Rahul Gandhi did not question relevance of Hindi language

Hyderabad: A video containing clips of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doing rounds on social media.

Social Media users are sharing the video claiming that Rahul Gandhi questioned the relevance of the Hindi language and PM Modi enhanced the country's honor by speaking Hindi in the United Nations.

In the first clip of the video, Rahul Gandhi can be heard saying: "If you want to talk to the people of the rest of the world, be it the people of America, the people of Japan, or the people of England, then Hindi will not work there. Only English will work."

In the subsequent clip, PM Modi can be heard speaking on the diversity of India.

A Facebook user shared the video. "The difference is clear. Rahul Gandhi is questioning the Hindi language in India and PM Modi enhances the country's respect by speaking Hindi at the UN," read the English translation of the caption.

Click here to see the post.

NewsMeter found that Rahul Gandhi never questioned the relevance Hindi language. We ran a keyword search and found a full version of Rahul Gandhi's speech published by the official YouTube channel of the Congress party on 19 December 2022. According to the caption, the speech was delivered in Alwar, Rajasthan, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

After watching the speech, we found he spoke about languages from 7.45 minutes to 10.45 minutes time mark. He can be heard, saying, "BJP leaders speak against the English language, but their children, be it of Amit Shah, their Chief Ministers, MLAs, and MPs, go to English medium school. But they speak against English because they don't want the children of poor, farmers and laborers to learn English…"

At around the 9.37-minute time mark, he said, "I am not saying don't read Hindi. Tamil should be read, Hindi should be read, Marathi should be read, and all the languages of India should be read. If you want to talk to the people of the rest of the world, be it the people of America, the people of Japan, or the people of England, then Hindi will not work there. Only English will work. We want the son of the poorest farmer in India should compete with the youth of America and defeat him in his language. This is our approach."

From this, it is evident that the viral clip does not show the portion where Rahul Gandhi said that Hindi and other Indian languages should also be read.

We conclude that Rahul Gandhi never questioned the relevance of the Hindi language. Hence, the claim is misleading.

We also searched for the viral clip of PM Modi and found an extended version of it published on PM's official YouTube channel on 25 September 2021. The video is titled "PM Modi's address United Nations General Assembly (Hindi Version)."