Social media users share false claim that Canada banned far-right Hindu group

This article is more than one year old.
Published on October 16, 2023 at 11:05
3 min read
By Uzair RIZVI, AFP India, AFP Canada

As a diplomatic row rages between India and Canada over the killing of a Sikh separatist near Vancouver, a video has been shared repeatedly with a false claim it shows a Canadian official announcing a ban on a right-wing Hindu nationalist group. However, the man in the video is in fact the head of a Muslim body in Canada and not an official. A Canadian government spokeswoman told AFP it had not banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The video was posted on September 21 on X, formerly known as Twitter, with the Hindi-language caption: "Canada has banned the RSS organisation with immediate effect. Should the same happen in India?"

In the clip, a man calls for punitive measures to be taken against New Delhi, including outlawing the RSS, the expulsion of India's top diplomat in Canada and a freeze on trade negotiations.

"We today call for the immediate banning of the RSS under the listing provisions in the criminal code and the removal of its agents from Canada," he says.

A screenshot of the false post taken on October 5, 2023

The false claim surfaced after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in September that there were "credible reasons" to believe Indian government agents were involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist, near Vancouver in June.

India dismissed Trudeau's allegations as "absurd", tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions followed, and India stopped processing visa applications for Canadians, AFP reported (archived link).

The RSS has historically played a major role in India's Hindu nationalist movement. It was banned by the Indian government three times for its alleged role in communal violence when the opposition Congress party was in power (archived link).

Its latest ban was imposed in 1992 but lifted the following year when a court overturned the decision.

Some of the major political leaders in India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party -- including Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- are members of the RSS (archived link).

Similar claims about a Canadian ban on the RSS have been shared on Facebook including here and here.

Not a government official

A watermark from the TikTok channel of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) can be seen in the video shared in the false posts. A search for the NCCM's TikTok channel reveals the video was published here on September 19 (archived link).

This post identifies the man as NCCM head Stephen Brown and shows him appealing for action from the Canadian government "in response to the alleged assassination" of Nijjar.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video shared in one of the false posts (left) and the NCCM TikTok video (right):

A screenshot comparison between the video shared in one of the false posts (left) and the NCCM TikTok video (right)

A longer version of the video was also published here on the NCCM's official YouTube channel on September 20 (archived link). The clip in the false posts corresponds to the 5:45 mark in the longer video.

Magali Deussing, a spokeswoman for the Canadian government's department of public safety, told AFP on September 29 that the man in the video "is not a government representative".

"The RSS is not on the current list of terrorist entities," she added.

She also shared a list of banned groups and individuals, which does not mention the RSS (archived link).

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