Photo of Sitaram Yechury demanding Indira’s resignation as the JNU Chancellor is being shared with a false narrative.

A photo of Indira Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury is being shared widely on social media with the following narrative – ‘1975, Emergency. Indira Gandhi enters JNU with Delhi Police and beats CPI leader, Sitaram Yechuri who was at that time president of the JNU students union, and forces him to resign and read apology letter for protesting against emergency. This is called Iron Hand dealing with communists. Amit Shah looks saint in front of her’. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post

Claim: Photo of Sitaram Yechury resigning and reading an apology letter in front of Indira Gandhi for protesting against emergency.    

Fact: Sitaram Yechury was not resigning and reading an apology letter in the photo. He was reading a memorandum demanding the resignation of Indira Gandhi as the Chancellor of JNU. Also, the photo was not taken at JNU, but at Indira Gandhi’s residence. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.     

In the comments section of the post, a user has posted the link of an ‘edex Live’ article. The article had the same photo with the following narrative – ‘It was during those dark days, that Communist Party of India leader, Sitaram Yechury, then the President of the JNU Students’ Union led a student march to the then PM Indira Gandhi’s house and while he stood next to her, he read out the reasons why she should step down as the University’s Chancellor. And she stepped down’. The photo can be also found in a ‘Hindustan Times’ article with the following description – ‘Sitaram Yechury as a student leader in JNU reading the memorandum presented by students on Sept 5, 1977, to Indira Gandhi demanding her resignation as chancellor of the university’. More details about the incident can be found here.

A similar image with the actual version of events is available on social media for some time now and can be found here.

To sum it up, the photo of Sitaram Yechury demanding Indira’s resignation as the JNU Chancellor is being shared with a false narrative.

Update: This picture was not taken during the emergency, but was clicked after the emergency, i.e. in September 1977, and after Indira Gandhi’s defeat in 1977 elections. The emergency was declared in June 1975 & officially ended in March 1977.

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