A video clip featuring Indian politician Smriti Irani has recently been circulating on social media. In the clip, Irani appears to be speaking in parliament, making derogatory comments about goddess Durga. Through this fact-check article, we will find out the facts behind this claim.
Claim: Smriti Irani made derogatory comments about the goddess Durga in a parliamentary speech.
Fact: The viral video is taken out of context from Smriti Irani’s actual 2016 speech, in which she was reading from an alleged pamphlet from JNU students. Therefore, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
We began our fact check with a search on the internet using relevant keywords to learn more about the video in question. This search led to the original video of Smriti Irani’s parliamentary speech from 2016, located on the official YouTube channel of Bharatiya Janata Party, titled “Smt. Smriti Irani’s speech in reply to debate on JNU and Rohith Vemula issues – 24.02.2016”.
It was discovered that the viral video was a clip taken from the timestamp 31:50 of the original speech, and hence, the context of the comments was missing in the viral video. Prior to the clipped section, from 31:20 in the original speech, Irani can be heard discussing a statement released by the SC/ST and Minority students of JNU in 2014 and reading the statement aloud. The comments in the viral clip were made by Irani but were made while reading out from an alleged pamphlet by JNU students. Therefore, the viral video has been clipped out of context from the original speech.
To sum up, the claim that Smriti Irani made derogatory comments about goddess Durga is misleading as the viral video has been clipped out of context from her original parliamentary speech.
