Was Nehru a citizen of London? No, viral claim is false

Hyderabad: A video of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visiting England with his daughter Indira Gandhi is being shared with the claim that "Nehru took Citizenship of London in 1956 and took an oath to remain loyal to the Queen of England."

Several social media users, including journalist and academic Madhu Purnima Kishwar, shared this video. (Archive)

A Facebook user who shared the video wrote, "Nehru took Citizenship of London in 1956 and took oath to be true to the Queen of England. The chapter in History that was never told to anyone. Even I am shocked. In Sept 1946 Nehru took oath as prime Minister of India in the name of QUEEN."

Many have shared the video with similar claims. Click here, here and here to view the posts.

Fact Check

NewsMeter ran a keyword search about Jawaharlal Nehru receiving citizenship of London or England but did not find any reports about the same.

In the video, the voice-over states, "It is my privilege as Chamberlain of this city to offer you both the right hand of fellowship and greet you, Mr. Nehru, as a citizen of London."

Taking a cue from this, we performed a reverse image search of the video's keyframes along with keywords and found the same video posted by the British Pathé titled "London Honours Two Great Premiers (1956)." The video was published on YouTube on 13 April 2014.

The description of the video states that two great Prime Ministers, Mr. Nehru of India and Mr. Holland of New Zealand, were honoured with the "Freedom of the City of London" at the Guildhall.

Further, we ran a keyword search and found on the website of the City of London that Mr. Nehru is the recipient of the Freedom of the City of London award.

We also found a tweet by the verified handle of the City of London that said Sanjiv Chadha, the outgoing regional head of the State Bank of India's UK operations, was honored with the Freedom of the City of London award. It further stated, "The CEO follows in the footsteps of other distinguished Indians, including Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of the Republic of India."

The claim that Jawaharlal Nehru received the citizenship of London and took an oath to remain loyal to the Queen of England is false.