering to them. The Prime Minster of Canada Justin Trudeau’s support to the farmers' protest is a notable example of this.
Violence strategy: The strategy of non violent protest perfected by Mahatma Gandhi has proved as an effective tool to pressurise government in modern democratic states.
However, in the world of mass media a protest isn’t successful until and unless their is limited violence such as teargas or lathee charge on the protesters by the government. This is done to gather sympathy for their cause and record videos and images for propaganda.
In case of the anti CAA protest, the protest reached its peak when communal riots broke out in east Delhi during former American President Donald Trump’s visit.
The visuals of Delhi Police trying to stop the riots and, in many cases with the help of local people, led to global support and sympathy for the anti-CAA cause.
Similarly, an attempt was made to incite violence from Delhi Police by the farmer protesters on the Republic Day.
However, the raid on Red Fort and restraint by Delhi police shifted the sympathy of people from farmers to the government.
In both cases violence left a bad feeling in common people’s hearts, and dampened their enthusiasm for the protest.
Post Violence actions: The Shaheen Bagh protest continued even after the 2020 Delhi riots. This hurt sentiments of the Indian population and left a bad taste for the protest.
The same is happening in the farmers' protest as well. Despite losing the sympathy for the protest after violence and the desecration of Red Fort, from common citizens, the farmers' protest continues.
The lack of immediate government action against the protesters after the Red Fort incident will increase the probability of such actions repeating.
The above analysed protest strategies and tactics and the government’s response to the protest will be thoroughly studied and emulated in future protests in India as well as abroad, by both protesters and governments.
Poetic Justice
While this analysis was being written an international celebrity named Rihanna tweeted about the India’s farmers' protest. Leading to a domino effect with many, mid range international celebrities and social activists like Greta Thunberg posting in favour of the farmers' protest.
It is nearly impossible to tell from outside whether these celebrities genuinely believe in the farmers' cause or have any knowledge about the three farming laws they are protesting against.
But what is certain, is that all of these celebrities got huge international publicity with barely any cost to bear.
In future protests, regardless of the geographical location, involvement of international celebrities is likely to increase many fold.
The discovery of a document by the Poetic Justice Foundation giving directions to create a “twitterstorm” against the farmer laws on the Republic Day, accidentally posted by Greta Thunberg on her twitter reveals the sophistication of the social media strategy against the current Indian government.
The response by the Ministry of External Affairs against the Twitter war is apt and timely. Today diplomacy is not just limited among governments and inside fancy hotels. Social media websites and the internet are the places where international interactions take place and global opinions are formed. The Ministry of External Affairs needs to focus more on promoting India’s perspective online across the globe.
Pictures credit: Photo by Amine M'Siouri from Pexels
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