Rihanna and Greta Thunberg versus Modi Government

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 Rihanna and Greta Thunberg versus Modi Government

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Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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1. Global celebrities on Indian farmers: The Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has been a worried man in February, not necessarily due to the Chinese troops massing at the border in the Himalayas but due to a celebrity with a global following. Rihanna, the 32-year-old Barbados-born reggae and hip-hop singer, swooped in unexpectedly to support Indian farmers surrounding New Delhi, following months of protest over new farm laws.
2. What farmers want: Indian farmers seek the repeal of three controversial laws passed in 2020. The laws are intended to reform India’s highly regulated and subsidized agricultural market but which, many farmers fear, will leave them defenseless against corporate power and increase their risk of uncertain returns. The Indian parliament passed those laws in unseemly haste, without the usual consultation or parliamentary scrutiny. Since then, protests have continued unabated, with farmers laying siege on the outskirts of New Delhi and embarrassing the government. The Indian Supreme Court has intervened and set up a committee to examine the laws. 
3. What Rihanna said: She made no claims of being an expert on agriculture or India’s parliamentary procedures. Her concern was more straightforward: Why is the world not concerned about the stifling of dissent in India? Pointing out a CNN report about India blocking internet access around the protest sites, the singer asked in a tweet: “Why aren’t we talking about this?!” Internet blackouts have been normal in India for some time now.
4. Scale of outrage: Rihanna has more than 100 million (10 crore) followers worldwide. Within hours, other international celebrities had stepped in: Greta Thunberg, the teenage Swedish environmentalist, provided a link to a toolkit that explained in detail what people around the world could do to support Indian farmers. Meena Harris, the niece of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, whose mother was born in India, also joined in, as did Mia Khalifa, the Lebanese American former porn star. So did popular Canadian Indian poet Rupi Kaur. Politicians in Britain, Canada, and the United States have backed the protesters, as have British farmers. That led to a sudden backlash from Indian government at the higest levels.
5. MEA Jaishankar's response: He tweeted as if India were facing a real, grave crisis. And his ministry’s officials drafted a remarkable statement complaining that the “temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible.” Even as the officials were criticizing Rihanna, Thunberg, and others without naming them, leading Indian cricket players and film stars came out in support of the government in an orchestrated move, using the Twitter hashtag #IndiaAgainstPropoganda to voice their resentment.
6. Arrests: The government’s battle against the protesters and their celebrity supporters has gotten far more serious than social media exchanges. India used Section 69A of its Information Technology Act to require Twitter to take down dozens of accounts, including those of the magazine Caravan and the farmers’ movement, known as Kisan Ekta Morcha. Twitter initially complied without explaining why. Reports said it was because of an inflammatory hashtag but several of the affected accounts had not used that hashtag. Twitter soon reinstated most accounts.
7. Misogyny: Attacks against female celebrities abound, and in Rihanna’s case, there have been racist comments as well. Pro-government protesters also took to the streets and burned large photographs of Thunberg, Harris, and Rihanna. Others noted mockingly that Khalifa had acted in adult films and Rihanna posed topless in a field in Northern Ireland in 2011, as if that undermined their disapproval of India’s curbs on dissent. Kangana Ranaut, a pro-government film actor, called Rihanna a “fool”!

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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