An audio clip purportedly featuring the voice of Indian industrialist Lakshmi Mittal speaking against the idea of secularism in India and endorsing the concept of a state religion is being widely shared on social media. Let’s verify the authenticity of the claim.
Claim: Audio clip of Lakshmi Mittal speaking against the idea of secularism in India and endorsing the concept of state religion.
Fact: The person speaking in the audio clip is not Lakshmi Mittal. The same was confirmed by Mittal’s company, ArcelorMittal, in 2019. Therefore, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Upon investigation, we discovered that the audio clip has been circulating on social media since 2019. We extensively searched for news reports from that period to determine whether Lakshmi Mittal made any statements aligning with the ideas expressed in the audio clip, whether in off-the-record conversations or interviews. However, we could not find any such evidence or reports supporting the claims made in the audio clip.
We then proceeded to compare the voice in the audio clip with several instances of other talks (here & here) by Mittal. During interviews, Mittal has occasionally faced difficulty in pronouncing the “sh” sound (represented by ʃ), as observed in words like “admission” and “decision.” However, in the viral video, the person does not appear to exhibit any difficulty in pronouncing the “sh” sound.
Furthermore, the viral audio claims that Mittal’s grandfather was the second-largest steel manufacturer during the British era. However, there is no concrete evidence to support this assertion. In fact, it was Mittal’s father, Mohan Lal, who initiated the family’s steel business in the 1950s.
When the video went viral, the official Twitter handle of Lakshmi Mittal’s company, ArcelorMittal, explicitly denied that the voice in the viral video belongs to Lakshmi Mittal.
To sum it up, the audio being shared is not of Lakshmi Mittal. It is falsely attributed to him, presenting him as speaking against the idea of secularism in India and supporting the concept of a state religion.
