An old clipped video of Rahul Gandhi is viral with the false claim that he credited Islam alone as an inspiration for Mahatma Gandhi's non violence stance. BOOM found that an extended version of the clip shows Rahul Gandhi mentioning other religions and not saying that Islam alone inspired Mahatma Gandhi inspiration.
The clip shows Rahul Gandhi addressing a crowd and saying, "Mahatma Gandhi picked up the idea of non violence from our great religions, our great teachers. He picked it up from ancient Indian philosophy-- from Islam."
The 24-second clip is viral with the caption, "Rahul has given some new information to the people that Mahatma Gandhi's inspiration for non violence came from Islam."
(Original text in Hindi: "लोगों को एकदम नई जानकारी राहुल ने दी है 😀 कि "महात्मा गॉंधी ने अहिंसा की प्रेरणा इस्लाम से ली थी ")
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
BOOM also received this clip on its WhatsApp tipline (+91 77009 06111)
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the video is clipped and an extended version shows that Rahul Gandhi named other religions as Mahatma Gandhi's inspiration, not just Islam.
A keyword search for the video on Facebook led us to several posts, the oldest being from 2019. Watch here and here.
Taking a cue from this, we searched the official YouTube channel of the Indian National Congress with keywords like 'rahul gandhi address 2019' and found one video titled 'Congress President Rahul Gandhi addresses Indian diaspora in Dubai'. Gandhi's outfit in the thumbnail matched the one he was seen wearing the viral video.
Uploaded on January 11, 2019, the video shows Rahul Gandhi addressing the Indian diaspora at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium during his two-day visit to the UAE ahead of the general assembly elections that year.
The portion from the viral clip begins from the 2:22:24 mark in the original video. Rahul Gandhi is heard saying, "Mahatma Gandhi was a great exponent of non violence. But Mahatma Gandhiji picked up the idea of non violence from our great religions, our great teachers. He picked it up from ancient Indian philosophy-- from Islam, from Christianity, Judaism. Every great religion where it is clearly written that violence will not help anyone achieve anything."
During this address, Rahul Gandhi also spoke about relations between India and the UAE and the issues that India faced such as unemployment and intolerance.
