A video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi shaking hands with some people on stage is going viral with a claim that the audience was hurling abuses at PM Modi during his recent visit to the United States.
What are users saying?: Those sharing the video captioned it in Hindi that said, "Whatever happened in America, I strongly condemn it."
An archive of the post can be seen here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)
Are these claims true?: No. The video dates back to 2019 and shows PM Modi shaking hands with some people during the Howdy Modi event that happened in Houston, Texas.
The Quint found older versions of the video, where audience members can be heard saying "Bharat Mata ki Jai" and "Vande Matram."
The older versions did not show people hurling abuses at PM Modi.
How did we find out?: We noticed the national flags of India and the United States in the background. Taking this as a hint, we performed a keyword search.
We found the same video uploaded by a Facebook user named Gaurav Singh on 24 September 2021.
The caption mentioned that PM Modi was welcomed in a grand fashion in America.
The video was 30 seconds-long and showed audience members raising "Bharat Mata ki Jai" and "Vande Matram" slogans.
The video noticeably appeared to be recorded inside a stadium.
This prompted us to perform a keyword search which led us to a YouTube clip on the official channel of PM Narendra Modi.
It was titled, "PM Modi and President Trump greet people at NRG Stadium in Houston #HowdyModi."
It was uploaded on 23 September 2019 and it showed PM Modi wearing a similar outfit as compared to the viral video.
A comparison showed PM Modi wearing a similar outfit.
(Source: YouTube/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
We looked for more clips from the event and came across one which was more than fours hours-long on YouTube.
At around the 1:46:41 mark, one can see PM Modi shaking hands with several dignitaries on the stage.
We compared the visuals from the YouTube video and the viral one and found that both of them had a similar setting.
(Swipe right to view all the comparisons.)
On comparing the visuals, we found both the videos are from the same event.
(Source: YouTube/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
Howdy Modi event at Houston: The mega-event saw PM Modi addressing the Indian diaspora, while he was on a week-long visit to the United States. The event witnessed around 50,000 audience members and several cultural performances.
Conclusion: While we could not independently verify the audio in the viral clip, it is clear that a three-year-old clip is being shared to falsely link to PM Modi's recent US visit.
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