Did LT General Rajiv Ghai Talk About BJP and 'Hindutva' Politics? No, It’s AI!

The video has been manipulated using AI and is a deepfake.

A deepfake video of  Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai is being shared to claim that he spoke about the influence of BJP's saffron politics of the Indian Army.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video purportedly showing Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai talking at an event is being shared on social media.

What did he say?: In the video, Lt Gen Ghai allegedly spoke about about religious polarisation, combat effectiveness, and morale.

• “As a senior officer who has devoted decades to the service of this uniform, I say this with deep concern. The growing influence of saffron politics is corroding the core values of the Indian army. Our strength has always been rooted in discipline, unity and constitutional duty, not in religious polarisation.."

The claim: The post is being shared by X (formerly Twitter) user '@Baba_Thoka', to claim that Lt Gen Ghai "slams #BJP & #NarendraModi’s politics, warns that any saffronization or politicization of the Indian Armed Forces will destroy morale (sic)," going on to say that they would "resist all attempts to make the Indian Army subservient to Hindutva.”

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

But...?: The video was altered using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is a deepfake.

How do we know?: We noticed that the image carried the media organisation Republic's logo in one corner, but carried garbled text under it.

The text under Republic's logo is garbled.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

Taking a clue from this, we looked for the video on Republic's verified YouTube channel, where the video was streamed live on 18 October 2025.

During Republic's 'Forces First Conclave', he spoke about Operation Sindoor, praising India's military prowess during the exercise, and calling it "a synchronisation of political will and military planning and execution."

He spoke at length about the strategic and military lessons they learnt during the operation, but did not make the statement in the claim.

• Since his speech lacked significant intonation, we ran the video through two AI-generated content detectors.

Is it AI?: Hive Moderation's tool showed a 99.6 percent confidence score about the audio element being "likely to contain AI-generated and deepfake content."

The audio element is AI-generated.

(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)

Hiya's Deepfake Voice Detector also gave the audio and authenticity score of one out of 100, confirming that it was a deepfake.

The sampled audio is a deepfake.

(Source: Hiya/Screenshot)

PIB clarifies: The Press Information Bureau's (PIB) fact-checking account on X called it "a digitally altered video of Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai."

• "This #AI-generated #fake video is being circulated to mislead people and create distrust against the Indian Armed Forces (sic)," the post read.

Conclusion: A deepfake of Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai is being shared to falsely claim that he spoke about the 'saffronisation' of the Indian Army due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) politics.

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