The Birth of a Newspaper At Singhu Border To counter main media biased propaganda
With the second edition of Trolley times already out in print, it has established itself as an effective tool to achieve self reliance in documenting stories and voices from the protest site. The masthead of the second edition has included increased hindi representation. This is done to defy the false narrative propagated by biased media of terming the movement as solely of Punjabi farmers.
“This is an united movement of farmers of India. Different protest sites at five borders of Delhi are not isolated in any way”, explained one of the members of Trolley Times.
Vishav Bharti
Chandigarh, December 18
Recently, sitting in a trailer, a group of four youngsters discussed a Facebook post at the Singhu border. An old farmer, sitting next to them, quipped: “Oye mundiyo tusi parhe likhe lagde ho, saanu vi dass do ki ho reha”. Thus the idea of Trolley Times was born. Farmers’ own newspaper.
Reporters were aplenty; an army of amateur photographers was ready with the feed, a trailer became their editing desk, and soon came out the first edition of 2,000 copies of four-page bilingual paper. It was an instant hit on Friday.
“Looking at the response, we are going to print 10,000 copies of the next issue,” says Ajaypal Natt from Mansa, a physiotherapy teacher. He along with Surmeet Mavi, Gurdeep Singh and Narinder Bhinder conceived the idea. The name, Natt says, was floated by one of us just out of fun. “But we instantly picked that,” he says.
Trolley Times in Hindi and Punjabi.
The newsletter is the brainchild of a team of six youngsters. It has been named so since it was planned and designed on a tractor-trolley. The youngsters say this is their answer to those who dismissed the farmers as illiterate. The first edition was rolled out on Friday.
Talking to
The New Indian Express, Ajaypal Natt, one of the members of the team, said, We decided to start this four-page newsletter as both the protest sites at Singhu and Tikri are around 20 kilometres each and it is difficult for all the people to reach the stage and know what is happening and most of them are also not on social media. So, we brought out this newsletter so that everyone comes to know what is happening.
Now out on stands: a newsletter for farmers
“Judaange, Ladaange, Jeetange!” is the page-one headline of the first issue of the bi-weekly newsletter, which has photographs, cartoons, poems, news reports and opinion pieces written by union leaders and protesting farmers. Of the four pages, one is in Hindi. Updated: December 18, 2020 3:16:27 pm
The protest site at Singhu Border In New Delhi on Thursday. (Express photo by Abhinav Saha)
IT WAS a few nights ago that the idea of a newsletter in Hindi and Punjabi was born inside a farmer’s trolley at Singhu border, where thousands have been protesting against the farm laws since November 26. Finally, on Thursday night, at least 2,000 copies of the four-page newsletter aptly called Trolley Times reached Singhu and Tikri borders, for circulation Friday.