A video depicting Delhi's 'vada pav girl' in tears, accusing officials of harassment, is being shared with a false communal narrative - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 14, 2024
A video capturing a ‘vada pav’ vendor in tears has gained significant traction, accompanied by an assertion that she is a Hindu Street vendor who faced harassment from a group of Muslims demanding she shut down her pushcart. This article seeks to fact-check the validity of the claims put forth in the post.
Claim: Video depicting a Hindu Street vendor crying following harassment from a group of Muslims demanding she close her pushcart.
Fact: According to reports, the woman in the video complains about officials demanding money. None of the news reports mentioned any harassment by Muslims. Even in a video shared by the woman, she complains about the police demanding money, with no mention of harassment by Muslims. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
The widely circulated video features Chandrika Gera Dixit, also known as the renowned ‘vada pav girl’ of Delhi. While it’s accurate that a video of her crying went viral, it’s important to clarify that her tears were not a result of harassment by Muslims, but rather due to mistreatment by MCD officials.
Initially, in the viral video, Chandrika Gera Dixit can be distinctly heard expressing grievances about harassment by both police officers and officials from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. However, the underlying motive driving their actions remains unspecified. The video was originally posted by a food vlogger named ‘foodbowlss’ on Instagram, later garnering widespread attention.
As the video gained widespread attention, numerous news articles covered it, with each report emphasizing her complaints about officials demanding money (here, here, here & here). However, none of these reports mentioned any communal aspect associated with the incident.
Further search led us to a video posted by Dixit, on her Instagram account. In this video, she discusses the relocation of her food cart and mentions police officials demanding substantial sums of money. However, even in this video, she does not make any complaints about harassment by Muslims. If there had been any such harassment, it is reasonable to expect that either the media or she would have mentioned it. However, there are no such reports.
To provide further clarification, FACTLY has contacted Chandrika Gera Dixit via her Instagram account. Upon receiving her response, this article will be updated accordingly.
To sum it up, the video depicting Delhi’s ‘vada pav girl’ in tears, accusing officials of harassment, is being shared with a false communal narrative.