The image has been digitally manipulated from a photo of a Mahatma Gandhi statue

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 28, 2020 at 11:50
2 min read
By AFP India

An image appearing to show Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi bowing in front of a statue of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has been shared in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter. The claim is false; the image has been digitally manipulated to replace a statue of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi with one of Nehru.

The image was published here on Facebook on August 16, 2020.

Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post

The post’s Hindi caption translates to English as: “After cursing him (Nehru) for six years, now you (Modi) are bowing in respect of the same person. Now understand that their ideology and thinking are so much better than yours.”

The image was also shared on Facebook here and here and on Twitter here and here.

The claim is false.

A reverse image search on Google found that the image has been doctored. The original photo shows Modi bowing to a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, and was published on Modi’s official Twitter account here on August 8, 2020.

The tweet reads: “Sharing some glimpses from the newly inaugurated Rashtriya Swachhata Kendra.”

Rashtriya Swachhata Kendra is a memorial centre dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi, India’s national capital.

Sharing some glimpses from the newly inaugurated Rashtriya Swachhata Kendra. pic.twitter.com/bhGF3saejr
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 8, 2020

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in misleading post (L) and the photo in Modi's tweet (R):

Video of Modi’s visit to Rashtriya Swachhata Kendra was also published on the prime minister’s official YouTube channel here on August 8, 2020. Modi’s bow before the Gandhi statue can be seen at its 25-second mark.

A reverse image search found that the photo of the Nehru statue that was used in the doctored image was published here in 2010 by stock photography agency Alamy.

The statue of Nehru, India’s first prime minister, is located in the west Indian city of Barshi.

The photo’s caption reads: “Statue of late jawaharlal nehru, Barshi, Solapur, Maharashtra.”

Below is a screenshot comparison of the statue in misleading Facebook post (L) and the Alamy photo (R) with Alamy’s watermarks visible on Nehru’s arms:

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