Modi critics share misleading Biden video in posts comparing US, India democracy
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on April 3, 2023 at 03:22
- 3 min read
- By Anuradha PRASAD, AFP India
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"A citizen is questioning his president, looking into his eyes in America," reads a Hindi-language tweet posted on March 21 by Surya Pratap Singh, a retired Indian bureaucrat and Modi critic.
"Is this possible in 'Mother of democracy India?'" he adds, in an apparently sarcastic reference to a term used by Modi.
The right-wing leader has come under fire after top opposition figure Rahul Gandhi was expelled from parliament over a conviction for defaming him.
Critics say the case shows how the rule of law is under threat under Modi's government, which is also accused of a growing clampdown on the media.
The video, which has more than 320,000 views, shows a man who identifies himself as a US Air Force veteran confronting Biden for supporting the Iraq war.
"We were just wondering why we should vote for someone who voted for a war and enabled a war that killed thousands of our brothers and sisters, countless Iraqi civilians," he says.
Biden briefly engages in conversation with the man, then walks away.
"He is disqualified! No way he can be president... Trump is more anti-war than Joe Biden!" the man shouts as Biden leaves.
Biden defeated Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November 2020.
Similar posts shared the video here and here on Facebook and here and here on Twitter.
Some social media users appeared to believe the footage was filmed after Biden's election.
"A common citizen cannot reach to the president in India, let alone talking to them," one comment read.
"This isn't possible here because when leaders here can't walk alone, how will they talk to a person one on one," said another.
Old video
AFP found the video posted on Twitter on March 4, 2020 by an account called "About Face: Veterans Against the War".
The tweet says: "Two veterans confronted @JoeBiden about his record of supporting war during his campaign stopover in Oakland on Super Tuesday."
Super Tuesday -- which took place on March 3, 2020 -- was the biggest day of the entire presidential primary process, with tens of millions of Americans eligible to cast ballots to pick the Democratic presidential nominee.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (left) and the tweet from 2020 (right):
Media organisations The Independent, TRT World and The Young Turks also reported on the veteran confronting Biden at the time.
Biden voted in support of the Iraq war when he was a US senator.
The US-led operation launched in March 2003 toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
But the invasion had sparked widespread disorder and looting, chaos deepened by the US decision to disband the Iraqi state, ruling party and military apparatus.
By the time US troops left in 2011, the war had claimed the lives of more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians, according to the Iraq Body Count group, while US losses reached nearly 4,500.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
