Video shows Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's lookalike dancing at event in the UK
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 22, 2023 at 10:22
- 4 min read
- By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India
Copyright © AFP 2017-2024. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi performing Garba during Navratri festival," reads the Hindi-language caption of a video shared on Facebook here on November 8, 2023.
Garba is a traditional Indian dance with origins in Modi's home state, Gujarat (archived link). It is often performed during the annual nine-day Hindu festival of Navaratri, which was held between October 15 and October 24 in 2023, but is also danced during special occasions.
The 30-second video shows a man resembling the Indian prime minister performing the dance with women dressed in traditional attire. A Gujarati language song can be heard playing in the background.
The video was shared with similar claims elsewhere on Facebook here and here and on X, formerly Twitter, here and here.
The video, however, shows a Modi lookalike dancing at an event in the UK rather than the prime minister himself.
Narendra Modi lookalike
A comment -- from an account which has since been deactivated -- on one of the false posts identifies the person dancing as "Vikas Mahante".
The comment reads: "He is Vikas Mahante a businessman turned actor and he looks like Prime Minister Narendra Modi!"
A subsequent keyword search on Google led to a report in the Hindustan Times newspaper about the Mumbai-based actor, who played the role of Modi in a semi-fictional film about the prime minister's life (archived links here and here).
AFP reached out to Mahante who confirmed the video shows him dancing.
"This video is from London where I was invited as the chief guest at an event to celebrate the Diwali festival. Now this video is being shared with false claims," he said on November 16, adding that he had shared pictures from the event on his Facebook page.
A similar video was uploaded to Mahante's Facebook page on November 11, as part of a post where he shared several images about the event (archived link).
The post's Marathi-language caption reads in part: "I was invited as the chief guest at the event 'Galaxy Diwali Bazaar 2023' in London. The crowd were enraptured by Modi as I left."
The event, which took place on November 4 and November 5, was organised by Galaxy Shows, a UK-based events company founded by Pankaj Sodha (archived link).
"Every year on the festival of Diwali we organise a fair here among the people of the Indian community. This time we invited Narendra Modi's lookalike Vikas Mahante as the chief guest. He was very popular among the people," Sodha told AFP on November 16.
Sodha also uploaded similar images and videos of the event on his Facebook page, including the same clip that has been falsely shared on social media (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the corresponding Facebook video uploaded by Sodha (right):
'Deepfake' confusion
Modi expressed concern about "deepfake" videos in a speech in New Delhi, and specifically mentioned the "garba video" circulating online (archived link).
His comments about having watched a video purportedly showing him performing the dance were also reported by multiple news outlets here, here and here (archived links here, here and here).
Mahante, speaking to the Indian news outlet Hindustan Times, reiterated that it was him in the garba video, and it wasn't a deepfake (archived link).
He also posted a clarification about the falsely shared video on his Facebook page here on November 21 (archived link).
In his post, he confirms the person in the video is him, and links to a news report.
He also adds: "I admire and respect Modiji a lot and try to share his ideologies and I indulge in no such things or events that will tarnish the image of our Hon' PM."
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
