No, This Photo Doesn't Show Indira Gandhi Enjoying Seafood

In the original photo, clicked by Sridhar Naidu, Indira Gandhi can be seen eating corn on the cob.

The photo claims to show former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi enjoying seafood.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A photo of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is being shared with a claim that although a 'Dattatreya Brahmin', she is seen happily gorging on seafood.

The photo is being shared in the backdrop of reports, quoting a temple priest from Pushkar in 2018, who had claimed that Rahul Gandhi's gotra (lineage) is 'Dattatreya' and he is a 'Kashmiri Brahmin'.

However, we found the photo has been blurred to make it look that way and in the original photo, she can be seen eating corn on the cob, known as bhutta in Hindi.

The photograph was clicked by veteran photographer and former assistant director of Information and Public Relations Department D Sridhar Naidu.

CLAIM

The photograph is shared by a Twitter user with the caption in Hindi that reads, "दत्तात्रेय ब्राह्मण राहुल गांधी की दादी #Sea_food का आनंद उठाते हुए !!"

(Translation: Dattatreya Brahmin Rahul Gandhi's grandmother enjoying seafood.)

An archive of the tweet can be found here.

Several social media users have shared the photo along with the same claim and the archived links can be seen here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We conducted a Google reverse image on the photo and found it in an article by The Hindu published in 2017 about the demise of veteran photographer Sridhar Naidu.

The photo caption read, "Former prime minister Indira Gandhi digging heartily into maize corn - a photograph clicked by Sridhar Naidu."

"The most acclaimed of his contributions was the exclusive photograph of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ravenously eating roasted corn (Makka Butta) at Fateh Maidan Club," the article read.

Indira Gandhi can be seen eating corn on the cob.

The original photo looked like this where she can be seen eating roasted corn, and not seafood as claimed.

In this photo, Gandhi can be seen eating bhutta.

Moreover, Indira Gandhi was not a vegetarian. According to a book 'The Unseen Indira Gandhi: Through Her Physician's Eyes' by Dr KP Mathur, she liked to eat fish.

"Once, in Murshidabad in West Bengal, for lunch the normal dal roti and chawal was served for her (Indira Gandhi) but she could smell fish being cooked in mustard oil, ready to be served. She immediately asked for it and had a liberal helping of “mach-bhat” and liked it very much," an excerpt from the book read.

Clearly, a photo of the former PM eating maize corn is being falsely shared on social media with the misleading claim that she was eating seafood.

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