Video of Hindu monk 'embracing woman partymate' is made with AI

"Gone are days when love was matter of life and death, separation doesn’t kill anyone these days," reads the Hindi-language caption with a Facebook post that shared the clip quoting a famous Hindi couplet.

The video shows actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut presenting a memento to Adityanath. The two then hug each other.

Overlaid text on the video reads "Happy wedding anniversary."

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Screenshot of false post taken on March 25, 2025

Adityanath, a Hindu monk, is chief minister of India's most populous northern Uttar Pradesh state (archived link).

Within the BJP, he is seen as a possible successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is 20 years his senior. 

Ranaut made a name for herself playing fierce and independent female leads in Bollywood films laden with patriotic spirit, including a 19th century Indian freedom fighter and an air force pilot (archived link).  

She entered politics as a BJP leader winning her maiden election in 2024 (archived link).   

Adityanath and Ranaut belong to the same party and have met multiple times while expressing mutual appreciation (archived link).

Both are known for their outspoken stance on the Hindu religion (archived links here and here). 

Sharing the clip, detractors of Adityanath took a jibe at him for apparently hugging a female politician -- an act that goes against his hardline Hindu monk stance (archived link).

Adityanath belongs to the Natha sect, where monks are required to practice celibacy and maintain distance from women (archived links here and here).

Comments from users on the video shared in Facebook and X posts suggest they believed it to be genuine. 

"You should not hug a woman like this Yogi," one user commented.

Another user wrote, "This is the reality of Yogi."  

But the video has been created with the help of AI.

Digitally manipulated

A reverse image search using keyframe from the clip found the same picture shared from the official X account of Adityanath's office on October 1, 2021 (archived link).

"Famous film actress Kangana Ranaut made a courtesy visit to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's official residence in Lucknow," says the X post.

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Screenshot of the post from the official X account of Yogi Adityanath

The clip shared in the false posts contains the watermark 'Hailuo AI' -- an AI video generation tool developed by Shanghai start-up MiniMax that creates visuals using text commands (archived link).

Ranaut also shared photos and video from the meeting on her Instagram handle (archived links here and here). 

Local media outlets published video reports about the meeting where the two are seen greeting each other with folded hands but at no point do they break into an embrace (archived links here and here).

Shu Hu, director of Purdue University's Machine Learning and Media Forensics Lab, told AFP visual inconsistencies in the video confirm it is a work of AI (archived link). 

"Other than AI watermark in the visual, at the beginning the woman is not wearing a bracelet. However, at the end of the video she can be seen wearing two bracelets. The inconsistency indicates it is AI-generated," he told AFP on March 26.

Below is a screenshot from the clip that appeared in false posts with visual inconsistencies and the AI tool's watermark highlighted by AFP.

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Screenshot from the clip that appeared in false posts with inconsistencies and the AI tool's watermark highlighted by AFP

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