Few politicians in history have attracted admiration and loathing to the degree that Jawaharlal Nehru has. More than five decades after his death, India’s first Prime Minister remains a supreme political figure and a prime target of disinformation, particularly on social media. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly expressed his view about his party’s respect for Nehru, many of his party’s supporters including some who the PM himself follows, have been at the forefront of spreading misinformation about him. Here is a compilation of instances of misinformation and/or disinformation regarding Jawaharlal Nehru that Alt News has chronicled.

1. False claim about Nehru attending RSS shakha meeting

Had India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru attended an RSS shakha meeting? Apparently so, if one were to believe the narrative surrounding a photograph which was circulated on social media. A Facebook page I Support Doval, posted this photo along with the message, “This photograph was procured with great difficulty. This is Nehru ji standing at an RSS shakha. Now please tell us if Nehru ji was also a saffron terrorist” (translated).

That is indeed Pandit Nehru in the picture, but he is NOT attending an RSS shakha. This photograph is of the year 1939 and it was clicked in Naini, Uttar Pradesh. Pandit Nehru can be seen wearing a white cap. However, the uniform of the RSS introduced in 1925 has a black cap and not a white cap.

2. Affectionate pictures with sister and niece shared with mischievous intent

Nehru has been sought to be projected as a philanderer. Photographs of him with his sister and niece were shared by BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, among others.

The woman seen in the first and third picture (Left to Right) is Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru. The woman seen in the last picture (bottom right) is Nayantara Sehgal, his niece and the daughter of Vijayalakshmi Pandit.

3. Fake quote: “I am Hindu by accident of birth”

A statement which is attributed to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has circulated online for the past few years. According to this quote, Nehru had said, “I am English by education, Muslim by culture and Hindu merely by accident”. Among those who claimed that Nehru had said this include BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya and national BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra in a recent debate on Republic TV.

Alt News found that this statement had been made not by Jawaharlal Nehru but by a Hindu Mahasabha leader, N B Khare who had first made this claim in 1959 that Nehru had said these words in his autobiography. However, this statement is nowhere to be found in Nehru’s autobiography.

4. False claim: Nehru called Subhas Chandra Bose a ‘war criminal’

A letter has been shared widely on social media by detractors of Nehru. According to this letter purportedly written by Nehru to then British PM Clement Attlee, Subhas Chandra Bose has been referred to as a “war criminal” who has entered Russian territory. The letter is dated December 27, 1945 whereas Bose had died in an aircrash in Taiwan in August, 1945 according to the official version of events.

Alt News fact checked this claim and found that this letter had not been written by Nehru. It was supposedly part of a testimony by one Shyamlal Jain, who was the stenographer of Nehru. Jain had claimed before the Khosla commission, which had been established in 1970 to probe the mysterious disappearance of Bose, that this letter had been dictated by Nehru in December 1945. Alt News found that neither Nehru nor Asaf Ali at whose residence in Delhi the letter was claimed to be written, were in Delhi on the dates mentioned.

5. False claim on scrapping of currency notes featuring Bose

An image of a currency note featuring Subhas Chandra Bose was shared online, along with the claim that these notes were ‘demonetised’ by the Jawaharlal Nehru government. The text along with the image stated, “नेताजी सुभास चंद्र बोस की तस्वीर वाला 5 का नोट जिसे नेहरूजी ने बंद करवा दिया था , ताकि भारतीय इस सच्चे स्वतंत्रता सेनानी को भूल जाये लेकिन इसे इतना शेयर करो की सरकार इसे वापस शुरू कर दे” (This is the 5 rupee note featuring Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose which was scrapped, so that Indians forget this freedom fighter, but share this to the extent that the government resumes printing it- translated).

Alt News’s fact-check found that these notes were issued in pre-independent India by the Azad Hind Bank, which had been set up in Yangon, Myanmar in 1944 to finance the war effort of the Azad Hind Fauj against the British. These currency notes were never legal tender and thus there was no question of the Nehru government scrapping these notes.

6. False claim on British minister lambasting Nehru over education policy

The person in the following clip is the 1st Muslim Minister of British Cabinet. He is blunt in saying that Nehru destroyed Hinduism in India systematically. Pls spare 2 minutes to see this video.👇👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼 The video accompanying this message shows an elderly gentleman criticising former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru over his education policy. The claim that this person is the first Muslim minister in the British cabinet, along with the video was also shared widely on WhatsApp.

Alt News found that the above video had been posted on YouTube by a channel called ‘Hindu Academy’. Hindu Academy is an organisation based in Britain that is involved in promoting and teaching Hinduism in schools in the UK. The person in the video is no British cabinet minister but Jay Lakhani, who describes himself on his Twitter profile as a theoretical physicist and teacher of Hinduism. Lakhani’s videos have been shared frequently by pro-Hindutva groups.

7. False claim about Nehru thrashed by mob

Several social media users had shared a photograph of Jawaharlal Nehru along with the claim that he was thrashed by a mob after India’s failure in the 1962 war with China. Alt News found that this claim had been circulated for years, with the earliest instance from 2013.

Alt News found that while the photograph was indeed of 1962, it was taken BEFORE the Sino-Indian war and was in no way related to it. The photo was taken at the plenary session of the Congress party at Patna in January 1962. A stampede had broken out and Nehru in an effort to restore order tried to plunge into the crowd but was restrained by security personnel.

8. False claim on lack of financial support to football team in 1948 Olympics

An image juxtaposing two pictures was shared on social media platforms. The photo on the left shows two sportspersons shaking hands with each other, while the adjacent image shows India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru debarking with his pet. The posts claimed that the Indian football team did not have shoes to play football during the period when Nehru’s dog was travelling in aeroplanes.

Alt News’ fact-check found that the Indian football team was not forced to play without boots due to lack of financial support but preferred to play barefoot as that is what they were accustomed to. The players continued to play barefoot till the change in International regulations later mandated them to wear boots.

9. False claim in Osho’s book about Nehru responsible for outcome of 1965 Indo-Pak war

“When Pakistan invaded India, one of my friend Commander-in-chief Gen Chaudhuri, asked permission of PM Nehru to counter attack as being defensive wouldn’t help. That’s a simple military strategy; if you are defensive you are already defeated. The best way is to be aggressive.” This was a tweet by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri in March 2019.

Agnihotri was ostensibly referring to the Indo-Pak war of 1965. “Commander in chief Gen Chaudhuri” refers to General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri who was the chief of Army staff from 1962 to 1966. The tweet, a screenshot of which is posted below, was the first of a series of tweets in which Agnihotri lashed out at former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for adopting a defensive strategy in the wake of Pakistani aggression. The entire thread was later deleted.

Agnihotri was factually incorrect at an elementary level. The Prime Minister of India during the Indo-Pak war of 1965 was Lal Bahadur Shastri and not Jawaharlal Nehru, who had passed away in 1964.

CONTENT TAKEN FROM BOOK BY OSHO

Moreover, Alt News found that Agnihotri’s tweets were copied verbatim from a book by godman Rajneesh Osho (‘From Darkness to Light‘).

Jawaharlal Nehru is perpetually in the crosshairs of the right-wing social media ecosystem which has adopted diverse means to denigrate him, concocting stories and manipulating photographs. From malicious gossip over his lineage to the false claim that he died of AIDS, rumours surrounding Nehru have been pervasive. Among the tallest leaders of the freedom movement and as the longest serving Prime Minister, Nehru has left behind a powerful legacy which is sought to be erased through systematic, organised and malicious attempts.

Update: The article has been updated to include point number 9 (Vivek Aghnihotri’s false claim about PM Nehru and the 1965 war, tweeted in March 2019).

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