Ravi Singh urges social media action on Farmers Protest

World renowned humanitarian Ravi Singh has urged the Sikh community to take to social media and post about the Farmers Rally to help the farmers on protest in Delhi.

Ravi Singh, the founder of Khalsa Aid, spoke via a live video on social networking site Instagram on Thursday 3rd November 2020, about how he came to the UK at 11 years old and is from a farming family.

“I used to be a farmer going to the fields, cutting and sowing the crops, feeding the animals,” he said. “And this is the livelihood of many in Punjab hence we are all connected to farming.”

He has been speaking about the situation affecting the kisaan (farmers) in Punjab for several weeks, ever since protests began in Punjab. He urged his viewers to conduct their own independent research into the protests, using reputable sources, and then to get onto social media to share and influence the wider community.

“Get onto social media, get onto your Instagram, Twitter and the like and use hashtags; use hashtags wisely because via hashtags they can start trending and from there more and more people will starting picking them up hence raising more awareness,” he said.

He added through using hashtags, the community can raise more awareness to non-Panjabis as well.

“This isn’t exclusively a Sikh struggle but in fact there are Hindu farmers, Muslim farmers, farmers from UP, farmers from Haryana, farmers from Bihar, farmers from Rajasthan and just farmers all over India from different backgrounds which are all united against this Farmers Bill.”

He said that there are hashtags that help raise awareness, such as: #FarmersProtests, #FarmersBill2020,#FarmersBill and #StandWithFarmers, as well as #TractorsToTwitter which is only on Twitter. However, others are being used to spread lies and propaganda.

“Don’t fall victim to the propaganda online.”

He added that on social media, sharing news can have domino effect, and not to be disheartened when posting online.

“You might think “well this isn’t going to do much” but just imagine, imagine that you use it and then 100 people then use it, then a 100 people from there use it – as you can see it gets around then it comes up as trending allowing for even further coverage.”

He also said that although Khalsa Aid is not collecting funds specifically for farmers, they are asking any organisation that is appealing for funds to buy water, toothpaste, soap, toothbrushes and other essentials, to come forward.

“Get into contact and let us know because we can help them by the truckload,” he said.