Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
President Ram Chandra Poudel spoke in Hindi in his first address
Fact
President Poudel only borrowed a few lines from a Hindi poem
A video claiming that newly elected President Ram Chandra Poudel has delivered his first speech in Hindi is going viral among Nepali social media users. Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Ram Chandra Paudel, a senior Nepali Congress (NC) leader who contested the election held on March 9 as the common candidate of the NC-led alliance, was elected as the third President of the country. He defeated his rival candidate Subas Nembang of CPN-UML.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @subashkhatiwada44 posted a video clip of President Ram Chandra Poudel saying a few lines in Hindi which roughly translates to ” Fairs will be held every year on the funeral pyres of the martyrs, this will be the legacy of those who die for the country.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “Newly elected President [Ram Chandra Poudel] addressing in Hindi language in his first speech after being elected to the post.” The video caption further reads, “Newly elected honourable puppet president speaking in Hindi to please the master.” The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
The video posted on March 10 has garnered 28.8k likes, 1605 users have shared it and 8079 people have commented on it.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker analysed the video and noticed the logo of Dekhapadi online on the screen. Taking it as a clue, we searched the YouTube channel of Dekhapadi online but couldn’t find any relevant video. So, we checked the Facebook page of Dekhapadi online and found a 2 minutes 33 seconds video posted on March 10. On watching the video thoroughly, we can hear Poudel praising the sacrifice made by great leaders for democracy. He goes on to say that it has become his duty to preserve the democracy, constitution and republic system in the country. We found that the viral video was an excerpt from the video posted by Dekhapadi online.
On digging further, we found that President Poudel borrowed the famous lines from a patriotic Hindi poem titled ‘Shaheedon ki Chitaon Par [On the pyres of the martyrs]’ while praising the sacrifice made by great leaders for democracy. The poem was written by Indian poet Jagdamba Prasad Mishra ‘Hitaishi’.
On further research, we found a news article published on Nagariknews online which confirmed that Poudel had visited BP Museum in Sundarijal, Kathmandu, the following day after his election as the new president.
Our investigation found that President Poudel only borrowed a stanza from a Hindi patriotic poem to accentuate the importance of sacrifices made by leaders and martyrs.
Conclusion
No, President Ram Chandara didn’t give his first speech in Hindi. The viral video showing him uttering a few lines from a Hindi poem is clipped in a misleading manner.
Result: Missing Context
Sources
The Kathmandu Post
Dekhapadi Online /Facebook
Nagariknews Online
Hindiwi.org
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
