Fact Check: Nehru's interview published in Playboy magazine is partly true

Hyderabad: Recently, a claim that the first Prime Minister of India, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, gave an interview to adult magazine 'Playboy' and that it was published in 1963 wasshared on the social media. The magazine was banned in India for several reasons, including nudity, though it was eventually launched in 2014 with strict community guidelines.

This tweet was also shared by a Twitter handle named @theMukeshAmbani

The claim went viral on Facebook.

The claim, which went viral in 2018, emerged suddenly again.

Fact Check:

The above claim is PARTLY TRUE.

Firstly, the Twitter account does not belong to Mukesh Ambani. In the about section of the account, it says Parody account. #Unofficial Mukesh Ambani | Note- Mukesh Ambani is not on any social media platforms | Views are personal | RTs not endorsed.

So, this is NOT an official account of Mukesh Ambani which tweeted the viral image.

Playboy is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. Playboy is infamous for its graphical content. While its pictures are undoubtedly the magazine's primary attraction, the so-called "Playboy interview" remains its second-most popular feature.

They have interviewed famous people like Malcom X, Fidel Castro, The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmy Hoffa, George Wallace, Henry Miller and Cassius Clay, etc.

According to an article published in forbes.com in 2017, in its October 1963 issue, Playboy ran an extensive interview with Nehru titled, "a candid conversation with the architect of modern India."

In it, Nehru expounded exhaustively on a wide range of topics, including his views on nuclear weapons, the weaknesses inherent in democracies, Cold War politics and international relations, the corrosive impact of materialism on society, world religion, the country's explosive population growth and his vision for India's future in a rapidly evolving world.

But in the same issue of the magazine carried an "editor's note" on Page 3, which stated, "after the rest of the magazine had gone to press, we received word from the Indian Embassy in Washington that our interview with PM Nehru was not, in fact, the result of an exclusive, personal conversation with the head of the Indian state, but simply a gathering together of public pronouncements made by the Prime Minister in various speeches, statements, etc., over the past several years."

Though the name of the interviewer was not published on the article page, the cover page mentions 'Playboy interview with Henry Slesar'. Henry Slesar was a renowned American playwright, author and copywriter.

The clarification by the magazine states that the Indian Government has officially refuted that the Prime minister has given any interview and the interviewer gathered several public pronouncements, speeches, and statements made by Nehru over the years as an interview. It also stated that all the attempts to reach the interviewer for clarification were unsuccessful.

This clarification page was published in an article by India today with title: Viral Test: Did Pandit Nehru give interview to Playboy? in June, 2018.

The magazine opted not to publish the pictures of the journalist and Nehru together, but they went ahead in publishing the interview.

It is TRUE that the interview with Prime Minister of India, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, was published in Playboy Magazine, but it has been rubbished by the Indian government as no such interview materialised.

It is said to be a collage of several speeches by Nehru and any statement by the interviewer is NOT found.

So, the above claim is PARTLY TRUE.