An old video of Kanhaiya Kumar, a member of the Communist Party of India and former president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union speaking on Islam has been revived to falsely claim that it ‘exposes’ Kumar, who is “deceiving everyone with a fake Hindu name.”
The viral video is a clipped version of Kumar’s dialogue with Muslims at Nanded city in Maharashtra from August 2018. He initially quotes Congress leader Abul Kalam Azad on Muslims in India and then asks Muslims to resist attempts of politicians who seek to ‘ghettoize’ them. These words have been taken out of context in the clipped viral video.
CLAIM
The viral video was shared with the claim,
“देशद्रोही और धूर्त कन्हैया कुमार बेनकाब
खुद देखिए कैसे हिन्दू नाम रख कर सब की आँखों में धूल झोंक रहा है.
एक बंद दरवाजा मीटिंग में ये अपनी असलियत बता रहा है कि ये क्या है और कहाँ से आया है”
(Translation: “Anti-national and sly Kanhaiya Kumar exposed.
See for yourself how the name of Hindu is throwing dust in everyone's eyes.
In a closed door meeting, he is telling his reality of who he is and where he came from.”)
The video had also gone viral with a similar claim last year in 2019 and in January this year.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
With a keyword search of “Kanhaiya Kumar Muslims,” we came across the full video uploaded on YouTube with the caption, “Kanhaiya Kumar answered the questions of intellectuals of Muslim community in Nanded,” in August 2018.
The viral clip begins at the time stamp 12:03 in the longer video. However, it leaves out the context that Kumar was referring Abul Kalam Azad’s speech at Jama Masjid, not confessing to being a Muslim himself.
At time stamp 11:50, Kumar says, “Nation’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad made an argument at Jama Masjid that this nation belongs to all of us. We won’t go somewhere, just because someone tells us to. Our blood and sweat is mixed with this nation’s soil. Our ancestry is connected to this nation. All of us did not walk from Arab, we were brought up here...”
At 12:15 he speaks about how those who converted, left behind the “old religion, which endorsed untouchability,” to accept a religion, which “speaks of peace and equality.”
The viral video then jump cuts to the time stamp 16:00 where Kumar says, “we will save ourselves, as well as our religion...”
However, again the clipped video, misses the context, which begins at time stamp 15:00 in the YouTube video, where Kumar speaks about giving a befitting reply to those who come as ‘saviours of religion.’
He says Muslims should ask these politicians to instead speak on development, employment, health services and resist their attempts to “otherize” and “ghettoize” Muslims.
The viral clip ends with another jump cut to 15:12, where Kumar says “Allah is powerful, he will save us.”
Again, this is clip has been taken out of context, as Kumar begins the sentence by stating that this is what the Muslims should say to those who tell them they have come to save their religion.
Evidently, Kanhaiya Kumar’s address to Muslims in 2018 has been taken out of context and clipped to create a false narrative.
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