How Old & Unrelated Images of Nehru Became Fake News Fodder, Again
The fake news factory has once again churned out multiple images to attack Nehru on his birth anniversary.
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(Editor's Note: The story was first published on 14 November 2019 and is being republished from The Quint's archives in light of the same photographs being shared again on Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary.)
The fake news factory has once again churned out multiple images, with derogatory messages, to attack former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on his 130th birth anniversary.
Let’s look at the images one at a time.
CLAIM
An image of first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in which he can be seen coercing a woman, is being circulated on Twitter and Facebook.
Multiple users are sharing the image with a caption which reads, “इतना बड़ा ठरकी आदमी बच्चों का आदर्श कैसे हो सकता है। इसको आदर्श बनाकर हम अपने बच्चों को क्या सिखाना चाहते हैं??? ये भारतीय इतिहास का काला दिन है। (How can he be the idol of our children? What do we want to teach our children? This was a black day in the history of India.)"
IMAGE 1
WHAT’S THE REALITY?
This image in circulation is from a play titled ‘Drawing the Line' by Howard Brenton which revolves around Cyril Radcliffe and the part that he played in India’s partition in 1947. On conducting a reverse image search using Yandex search engine, we came across an article on a website called ‘Theartsdesk.com’ which had the same photograph and had mentioned that it was a part of the aforementioned play which was shown at London’s Hampstead Theatre.
According to the theatre’s official website, actors Silsa Carson and Lucy Black played the roles of Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten respectively.
IMAGE 2
This image too has been used time and again to attack Nehru, but in reality, the woman in the photograph is Nehru’s niece Nayantara Sehgal who greeted him on his arrival at the London airport in 1955.
The same can be seen at around 00:27 seconds in the video clip.
IMAGE 3
On conducting a reverse image search, we came across an article on Outlook which had the same picture of Nehru and the woman in question. Well, as it turns out, the woman is Nehru’s sister Vijaylakshmi Pandit. And the photograph was taken in 1949 while Nehru, the then prime minister, was on his US visit.
IMAGE 4
Yet again, a simple reverse image search revealed that the woman in this picture too is Nehru’s sister Vijayalaxmi Pandit. We could find the picture on The Indian Express website in an article titled ‘World Photography Day: Indian Express presents unseen pictures of Nehru, Indira and Madhuri’.
IMAGE 5
The woman in this image is renowned Indian classical dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai.
Nehru is said to have a close relationship with Mrinalini Sarabhai’s husband Vikram Sarabhai and mother Ammu. This particular image was taken in Delhi. Nehru is seen congratulating Mrinalini for her performance.
IMAGE 6
The image shows Nehru applying tilak on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ forhead. She was the first Lady of the United States. The image is hosted on The Indian Express website.
Clearly, old and unrelated pictures have been used time and again to attack the former prime minister.
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