A collage of images is being shared on social media, comparing the situation faced by the poor in 1947 with the present situation in the country. The image indicates that there has been no change in the hardships faced by the poor people in the country since Independence. Let’s check the authenticity of these images.
Claim: Image indicating that hardships faced by the poor in India has not changed from 1947 to 2020.
Fact: The image shown as the situation in 1947, was captured during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. The photo was shot by a famous Indian photojournalist – Raghu Rai, but, it is not related to India. The other image represents the hardships faced by the migrants during the lockdown in 2020. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Photo 1:
On reverse image search of the photo on the top which is marked as from the year ‘1947’, it is found to have been captured during the ‘Liberation war of Bangladesh’ in 1971. This photo was captured by famous Indian photojournalist Raghu Rai. In his magnum photos collection, the same photo can be seen. Also, ‘The Daily Star’, a leading Bangladesh newspaper, has published the interview of Raghu Rai with the same photo and description. So, the photo captioned ‘1947’ in the post is not related to India but is from a refugee camp in Bangladesh during 1971. More information can be read here and here.
Photo 2:
The part of the photo captioned ‘2020’ in the collage is related to the hardships faced by the migrant workers to reach their homes during the COVID-19 lockdown. On reverse image search, it is found that the photo was captured in Lucknow on 22 April 2020, by a ‘Reuters’ photographer in Lucknow. The same photo has been used by other publications by providing the photo credits to ‘Reuters’. These can be read here and here.
To sum it up, while one of the photos is related to the hardships faced by the migrant workers in India in 2020, the other photo that was shot in Bangladesh (1971) is being falsely shared as the situation of India in 1947.
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