Rahul Gandhi’s faux pas on ‘Satyagraha’ goes viral with missing context

Hyderabad: A video of Rahul Gandhi explaining the meaning of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of “satyagraha” has gone viral on social media.

While Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha espoused seeking truth or holding fast to the truth, Rahul Gandhi, in the viral video, can be heard saying, “Satyagraha meant never leave the path of ‘satta’ (power).”

The official Facebook account of BJP Chhattisgarh shared the video mocking Rahul Gandhi.

Several Twitter users shared the video making fun of Gandhi.

Click here, here, and here to see the posts.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that Rahul Gandhi did make the faux pas, but he corrected it immediately. The viral video is clipped and does not show the full context.

NewsMeter ran a keyword search and found an article by NDTV published on 26 February. It said during a speech on the last day of the Congress party’s 85th plenary session, Rahul Gandhi made a slip of tongue by describing “satyagraha” as the route to “satta” (power). It also mentions that he immediately corrected himself and said it means never leaving the path of ‘satya’ (truth).

Further, we found a longer version of the speech published by the Congress party’s official YouTube channel on 26 February. At around the 35-minute mark, the viral clip appears in the video, but the following frame shows Rahul Gandhi immediately correcting himself.

He can be heard saying, “Mahatma Gandhi used to speak about satyagraha, which meant never leave the path of ‘satta’ (power).” But in the next frame, he corrects himself and says, “Sorry, it means never leaving the path of ‘satya’ (truth).”

He further describes the Congress party as ‘satyagrahi’ (truth seeker) and BJP and RSS as ‘sattagrahi’ (power-hungry).

From this, it is evident that the viral video is clipped and does not show the full context. Hence, we conclude that the video is misleading.