Manipuri woman did not praise BJP government in front of opposition leaders in viral video

By: Anurag Baruah
August 9 2023

Share Article:

Context

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) has come under fire over the ongoing ethnic clashes between the Meiteis and the Kukis in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, where the death toll has crossed 185. A 21-member multi-party delegation of parliamentarians from the opposition parties visited the violence-ridden regions and relief camps in Manipur on July 29 and 30.

Against the backdrop of this visit, a 2-minute long video circulating on social media shows a Manipuri woman speaking in front of opposition leaders, including Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, DMK's (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, and Trinamol Congress' Sushmita Dev.

Several social media users shared the video with the claim that it shows a Meitei woman lambasting the opposition delegation while praising BJP governments at the Center, and in Manipur. One such post on X (formerly Twitter) by Rishi Bagree—a known misinformation spreader whose claims have been debunked by Logically Facts on several occasions—had garnered over 4,85,400 views at the time of publishing. Another post shared with the same narrative had over 3,27,000 views. 

Several users have shared the video with similar claims on Facebook as well. 

However, the claim is false.

In fact

The viral video seems to be a part of a news report and bears the logo of Republic TV—a Mumbai-based English news channel. Republic TV had uploaded the full video report, a longer version of the viral clip, on its YouTube channel on July 29. Over four minutes long, the video report was titled, "Manipur Violence Victim Narrates Ordeal To Opposition Delegation At Moirang Relief Camp." The video description read, "Manipur violence eyewitness at Moirang relief camp narrates to Opposition delegation how the violence started in Churachandpur."

The viral video was created after cropping out a portion, around the 1:51 timestamp, from this Republic TV report. While cropping the video, the word "no" has been removed to make it seem as if the Meitei woman had said "(action) taken by the government, the central government" while purportedly praising the BJP government. However, if one watches the original video and listens to her complete sentence that starts around the 1:49 mark, she can be clearly heard saying, "No effective actions were taken by the government, by the central government..."

Nowhere in the video did the woman say that the BJP government or Prime Minister Narendra Modi did 'everything' for the people of Manipur, as insinuated by several social media posts. In fact, she criticized the central government for not paying attention to the violence in Manipur sooner and taking up the issue only after the 'Manipur viral video'—which showed two women belonging to the Kuki-Zomi community being paraded naked and sexually assaulted by a mob in Thoubal district—surfaced. She cited other incidents of violence against women during the clashes, which the government allegedly overlooked. 

A post by India Today on X, published on July 31, 2023, carried another longer version of the viral video as well. Taken from a different angle, this video shows the same woman talking to opposition leaders. The viral portion begins around the 3:05 mark of this video, making it clear again that woman's statements were clipped to make false claims. In India Today's version, Congress leader Chowdhury can be seen speaking to the woman and trying to console her along with other opposition leaders.   

The verdict

The viral clip has been extracted from a longer video which clearly shows that the woman was criticizing the BJP government for not paying attention to violence in Manipur sooner. Therefore, we mark the claim false.