Old photos shared as visuals of recent protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the U.S.

By: Umme Kulsum
June 23 2023

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Context

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the U.S. on June 21, 2023, for his first State visit at the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. In the wake of the visit, a series of images of anti-Modi posters and protests are being widely shared on social media claiming they were taken recently during Modi’s latest U.S. tour.

One Twitter user posted a picture showing a few people holding two posters and a banner that together read, “Mr Modi We don't let you forget and Gujarat 2002.” The two posters and the banner in the photograph had logos of the global non-profit Amnesty International. The photo was shared with the caption “Anti-Modi posters in America,” and the viral hashtag “#ModiNotWelcome.” The post had gathered over 85,000 views at the time of publishing. 

Another photo of a group of people holding posters against PM Modi outside the White House has also been shared by several Twitter users. One tweet sharing the photo read: “One lac people participated in anti-Modi protests largely ignored by U.S. mainstream media. No Indian channel will show you. Modi parties were as Manipur burns.”

However, both images are old and unrelated to Modi’s recent visit to the U.S.

In Fact

Logically Facts performed a Google reverse image search on the first photograph and found that the same photo was posted by ‘IndienKoGruppe’ (@indienkogruppe) on Twitter on May 02, 2022. According to its Facebook profile, Indien Ko Gruppe represents the ‘German section of Amnesty International working on India.’ The tweet read, “PM Modi in Berlin” and mentioned many other accounts linked to Amnesty International. Several other social media users had also shared the same image in 2022, indicating the image has been online for over a year and is not recent.

The photo shared by IndienKoGruppe had better picture resolution enabling us to spot a Starbucks Coffee outlet behind the demonstrators. We were able to geolocate the outlet and discovered a comparable view as in the background of the viral photo using the street view feature on Google Maps. This confirms that the picture is not from the U.S. but from Berlin. Modi had met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in 2022 in Berlin, where Germany and India signed a €10 billion green development deal.

We used reverse image search on the second image as well and found that it was published by Al Jazeera in a report on September 21, 2021. According to the report, dozens of Indian Americans had assembled at Lafayette Square, the park in front of the White House, to protest Modi's visit to the U.S., the report added. The Indian prime minister was in Washington to attend the maiden in-person Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) Summit.

Therefore, the image of anti-Modi protests dates back to 2021, when Modi met Australian PM Scott Morrison, Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga, and President Biden for a Quad Summit in the U.S.

The Verdict

Old visuals of protests against Modi in Berlin and the U.S. are being shared as photos of recent anti-Modi demonstrations. Therefore, we mark the claim as misleading.