A digitally altered video is shared with a false claim that Mamata Banerjee walked off stage while the National anthem was being played
A video (here and here) circulating on social media allegedly shows Mamata Banerjee walking off stage during an event before the national anthem had finished. It is being shared with comments like, “How can someone who cannot respect a 52-second national anthem, respect the country?” We will fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Video shows Mamata Banerjee walking off stage while the Indian national anthem ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was being played.
Fact: This is a digitally altered video. In the original video filmed on 23 March 2022 during a program held in Netaji Indoor Stadium, Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee was seen walking off the stage after the national anthem ended. Additionally, the original video features an instrumental version of ‘Jana Gana Mana’, unlike the viral video, which includes the song with female vocals. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
Firstly, we observed that the viral video contains the watermark of a stock image and the video website Getty Images at its centre. On the bottom left side, the video also contains a number that reads ‘1387291347. It is the number assigned to content uploaded on Getty Images.
We then searched for this video on Getty Images using the provided number and found the same. According to the description of this video, it was filmed on 23 March 2022 in Kolkata, India, at the Netaji Indoor Stadium during a program for the widow pension scheme.
This is a slightly longer version of the viral video, which shows the end portion of the Indian National Anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana,’ being played as an instrumental version. In contrast to the viral video, where a female singer’s rendition of ‘Jana Gana Mana’ is played in the background, this version features the instrumental version.
In this video, we can see Mamata Banerjee leaving the stage after the National anthem ends at around 12 seconds into the video. This makes it clear that she left the stage after the national anthem ended, not midway, as portrayed in the viral video.
Furthermore, we searched the internet using relevant Bengali language keywords and found live streams and video clips of this event from 23 March 2022 (here, here, here, and here). A few of these were streamed by media outlets like Dristhi Bhongi and ETV Bharath West Bengal.
In the original video, we found that the National anthem’s instrumental was played by a brass band, unlike the viral video. It starts at the 29-minute 39-second mark in the video. We found that Mamata Banerjee did not leave the stage midway while the national anthem was being played.
Also, the visuals that appear at the end portion of the anthem in this video match exactly with the stock video we found on Getty Images, which has the same number ‘1387291347’ that was seen in the viral video. This makes it clear that the viral video was edited with a vocal version track of the National anthem to make it appear as though Mamata Banerjee disrespected it by leaving midway.
To sum up, a digitally altered video is shared with a false claim that Mamata Banerjee walked off stage while the National anthem was being played.