Several posts (here, here, and here), accompanying a video clip of BJP national President and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, are widely circulating on social media platforms. In the clip, he is allegedly heard stating, ‘this country should be divided into two parts, South India and North India’ (translated from Hindi to English). Through this article, let’s verify the video shared in these posts.
Claim: Video of Amit shah saying, “this country should be divided into two parts, South India and North India”.
Fact: The original video has been edited between timestamps 02:41:22 to 02:41:25 and is being shared out of context to spread misinformation. Originally, Amit shah said that the Congress’s policy is to divide the country. On 20 March 2024, Amit Shah participated in the News18 Rising Bharat summit. During the summit, Shah was asked various questions, and in response to one question, he stated, ‘the people of the country seem to believe that it is Congress policy to divide the country into two parts, South India, and North India. But Rahul Baba, don’t worry, now the BJP is so powerful that the Congress won’t be able to divide the country again. BJP will never allow the country to be divided. It cannot happen’. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Upon careful observation of the viral video, we can notice Amit Shah holding a mic with the ‘News18’ logo. Taking a cue from this observation, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet. This search led us to a video uploaded on the official YouTube channel of ‘CNN News18’ on 20 March 2024, titled: ‘PM Modi, Amit Shah, And S Jaishankar LIVE At News18 Rising Bharat Summit 2024 | PM Modi LIVE | N18L’.
Upon careful review of the entire video, we discovered that the original footage was edited between timestamps 02:41:22 to 02:41:25. Originally, the anchor posed the question, ‘Amit Ji, let’s discuss South India, where Modi Ji has focused extensively. In the past two to three months, Modi Ji has visited multiple times. You also hope that this time BJP’s performance will be very good in South India. The first question is a senior Congress leader said that South India should be a separate country. First, I would like to know what you want to say about this.’ In response, Amit Shah stated, “Well, the answer to this should be given by Rahul Ji. So far, the Congress has not condemned the statement made by that leader. The people of the country seem to believe that it is Congress policy to divide the country into two parts, South India, and North India. But Rahul Baba, don’t worry, now the BJP is so powerful that the Congress won’t be able to divide the country again. BJP will never allow the country to be divided. It cannot happen. What are you doing? You are talking about dividing the country into two to win elections” (translated from Hindi to English). Based on this information, it’s clear that the original video has been edited between timestamps 02:41:22 to 02:41:25 and is being shared to spread misinformation.
Additional news reports about the ‘News18 Rising Bharat Summit 2024’ can be found here and here. The official Twitter handle and YouTube channel of Amit Shah’s office also shared this video, which can be found here and here.
To sum it up, a clipped video is being shared out of context falsely claiming that Amit Shah said that India should be divided into South India and North India.
