A video showing a group of people creating a 'tricolour' effect on a waterfall with saffron and green colours, is being shared on social media with the claim that it shows recent celebrations ahead of India's 75th Independence Day on August 15, 2022. Among the many accounts to share this video with the viral claim was the verified Facebook and Twitter handles of mainstream news channels India TV and Aaj Tak.
BOOM found these posts to be misleading and shared out of context; our fact-check reveals that the video in question has been shared on the internet two years ago, and does not show any recent celebrations for the 75th Independence Day, that is being dubbed as 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav".
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India TV's verified Facebook and Twitter handles with the caption, "तिरंगे के रंग में रंगा झरना...देखिए ये अद्भुत वीडियो ! #HarGharTiranga #IndependenceDay #ViralVideo." (English translation: Waterfall gets coloured with the tricolour, watch this incredible video.)
Click here to view an archive of the above tweet.
Meanwhile, news channel Aaj Tak also shared the video with the caption, "स्वतंत्रता दिवस से पहले तिरंगा के रंग का वॉटरफ़ॉल खूब वायरल हो रहा है, आप भी देखें-" ( English translation: A tricolour waterfall is getting viral ahead of the independence day, you should watch too.)
The caption shared by India TV does not indicate or clarify that the video is old, and adds the hashtag #HarGharTiranga, which is a recent campaign as part of 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' to encourage people to hoist the flag in their homes. This insinuates that the video is part of the recent #HarGharTiranga campaign.
We searched on Facebook with some keywords from India TV's caption, and found many other users sharing the video as recent. You can see such posts here, here, here and here.
Fact-Check
BOOM did a reverse image search with a keyframe from the viral video, which led us to the same video posted two years ago on Twitter. User @samyakspeaks shared the video with the caption, "How beautifully they created tricolour in a waterfall!! Very creative!! #HappyIndependanceDay (sic)."
We also did a Google search with keywords 'tricolour waterfall' and looked for possible news reports from 2020 by refining the search parameters. This led us to an article by Times Now, published on August 16, 2020, which spoke of the incident and also included a screenshot from the viral video.
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This two-year-old video being shared recently with hashtags from the ongoing flag hoisting campaign #HarGhatTiranga is therefore misleading, as it falsely gives the impression that it is recent.