Video of Indian Hindu monk speaking on Muslims is edited

Published on June 20, 2024 at 08:56
3 min read
By Asma HAFIZ, AFP India

A manipulated video shared online appears to show Yogi Adityanath, a politician from India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saying Muslims have the "first right" to the country's resources. The original clip, however, shows him quoting India's former prime minister Manmohan Singh and accusing the opposition party of stoking divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

"The people of Uttar Pradesh have changed Yogi's tune," read a Hindi-language Facebook post that shared the edited video on June 10, 2024.

The footage, which garnered 17,000 views, shows Yogi Adityanath, a hardline Hindu monk and chief minister of India's biggest state Uttar Pradesh.

He appears to say in Hindi: "Muslims have the first right on the resources of this country. You want to divide the nation on the basis of Muslims and non-Muslims?"

India is a Hindu-majority country whose ruling BJP campaigned in just-concluded polls with the ideology of Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, as its main trump card.

But a shock election setback left Prime Minister Narendra Modi without an outright majority for the first time in a decade.

Modi's party failed to win the most seats in Uttar Pradesh, the heartland of India's majority faith and a bellwether for national elections.

Spectacularly, the BJP candidate lost in the constituency representing Ayodhya, despite Modi in January inaugurating a divisive Hindu temple built on the grounds of a razed mosque there.

Screengrab of the false Facebook post

The edited video racked up thousands more views on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter.

Some social media users appeared to believe the footage was genuine.

"Yogi ji is in shock, is this a change of heart?" one commented.

Another wrote: "Yogi ji, I wish you and your party had understood this earlier. The Muslim community has little to no hatred for you."

Clipped video

A reverse image search on Google found the original video posted on YouTube by India's ANI news agency on April 23, 2024 (archived link).

The video is titled: "CM Yogi echoes PM Modi's remark, blames Congress for creating divide b/w Muslims, non-Muslims."

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the video uploaded on the YouTube channel of ANI (right):

Screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the video uploaded on ANI's YouTube channel (right)

At the video's 3:20 mark, Adityanath says in Hindi: "When Congress was in power, Dr Manmohan Singh was prime minister of India. On whose instructions did he say that Muslims have the first right on the country's resources? You want to divide the country in the name of Muslims and non-Muslims, minority and majority?"(archived link).

Manmohan Singh was prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014.

He was elected by the Congress party, which is often viewed as more sympathetic to India's 200-million-strong Muslim minority.

In 2006, Singh said that Muslims and other minorities should "have the first claim on resources" in a speech calling for more measures to help them.

The BJP have repeatedly wheeled out Singh's comments in a jibe at Congress.

In April, Modi referred to Singh's comments when he told a rally that Congress, if voted into power, would distribute the country's wealth among "those who have more children" (archived link).

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