Clipped Video of Tikait Shared to Claim He Only Raised 'Allahu-Akbar' Chants

Rakesh Tikait said slogans of Allahu-Akbar" and "Har-Har Mahadev" were raised earlier & they will continue to do so.

Fact-Check | Social media users claimed that farmer leader Rakesh Tikait only raised 'Allahu-Akbar' chants at the Kisan Mahapanchayat.

(Photo: The Quint)

A clipped video of farmer leader Rakesh Tikait chanting "Allahu-Akbar" [God is (the) greatest] at the Kisan Mahapanchayat in Uttar Pradesh's, Muzaffarnagar has been shared by several social media users with a misleading context.

The 19-second clip is being shared to raise questions on the 'intent' of the farmers' with several saying 'what is the need for a communal slogans at the protest.'

However, we went through the entire speech and found that Tikait raised slogans of "Allahu-Akbar" and "Har-Har Mahadev" while calling for communal harmony in the area.

Tikait said that both the slogans used to be raised earlier during the time of his father, Mahendra Singh Tikait, and will continue to do so.

CLAIM

The video was shared by former national in-charge of social media for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Mahila Morcha Priti Gandhi, who has been called out several times for sharing misinformation.

"But seriously, what has "Allah hu Akbar" got to do with #FarmLaws???", Gandhi said in her tweet.

The video was also shared by the official handle of Panchjanya, the weekly magazine published by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Delhi BJP spokesperson Ajay Sehrawat and author and right-wing commentator Shefali Vaidya.

An archive of the post can be found here.

Another user called Renuka Jain, who has also repeatedly shared misinformation in the past, also shared the video and said, "Real face of Farmer leader. Check what he chanting".

The video was also shared by other users on Facebook, archives of which can be found here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

As per the claims, the viral clip was from Tikait's speech from the Kisan Mahapanchayat which was held at the Muzaffarnagar's Government Inter College ground on Sunday, 5 September.

While addressing the protesting farmers, who have been protesting at the borders of the national capital since last year demanding the Centre to repeal the three contentious farm laws, he spoke about communal harmony.

We looked for Tikait's full speech and found a longer version of it on Punjab Tak's YouTube channel. The channel uploaded a live video of Tikait's speech at the Mahapanchayat.

At around the 11-minute mark, Tikait says, "If these government's stay in power, they will keep dividing people. Earlier when Tikait Sahab (Mahendra Singh Tikait) was here, there used to slogans like Allahu-Akbar," to which the crowd responded with chants of "Har Har Mahadev."

"The slogans of Har-Har Mahadev and Allahu-Akbar were raised from this place and they will continue forever; there will be no riots," he goes on to say.

We also checked for news reports and found that news organisations like Hindustan Times and The Indian Express also said the Tikait raised slogans of Har Har Mahadev and Allahu-Akbar.

Evidently, a clipped video of farmer leader Rakesh Tikait was shared to claim that he only raised slogans of "Allahu-Akbar" to create a false narrative.

Such pieces of misinformation relating to the farmers' protest have been shared by people ever since the agitation began in late 2020. The Quint's WebQoof team has debunked all of those claims and they can be found here.

(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer.)

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