Campaigning for the Assam Assembly elections has started in full swing and so has the propaganda. A doctored video of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal speaking at an election rally is doing rounds all over the media and internet. In the speech, the AIUDF supremo is seen spreading misinformation which may amount to civil disharmony between two communities.
What is the viral video?
Several media outlets of Assam and social media groups have been sharing a short clip of Badruddin Ajmal at an election rally where he can be seen saying, “ The Mughals ruled over India for 800 years. We will make the country an Islamic Rashtra. UPA and Mahagatbandhan will form the government and my party AIUDF will be a part of it. There won’t be even one Hindu person in the country. We will turn everyone Muslim.” The video clip has caused great anguish and uproar among the people.
The Investigation
Headline8 first resorted to Invid Tools where we found that the speech was made by the AIUDF chief Ajmal at an election rally in Barpeta during the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. Then on YouTube, it was found that parts of the speech were edited out to make the doctored one which seemed like spreading communal harmony.
In the original speech, Badruddin Ajmal had said, “The Mughals ruled over India for 800 years, but they could never even dare to dream of making the country an Islamic one. If the Mughals had any intention in the 800 years of its rule that there would not be a single Hindu person in the entire country, everyone will be converted to Islam, did they do it? They did not even try. They could not dare. After that, the British ruled over the country for 200 years. They also could not dare to make India a Christian country. After independence, of the 70 years, the congress governed the country for 55 years. Congress leaders starting from Jawaharlal Nehru to Lal Bahadur Shashtri to Rajiv Gandhi to Manmohan Singh and Narasimha Rao, no one dreamt of making the country a Hindu Rashtra. Modi Ji, do not ever dream of this, your dream will be broken. This time, people do not vote for Modi Ji, BJP, RSS, Himanta Biswa Sarma, instead cast your vote to AIUDF so that Narendra Modi cannot become the Prime Minister when the ministry will be formed after Ramadan.”
In addition, Headline8 also took to Twitter. On Twitter, the official page of AIUDF and AIUDF MLA Hafiz Rafiiqul Islam shared the original speech.
Several media outlets including @NewsLiveGhy, @DY365 along with right wing groups have been sharing a doctored video of Honourable @BadruddinAjmal Sahab, clearly with a vested agenda. Here’s the original video from where parts are clipped to make the doctored one. pic.twitter.com/p4Zp4JwNzd
— AIUDF Official (@AIUDFOfficial) March 10, 2021
The doctored speech was shared on Facebook on Wednesday morning by a user Sashank Chakraborty with a misleading caption who later deleted the post. The archived link of that post can be viewed below:
The Conclusion
Thus comparing the original speech with the doctored one, it can be seen that several lines from Ajmal’s original speech were clipped out and doctored into a video which made it look like that the AIUDF chief was spreading communal disharmony. The original speech was all about political rivalry and it was not intended at spreading religious hatred.
