A childhood photo of Jawaharlal Nehru with his mother Swarup Rani is being shared while misidentifying her as a Muslim woman named Rahman Bai. BOOM found that the claims are false and the photo shows Nehru with his mother and Motilal Nehru's wife, Swarup Rani.
The claims play into the baseless conspiracy theory that Nehru's father Motilal Nehru had five wives including Swarup Rani, one of them being Rahman Bai.
The photo is viral with the text, "A YOUNG J L NEHRU WITH HIS MOTHER THUSSU RAHMAN BAI His mother was Thussu Rahman Bai (Motilal Nehru's second wife). Nehru's Grand Father was Giazuddin Ghazi, who fearing British retribution fled from Delhi after the First War of Indian Independence and changed his name to Gangadhar Nehru in 1857."
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the claims are false and the photo shows Swarup Rani (Thussu), Motilal Nehru's second wife and Jawaharlal Nehru's mother.
A reverse image search of the photo on Google led us to several news articles and stock images that suggested the woman was Swarup Rani, Nehru's mother, and not Rahman Bai.
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Motilal Nehru's first wife and son passed away during childbirth, and Swarup Rani was his second wife. In the book 'The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal', author BR Nanda also states that Swarup Rani was Motilal Nehru's second wife. The book does not include information about any other marriages or Motilal Nehru's four other wives mentioned in the viral claim.
(The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal by BR Nanda)
According to the website of the Indian National Congress, Swarup Rani gave birth to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1889 followed by the birth of his two sisters, Vijay Laxmi Pandit in 1900 and Krishna Nehru in 1907. The profile does not mention any other wives that Motilal Nehru had after Swarup Rani.
The Five Wives Claim
The claim about Motilal Nehru having four other wives apart from Swarup Rani is a popular conspiracy theory, however, there are no facts supporting it. The claims have been around for a while but they caught wind in December 2019 when actor Payal Rohatgi made the same claims and attributed them to Jawaharlal Nehru's private secretary, M. O. Mathai. She claimed that she read about Rahman Bai, one of the five wives that Motilal Nehru had, in Mathai's memoirs 'Reminiscences of The Nehru Age' and 'My Days with Nehru'. Rohatgi was later arrested by the Rajasthan Police and placed in judicial custody for 9 days.
BOOM reached out to Sagarika Ghose, journalist and author of Indira Gandhi's biography, 'Indira: India's Most Powerful Prime Minister' who rubbished the viral claims and provided a detailed history of Nehru's lineage.
Ghose clarified that M.O. Mathai's memoirs did not mention Rahman Bai as Motilal Nehru's wife. About Swarup Rani, Jawaharlal Nehru's actual mother, she said, "Swarup Rani was a Kashmiri Pandit woman and remained very traditional and attached to Hindu beliefs. She continued to live in the Kashmir Valley, yet maintained her faith and way of life."
Swarup Rani was a freedom fighter herself and contributed greatly to the Indian freedom struggle, including her participation in the civil disobedience movement.
Ghose added that during those days, caste and religion were highly influential factors while making decisions about a marriage. "So it highly unlikely, in fact impossible, that Motilal Nehru would have married a Muslim woman," she said.
Nehru's Alleged Muslim Lineage
Addressing the claims about Nehru's grandfather Ganga Dhar Nehru being a Muslim, Ghose said that Jawaharlal Nehru’s ancestor, Raj Kaul was a courtier in Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar's court. "The emperor gave him a house near a canal or nehr. That is how they became Kaul - Nehru (from nehr)," she explained.
BR Nanda's book, 'The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal' also confirms these origins of Nehru's family in the excerpt below:
('The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal' by BR Nanda)
Going further into Nehru's ancestry, the book mentions that Raj Kaul's grandson, Ganga Dhar Nehru had fled Delhi in 1857 during the Sepoy Mutiny and settled in Agra. He died at the age of 34, and three months later, his son and Jawaharlal Nehru's father, Motilal, was born.
('The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal' by BR Nanda)
In July 2015, The Times of India reported that Ganga Dhar Nehru's Wikipedia page was maliciously edited to claim that he was a Muslim named Ghiasuddin Ghazi. According to Pranesh Prakash, then policy director at Centre for Internet and Society, the edit was allegedly made by an IP address belonging to the government-owned National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The Congress had in turn demanded an apology from the Modi government and accused the NIC of "altering the lineage of India's first Prime Minister."