This part is not about the farm laws at all. It is about something just as powerful: the fight over the story. What was this movement "really" about? Heroes or traitors? Farmers or foreign agents? Because whoever won that story would win the public — and, in the end, the politics.
This is the most politically charged part of the book, so here is exactly how I'll handle it. For each accusation I will (1) give the strongest version of the claim, (2) give the strongest rebuttal, and (3) add a short "weighing it fairly" box that sticks only to what the evidence, agencies, and courts actually showed. I am not here to tell you who was right. These are other people's arguments, laid side by side, so you can judge.
1Why the war over the story mattered so much
A protest lives or dies on public sympathy. Sympathy moves votes; votes move governments. So both sides fought ferociously not just over the laws, but over how the movement would be seen. Was it India's food-growers standing up for their rights — or a dangerous mob steered by separatists, opponents, and foreigners? After the Red Fort chaos of 26 January (Part 7), that battle exploded into the open.
2Claim 1: "This is a Khalistani movement"
The sharpest accusation was that the protest was secretly a separatist one — a front for the demand for "Khalistan," a separate Sikh nation.
Khalistan is the idea of a separate Sikh homeland — a fringe separatist demand tied to a violent period in 1980s–90s Punjab. Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) is a banned overseas group, led by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, that campaigns for it.
| The case for the claim | The rebuttal |
|---|---|
| The Nishan Sahib flag at the Red Fort (Part 7) was read as a separatist statement. | The Nishan Sahib is a religious flag on every gurdwara — not a Khalistan flag. No separate "Khalistan" state flag was raised. |
| The banned SFJ loudly backed the protest and even offered cash rewards to protesters.11Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a banned group, publicly backed the protest and announced cash rewards (e.g., for hoisting a flag at the Red Fort). Contemporary reporting; MHA notifications on SFJ ban. | A banned group trying to attach itself to a movement is not the same as the movement being separatist. The SKM repeatedly disowned it. |
| The protest was heavily Sikh and Punjabi in character. | After Rakesh Tikait's tears (Part 7), it spread massively to Hindu Jat farmers of UP and Haryana — hard to square with a "Sikh separatist" plot. |
Fringe separatist voices and the banned SFJ certainly tried to ride the movement, and a few provocative images existed. But no government agency ever produced evidence that the protest was led by, or aimed at, separatism — and its huge spread among non-Sikh farmers cut against the charge. In practice, "Khalistani" worked mostly as a label to discredit, not a proven description.
3Claim 2: The "toolkit" and the foreign-celebrity storm
In early February 2021, the fight went global — in about three weeks.
A protest toolkit is just a shared guide for supporters — sample tweets, hashtags, petition links, dates of solidarity events. Activists use them for every kind of cause worldwide.
| How the government saw the toolkit | How critics saw it |
|---|---|
| Proof of an organised international conspiracy to defame India and to help incite the 26 January violence — with alleged "pro-Khalistani" links. | An ordinary, harmless activist support-document. Arresting a 22-year-old for editing a Google doc was seen as criminalising peaceful dissent. |
The judge's bail order became one of the most quoted documents of the whole movement:
"Citizens are conscience keepers of government in any democratic nation. They cannot be put behind the bars simply because they choose to disagree with the State policies… The offence of sedition cannot be invoked to minister to the wounded vanity of the governments."55Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana, granting bail to Disha Ravi, 23 Feb 2021; the court called the evidence "scanty and sketchy." Newslaundry; The Tribune; Boom.
The toolkit itself, once public, looked mundane — hashtags, petitions, protest dates. The criminal-conspiracy framing did not survive first contact with a courtroom ("scanty and sketchy"). At the same time, the episode did show real international coordination of support. The fair reading: genuine global solidarity, met by a state response many judged as heavy-handed overreach.
4Claim 3: The "foreign hand" and NRI money
Alongside the toolkit came a broader charge: that the whole movement was funded and steered from abroad — an "international conspiracy" against India.
| The case for the claim | The rebuttal |
|---|---|
| The Sikh diaspora in Canada, the UK and the US held big rallies, raised money, and even bought billboards and ad slots. Foreign politicians commented. | Diaspora solidarity and donations are normal, legal, and happen for every major cause. Interest from abroad is not the same as control from abroad. |
| Canada's PM Justin Trudeau publicly supported the right to protest — which India called "unacceptable interference."66In Dec 2020 Canadian PM Justin Trudeau backed the right to peaceful protest; India summoned Canada's envoy and called the remarks interference in internal affairs. Reuters; The Hindu. | A foreign leader defending peaceful protest does not make a home-grown farmers' movement a foreign plot. |
Diaspora support was real, visible, and sometimes loud. But no evidence was produced that the movement was funded into existence or run from abroad — its money came overwhelmingly from village collections and its people were Indian farmers. "The world is watching" is not the same as "the world is behind it."
5Claim 4: "The laws are for Ambani and Adani"
To be scrupulously even-handed, the biggest accusation ran the other way too — from the farmers at the government. We met it in Part 5; here is where it sits in the narrative war.
| The farmers' / critics' claim | The rebuttal (and the companies' denials) |
|---|---|
| The laws were written to hand farming to two favoured billionaires, Ambani and Adani — "suit-boot ki sarkar," crony capitalism. | Both companies publicly denied any interest: Reliance said it had never done contract farming and had no plans to; Adani said it does not buy grain from farmers or set prices. |
No document ever surfaced proving the laws were drafted for two named firms, and both denied it. But the government's close ties to big business, and the laws' clear opening for large private buyers, made the charge believable to millions — and belief, in a narrative war, is its own kind of power. I apply the same rule here as everywhere: potent perception, unproven as literal fact.
6The labels: "andolanjeevi," "parjeevi" and "FDI"
On 8 February 2021, the Prime Minister addressed Parliament and gave the narrative war three memorable new words.
He warned of a breed of "andolanjeevi" (people who live off agitations — professional protesters) and "parjeevi" (parasites), and of a new "FDI — Foreign Destructive Ideology."77PM Narendra Modi, Rajya Sabha, 8 Feb 2021, coined "andolanjeevi" and punned "FDI = Foreign Destructive Ideology," while appealing to farmers to end the stir and assuring MSP would continue. Business Standard; Deccan Herald.
| How supporters read the labels | How the farmers read them |
|---|---|
| A fair jab at habitual agitators and opportunists — and at foreign meddlers — riding on top of a real issue. | A sneer that mocked genuine grievance and insulted the country's annadata (food-givers), reducing farmers to parasites and pawns. |
The farmers' reply was tart: an andolan (movement), they noted, is exactly what won India its freedom in the first place.
7The media war: "godi media," alternative media, and hashtags
Underneath every claim ran a fight about the messengers themselves.
"Godi media" (roughly, "lapdog media") is a mocking term — popularised by journalist Ravish Kumar — for news channels accused of acting as cheerleaders for the government. Farmers used it to accuse big TV channels of smearing them with the Khalistan angle or ignoring them.
| The farmers' / critics' view of the media | The government's / supporters' view |
|---|---|
| Much of big TV ("godi media") smeared the protest as Khalistani or downplayed its size, so farmers built their own media — the Trolley Times paper, and busy social-media handles. | Much of the English-language press, and a flood of social-media accounts, were biased for the farmers and against the government — amplifying "propaganda," some of it from hostile foreign sources. |
This spilled into a real clash over the platforms. In February 2021, the government ordered Twitter to block well over a thousand accounts it said were spreading misinformation or Khalistani/foreign content; Twitter blocked some, restored others on free-speech grounds, and the government threatened its staff with penal action.88In Feb 2021 the government ordered Twitter to block 1,100+ accounts/handles it linked to misinformation and Khalistani/foreign content; Twitter partially complied, restored some accounts, and faced government threats of penal action. Reuters; The Hindu. And the hashtags lined up like armies:
The hashtag battle lines
| Pro-farmer | Pro-government |
|---|---|
| #FarmersProtest • #IStandWithFarmers • #NoFarmersNoFood | #IndiaTogether • #IndiaAgainstPropaganda |
8The left-vs-right blame game
Zoom all the way out, and every single claim above snapped neatly onto India's larger political divide. Each side had a complete, self-contained story — and each accused the other of hijacking the whole thing.
| The right's story of the movement | The left's story of the movement |
|---|---|
| A genuine but small farmer concern was hijacked by Khalistanis, Pakistan, opposition parties, "urban naxals," rich landowners, arhtiyas, and foreign money — turning it anti-national. | A genuine mass movement was met by an authoritarian state — crony capitalism, "godi media" propaganda, misuse of sedition and anti-terror law, and an IT-cell disinformation machine. |
| The media and celebrities were doing the bidding of India's enemies. | The government was crushing dissent and calling every critic a traitor. |
The tragedy of the blame war is that it made it almost impossible to see the farmers as simply farmers. To one side they had to be heroes of democracy; to the other, tools of a plot. The ordinary man on the trolley — worried about the price of his wheat — kept disappearing behind the shouting.
9So what does the evidence actually show?
Let me end this part by doing the one thing the blame war never did: separating what was shown from what was merely shouted.
A neutral scorecard of the biggest claims
| Claim | What the evidence showed |
|---|---|
| The movement was separatist / Khalistani-led | Unproven. Fringe groups tried to attach themselves; no agency showed separatist leadership or aim. |
| The toolkit was criminal sedition | Collapsed in court. A judge called the evidence "scanty and sketchy" and granted bail. |
| The movement was foreign-funded / foreign-run | Unproven. Diaspora solidarity was real; foreign control was never shown. |
| The laws were written for Ambani & Adani | Unproven & denied. No document surfaced; both firms denied any role. |
| There was real international attention & solidarity | True. Celebrities, diaspora and foreign politicians did weigh in. |
| The state response was heavy-handed | Substantially true. Sedition FIRs, account blocks, and the Disha Ravi case drew wide criticism. |
10Where we go next
For a whole year, neither story landed a knockout. The government could not brand the movement out of existence; the farmers could not shame the government into surrender. Something else broke the deadlock — not a better narrative, but cold political arithmetic and sheer, stubborn endurance. In Part 9, the morning that stunned India: the repeal.
Part 8 — the seven things to carry forward
- The fight over the story mattered as much as the fight over the laws — and exploded after 26 January.
- The "Khalistani" charge was never proven; it worked mainly as a label to discredit, and the movement's spread to Hindu Jats undercut it.
- The toolkit case (Rihanna, Greta, Disha Ravi's arrest) collapsed in court as "scanty and sketchy," and became a symbol of the free-speech fight.
- The "foreign hand" claim rested on real diaspora solidarity, but foreign control was never shown.
- The farmers' own big claim — laws written for Ambani & Adani — was potent but also unproven, and denied by both firms.
- "Andolanjeevi," "parjeevi," "FDI" and "godi media" were the war's memorable weapons; a Twitter standoff was its battleground.
- Every claim mapped onto left-vs-right — and the real farmer kept vanishing behind the noise.
Sources & further reading — Part 8
- Time / BBC / Al Jazeera / Newslaundry — the Disha Ravi "toolkit" arrest (13 Feb 2021), the FIR, and the bail order (23 Feb 2021) with Judge Dharmender Rana's remarks.
- Dawn / Al Jazeera / NBC News — Rihanna's tweet (2 Feb 2021), Greta Thunberg's toolkit, and the MEA statement plus #IndiaAgainstPropaganda celebrity response.
- Business Standard / Deccan Herald — PM Modi's "andolanjeevi" and "FDI — Foreign Destructive Ideology" remarks in the Rajya Sabha (8 Feb 2021).
- Reuters / The Hindu — the government–Twitter standoff over 1,100+ accounts (Feb 2021); PM Trudeau's December 2020 remarks and India's response.
- Reporting on Sikhs for Justice (a banned organisation), its cash-reward announcements, and the debate over the Nishan Sahib flag at the Red Fort.
- Commentary on "godi media" (Ravish Kumar) and the movement's own outlets, including Trolley Times and the Kisan Ekta Morcha social-media handles.
Quotes here are from documented public statements and court orders. On every contested claim I have separated what agencies and courts actually established from what remained assertion — and have applied the same standard of proof to accusations made by each side.