Video of Bollywood star criticising Indian PM over military losses is manipulated
- Published on December 4, 2025 at 09:56
- Updated on December 4, 2025 at 09:58
- 3 min read
- By Rimal FARRUKH, AFP Pakistan
Months after deadly border clashes between India and Pakistan, an altered video was shared in social media posts falsely claiming it showed Bollywood star and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan confronting Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the alleged loss of military assets. The video was manipulated from footage of her speech at the centenary celebrations of an Indian spiritual guru in late November, where she made no mention of the conflict.
"Breaking News: Indian media is now being forced to delete this clip! Aishwarya Rai asks some very tough questions from PM Modi in Puttaparthi," reads part of the caption of an X video that has been viewed 327,000 times since it was shared on November 19, 2025.
The 29-second video appears to show Aishwarya Rai Bachchan saying: "I want to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi that why did we lose six jets to Pakistan? Why did we lose two S-400 systems to Pakistan? Why did we lose 300 Indian soldiers to Pakistan? Why did we lose significant parts of our boundary in Kashmir and Rajasthan to Pakistan?
"Prime Minister, we know that the film fraternity does not get involved in politics but this is something that the nation demands to know. You must tell us."
It surfaced several months after cross-border clashes in May, the worst bout of violence between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan since 1999, which left at least 70 people dead (archived link).
Both sides claimed victory after the four days of fighting, with New Delhi rejecting Islamabad's claims it downed six Indian fighter jets, including three French-made Rafale planes (archived link).
The video was also shared in similar TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and X posts.
But the video has been manipulated.
A reverse image search using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to a similar clip shared by a verified X account of the ANI news agency on November 19 (archived link).
The clip shows the Bollywood actress speaking during centenary birthday celebrations for spiritual guru Sathya Sai Baba in his birthplace of Puttaparthi, a small town in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
In the clip, she says: "There is only one caste, the caste of humanity. There is only one religion, the religion of love. There is only one language, the language of the heart. And there is only one God, and he is omnipresent. Sairam. Jai Hind (long live India)."
Her full speech was shared on ANI's YouTube channel as well as the official YouTube channel of Sathya Sai Baba (archived here and here).
During her speech, she warmly addresses Modi and other state ministers at the celebrations before going on to praise the work of the spiritual leader and his organisation's humanitarian initiatives across India.
Nowhere in her address does she question Modi or mention the cross-border clashes in May.
Her speech was covered by local media outlets Live Mint and the Times of India -- neither of which reported the actress had grilled the prime minister about the clashes (archived here and here).
AFP ran the falsely shared video through the University of Buffalo's deepfake-o-meter tool, which found it to be 100 percent likely generated using AI (archived link).
The falsely shared video also includes elements that indicate it was generated with the help of AI, including identical movements being repeated and the audio lacking the background noise and echo heard in the original video of the full speech.
AFP has debunked other misinformation stemming from the tensions between Pakistan and India.
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