Fact Check: Clipped Video Falsely Claims Anti-Hindu Remarks

A video going viral on social media (here, here, and here) claims to show Mulayam Singh Yadav making anti-Hindu statements in Parliament. Mulayam is heard declaring, “We are enemies of Hindus and friends of Muslims, and we proudly say this.” In the viral clip, he talks about the Samajwadi Party as a party of criminals, adding that it is in the magazines and on Doordarshan that these criminals are identified as Mulayam Singh’s party leaders. He is seen to admit, “We are criminals, nothing more.” Let’s find out the truth behind the viral video.

To verify the authenticity of the video, we performed a reverse image search on the keyframes of the viral video but found no results. Additionally, a Google search using relevant keywords did not lead to any credible sources.

The video appeared to be from Parliament and old. Since Mulayam Singh Yadav was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) to the Lok Sabha only, and not the Rajya Sabha, starting in 1996, we searched the Sansad website’s debates from 1996 to 2005. Using a facet search in the debates section with relevant keywords and filters, we found a transcript from the first session of the 12th Lok Sabha on 27 March 1998. It included Yadav’s speech during the debate when Atal Bihari Vajpayee moved the motion expressing the House’s confidence in the Council of Ministers.

Mulayam Singh Yadav criticised the then Uttar Pradesh BJP government’s anti-copying law in Uttar Pradesh. While saying he is against copying, he called it a “black law” never seen in any civilised society or educational system in India. He opposed jailing young students and accused his opponents of helping real criminals become ministers. When interrupted, he accused those claiming the moral high ground of nominating criminals in elections and noted that no one with a clean record had contested against him since 1991.

When Virendra Singh of the BJP interrupted, objecting to the accusation, Mulayam Singh Yadav responded by saying, “I said so because our party is branded as a party of criminals. In every magazine and on television, it is shown that there are criminals belonging to Mulayam Singh’s party. We are nothing but criminals. But you claim to be a person of clean image. Tell us about yourself; what are you? Much is said about us, that we are enemies of the Hindus and friends of the Muslims. We can say with pride that… That is why I have said that we are not criminals. You keep on saying that we are criminals.”

Taking clues from the transcript in our further investigation, we conducted a keyword search on the internet, which led us to the original video uploaded by the Digital Sansad – Parliament of India YouTube channel. The video’s caption indicated that it featured Mulayam Singh Yadav’s speech on 27 March 1998 during the Discussion on the Confidence Motion. By reviewing the video frame by frame, we found at the timestamp of 27 minutes and 55 seconds, Mulayam Singh can be heard addressing accusations that his party was being labelled as criminals and portrayed as enemies of Hindus and allies of Muslims in magazines and on television.

After reviewing the transcript of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s speech and the video, it is confirmed that the viral video had been clipped, with his speech edited and misinterpreted.

This story was first published on factly.in by Nitish Kumar Dhonge, reposting on Deccan Chronicle under Shakti Collective initiative)