Movie visuals being shared as real footage of Savarkar shot by a British journalist in Andaman jail - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 26, 2020
A post with a video is being shared claiming to be the rare footage showing Savarkar in Andaman jail shot by a British journalist, which was also featured on BBC. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Rare footage of Savarkar in Andaman jail shot by a British journalist.
Fact: The video does not show real Savarkar shot by a British journalist. This video is made by digitally stitching together visuals from the various films made on Savarkar by Prem Vaidya in 1983. These films are available with the films division of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
YouTube search with relevant keywords led us to a 2014 video uploaded on the official channel of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The title of the video reads “Life of Shri Vinayak Damodar Savarkar” and according to the description, the video depicts important events of Savarkar’s life. In this video, at a timestamp 25:08, we can spot exact visuals similar to the one in the post. Also at timestamps 27:29 and 29:45, we can spot visuals similar to the one in the post.
This video is credited to ‘Films Division’ as we can spot the watermark at 1:25 timestamp. Taking a cue from this, search on the website of Films Division under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting website led us to three versions of the films on Savarkar directed by Prem Vaidya in 1983. All these establish that the video in the post does not show real Savarkar but is  a video made by digitally stitching together visuals from the films made on Savarkar by Prem Vaidya. These were not shot by a British journalist.
To sum it up, the visuals from various films depicting life events of Savarkar are shared as footage of Savarkar shot by a British journalist in Andaman jail.