Altered video peddled as Narendra Modi saying ‘Hindutva is a card to play election game’

What is the claim?

A video of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been circulating on social media claiming that he said, "Hindutva is a card to play the election game." In the 14-second-long viral video, PM Modi is seen speaking to an interviewer in Hindi and saying, "Hindutva has never been an election slogan for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Hindutva is an article of faith for us. This is a card to play the election game." Hindutva is a political ideology championed by the Indian right wing, including its ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Translating roughly to 'Hindu-ness,' Hindutva advocates for the supremacy of Hinduism in India and the establishment of the secular country as a Hindu state.

Several users, including the official Facebook page of Himachal Youth Congress, shared Modi's video on social media and wrote, "No political party in the world has exploited its religion to gain power as much as the Bharatiya Janata Party has exploited the Hindu religion to gain power (translated from Hindi)." Archived versions of the viral video and the accompanying posts can be found here and here.

Screenshots of the viral posts on Facebook. (Source: Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, an edited video of Modi's interview from 1998 has been shared with false claims. Modi hadn't made any such comments in the original video.

What did we find? 

A reverse image search on the keyframes of the viral video led us to an old interview of Narendra Modi published by the Hindi news outlet Zee News on September 17, 2020. A part of the title of the video read, "24-year-old interview of PM Modi." The 14:24-long video consists of two interviews with Modi—one recorded on March 22, 1998, and the other recorded on December 6, 1998. The viral clip was taken from the the second interview and runs between the 10:30-10:40 timestamps.

Around the 10:05-minute mark, the interviewer asked Modi in Hindi, "Narendra Modi ji, your Hindutva slogan was the reason why you got two seats in 1984. After that, you gradually reached the stage of forming the government in 1998. Now your Hindutva slogan has also failed. In this election, again, you talked about Vande Mataram and Saraswati Vandana in the name of the election gimmick, but people understood that you are raising a sentimental issue during elections to get votes." To this, Modi replied, "Hindutva has never been an election slogan of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Hindutva is an article of faith for us. This is not a card to play the election game. This issue never existed. (translated from Hindi)."

The word "not" from Modi's response to the interviewer has been edited out in the viral video to make it seem like Modi said, "This is a card to play the election game." This altered clip was shared on social media to make false claims. 

The 1998 general elections

The BJP formed the union government in 1998 in coalition with other parties as it led the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). In the original interview dated December 6, 1998, Modi was asked questions about the election win, the BJP's manifesto, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). At that time, Modi was the general secretary of the BJP.

The verdict

A video of a 1998 interview has been doctored to make it appear that Narendra Modi had said, "Hindutva is a card to play the election game." In reality, Modi said that Hindutva is "not" a card to play in the election game. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.