On Tuesday, March 28, a rumour went viral on social media that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has deleted all his tweets attacking Veer Savarkar. Notably, Rahul Gandhi has already been disqualified as a member of parliament and been asked to vacate his official government bungalow over his comments on the “Modi” community.
Following his conviction and sentencing in the case where he defamed “Modi” surname, Rahul Gandhi said that he will not apologise as he is a Gandhi, and not a Savarkar, taking a dig at Indian freedom fighter Veer Savarkar.
After Rahul Gandhi’s needless attack at Veer Savarkar, his grandson threatened Rahul Gandhi with a lawsuit if he doesn’t apologise for his comments on Savarkar. Following that statement from Savarkar’s grandson, news went viral on social media that Rahul Gandhi has deleted all his tweets on Veer Savarkar.
Several prominent social media handles shared that Rahul Gandhi has deleted all his tweets mentioning Veer Savarkar.
In fact, the images shown below went viral online as several social media users took these to imply that Rahul Gandhi has indeed deleted all his tweets on Savarkar.
However, when OpIndia checked online through Social Blade, we found out that Rahul Gandhi has not deleted any tweet in the last two days, the period when online claims say he deleted his tweets on Savarkar. Even if you check the cached tweets of Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account, you can not find anything on Veer Savarkar that has been deleted from his Twitter account.
However, when OpIndia checked stats on SocialBlade – a website that archives and documents data related to popular social media accounts – we found out that Rahul Gandhi has not deleted any tweet in the last two days, the period when online claims say he deleted his tweets on Savarkar. As one can see in the screenshot below, there is no change in the total number of tweets on 28th March. When OpIndia checked the total number of tweets by Rahul Gandhi at time of publishing this report, it was 6786, which is the same as recorded by SocialBlade, confirming that Rahul Gandhi hasn’t deleted any tweet at the time of publishing this report.
Not just SocialBlade, OpIndia checked in Google Cache too if Rahul Gandhi might have tweeted anything about Savarkar in the past, but no such cache pages appeared. Thus one can safely concluded that Rahul Gandhi hadn’t tweeted anything about Savarkar in past, and that’s why people are unable to find such tweets, which has led them to assume that Rahul Gandhi has deleted those tweets.
In fact, you can’t find any single tweet from Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account on Veer Savarkar at all, whether deleted or not.
From all the evidence available, it seems like Rahul Gandhi hasn’t deleted any tweet on Veer Savarkar, what is more likely is that he never even tweeted on Veer Savarkar, and that is why people can’t find any results now through their searches.
Rahul Gandhi’s maternal great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru signing a “mercy bond”
On September 22, 1923, India’s first Prime Minister, and Rahul Gandhi’s great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, was arrested alongside K Santanam and AT Gidwani for defying British orders and entering the then princely State of Nabha. The British police had arrested several Akalis, who had launched a demonstration in Jaitu in Nabha, on September 14 of that year. They had demanded the reinstatement of Raja Ripdudaman Singh in the Princely State, after he was exiled by the British to Dehradun.
On learning about the incident, Nehru, Santanam, and Gidwani boarded a train to Muktsar and then rode on horseback along with the Akalis to Jaitu. They were immediately handcuffed and lodged in a small cell at the Jaitu police station. The trio was then shifted to Nabha on September 22 morning and locked in district jail. Despite the police offering Nehru immediate release if he deserted his plans of ‘Satyagraha’, a defiant Nehru did not budge. He was arrested soon after.
It was here that the Satyagrahi in Nehru began to wear out. According to Santanam, the cell was small and the roof was covered in mud. No arrangements were made for new clothing, or shower. Nehru poignantly recounted the experience in his Autobiography where he said, “All this time, till the forenoon of next day, when we were finally delivered up at Nabha Gaol, the joint handcuff and the heavy chain kept us company. Neither of us could move at all without the other’s cooperation. To be handcuffed to another day and for a whole night and part of a day is not an experience I would like to repeat.”
A desperate Motilal Nehru had to reach out to the Viceroy to learn about the whereabouts of his son Jawaharlal Nehru. “…The authorities of the Nabha jail suddenly changed their attitude and arrangements were made for our bathing. Our clothes were given to us and friends from outside were allowed to send fruits and other eatables,” Santanam had recalled the change after Motilal Nehru’s intervention.
Motilal Nehru then deputed lawyer K D Malviya, who later became a Cabinet Minister after India’s independence. And surprisingly, Nehru’s sentence was suspended on the same evening. In the words of Professor Chaman Lal, he said, “Nehru was released from the Nabha jail only after he signed a bond that he would never enter the princely state again.” The former Prime Minister knew the case could be later used against him on a later date and therefore wanted to permanently quash it.
