West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is making headlines again, this time for her statement on Chandrayaan. Now a video of her has gone viral, where she can be seen addressing a public meeting in Bengali. Some video clips of less than 10 seconds of her speech are going viral. When we fact checked this video, our investigation revealed that this video was a small part of his entire speech, which was being viral with false claims.
What is the claim with the viral video?
In fact, many users are rapidly sharing a video on X, formerly Twitter, in which the Chief Minister can be heard saying, "Mahabharata... was written by Kazi Nazrul Islam". These videos have been shared on X by users like @PoliticalKida, @MeghUpdates and @BefittingFacts. The video shared by PoliticalKida was seen by more than 35 thousand people, the video by MeghUpdates was seen by about 4 lakh 40 thousand people, while the video by BefittingFacts was seen by 6 lakh 54 thousand people. This video of Mamta Banerjee reached millions of people and has been shared by thousands. Even before this, a video of Banerjee had gone viral in which she had said that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had gone to the moon and had recently taken the name of Bollywood actor Rakesh Roshan instead of Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma in her speeches.
India TV did fact check
When we started searching on Google with the keywords 'Mamata Banerjee' and 'Nazrul Islam', some news related to this came up. During the search, we came across news from Zee News where Mamta's same statement was written and a link to the video of @MeghUpdates was given. In this news, we came to know that Mamata Banerjee had given this statement while addressing the TMCP Foundation Day function. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had given the speech which is going viral at the TMCP Foundation Day function, that public meeting was covered by some news channels and websites and has written about her entire speech. When news websites transcribed Mamata's speech in full, the real truth of the viral claim started coming to light.
According to the news published on the Times Now website, Mamta Banerjee said at the TMCP foundation day function, "Only by studying, one does not learn in the true sense. It is also necessary to have a big heart. Read and understand what our great men have written. Read and learn what Rabindranath wrote, read and learn what Vivekananda wrote, read and learn what Nazrul wrote, read and learn what Birsa Munda wrote... Read and learn what Panchanan Burma wrote. ..Mahabharata….Nazrul Islam wrote, Adopt Quran, Puranas, Vedas, Vedanta, Bible, Tripitaka, Zend-Avesta and holy texts, read as much as possible." It was proved that the claim being made in the viral video was a small excerpt from Mamata's speech which was being made viral with a misleading claim.
The original video of the speech
When we came to know that Mamata Banerjee had given this speech at the TMCP Foundation Day function, we checked the official YouTube channel of Trinamool Congress. This video was streamed live on Trinamool Congress's YouTube channel AITC Official on 28 August 2023. When we skipped this entire video and listened to the part of Mamata Banerjee's speech, the truth started coming out. In this video, from the 2:51:42 time mark, Mamata Banerjee is saying in Bengali, "So, I would tell all of you to read and learn about Rabindranath, read and learn about Vivekananda, read and learn about Nazrul Know more, read and know about Birsa. Read and know about Munda, Raghunath Murmu, read and know about Matua Thakur, read and know about Panchanan Burma of Rajbanshi... Mahabharata..." (Mamata pauses for a moment here and then the next sentence says) "Nazrul Islam wrote, 'Read the Quran, Puranas, Vedas, Vedanta, Bible, Tripitaka, Granth Saheb, Zend-Avesta... as much as you want.'
In the latter part of her speech, the Bengal Chief Minister attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Center and also recited other poems of Kazi Nazrul Islam and Rabindranath Tagore.
Qazi Nazrul Islam was born in 1899 in Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal. He was a Bengali rebel poet who dedicated his entire life to awakening the masses to fight for India's independence. Nazrul wrote many poems about human rights and communal unity. Islam is also known as the national poet of Bangladesh for his contributions.
Therefore, in the fact check of India TV, it came to light that Mamata Banerjee's speech was wrongly edited. The Trinamool Congress chief in his keynote speech urged the public to read the Mahabharata and later recited lines from a poem written by Kazi Nazrul Islam. The claim being made along with the viral video is completely misleading.
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