At a time when Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav is being heavily criticised for glorifying Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and the architect of India’s partition, the leftist propaganda ‘fact-check’ website AltNews decided to come to his rescue.
On November 9, 2021, AltNews published an article to unequivocally conclude that Akhilesh Yadav’s Jinnah statement was ‘fake news’ as it was misrepresented and taken out of context.
AltNews claimed that Yadav did not claim Muhammad Ali Jinnah got India freedom as he had not mentioned his name separately but with that of Sardar Patel and others.
The archived version of the AltNews report can be viewed here.
No sooner did AltNews ‘fact-check’ Akhilesh’s Jinnah statement, the ultra-left propaganda website The Wire also followed suit. On November 11, it published the ‘fact-check’ done by Alt News, obliquely endorsing the latter’s claim. The archived version of The Wire report can be viewed here.
What is interesting here is that in their haste to give a clean chit to the Samajwadi Party chief, AltNews and The Wire landed up admitting that Akhilesh Yadav indeed made the very remark he is being criticised for.
As per the logic by Alt News and Wire, praising Jinnah becomes ok if you include his name among actual freedom fighters of India.
A controversy had erupted after Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav glorified Muhammad Ali Jinnah while addressing a party rally during the Samajwadi Vijay Rath Yatra on October 31. The meeting was organized at Hardoi district in UP where the Samajwadi Party Chief was seen praising Jinnah.
On the pretext of remembering Sardar Patel, Akhilesh Yadav said, ‘Sardar Patel used to know the land, he used to understand the land so he made his decisions and that is why he is known as the Iron man Of India. Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jinnah, all came out of the same institution. They all studied at the same institute, they became barristers and gave freedom to India.’
Soon after Akhilesh Yadav started being widely criticised for his controversial statement, AltNews rushed in to defend the Samajwadi Party leader and paint him as a victim of BJP’s insidious propaganda. It cited tweets posted by BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya and Kanchan Gupta to claim that Akhilesh Yadav’s statement was ‘taken out of context’.
AltNews logic: Gives clean chit to Akhilesh Yadav as he mentioned Jinnah’s name along with others and not individually
AltNews claimed that Amit Malviya had shared a cropped video claiming that the SP chief talked of Muhammad Ali Jinnah getting freedom for India. They said that on October 31, news agency ANI posted a video of Yadav’s full speech, where the remarks can be heard in their entirety, wherein Yadav was heard taking Jinnah’s name alongside Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mahatma Gandhi. Saying so Alt News claimed that “during his speech, Yadav did not mention Jinnah solely in the context of India’s freedom struggle. His statement has been clipped and is being circulated out of context”.
According to AltNews, Akhilesh Yadav first mentions Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mahatma Gandhi in context to India’s independence movement, followed by Jinnah. However, this initial portion has been cut out of the viral video, wrote Alt News fact-checking the SP chief’s statement, concluding that Yadav’s statement had been clipped and circulated out of context.
Basically, if we go with AltNews and The Wire’s logic, since Yadav did not mention Jinnah’s name solely in the context of India’s freedom struggle, but mentioned it along with that of Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, it qualifies as ‘fake news’. According to these websites, if Akhilesh Yadav did not mention Jinnah’s name exclusively he did not mention it at all.
However, there is an underlying problem here with AltNews’ ‘fact-check’. Just because Akhilesh Yadav cites Sardar Patel and others names first, it does not mean he did not mention Jinnah.
Firstly the problem with the argument presented by AltNews and further endorsed by The Wire is that while calling it ‘fake news’, these leftist websites inadvertently agreed that Akhilesh Yadav did name Muhammad Ali Jinnah, hailing him as a hero of India’s freedom movement. Secondly, it is problematic itself that they claim that Jinnah got India independence. He did not. He merely divided India on communal lines.
Furthermore, despite studying in the same university, Jinnah divided the country, while Sardar Patel united it.
It is noteworthy here that days after Yadav’s statement, his alliance partner, Om Prakash Rajbhar, the chief of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party also praised the father of Pakistan saying that the partition of India could have been prevented if Jinnah was allowed to become the first prime minister of the country.
Journalist: Akhilesh Yadav said Jinnah got freedom for the nation. Do you agree?
— Arun Pudur (@arunpudur) November 11, 2021
Omprakash Rajbhar: I agree, if he was made PM of India we wouldn't have had partition of the nation.
Al Taqqiya Thoo Checkers will say this is a lie too. pic.twitter.com/bjaaNzruS3
Samajwadi Party chief and his political allies seem to have forgotten that Jinnah not only spearheaded the partition of India, but he also instigated riots and massacres to satisfy his power lust and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Indians.
As the row over the Samajwadi Party(SP) leader’s remark raged, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath launched a scathing attack on Akhilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party for the glorification of the founder of Pakistan who had spearheaded India’s partition.
CM Yogi further said that Akhilesh Yadav’s divisive mindset was revealed when he compared Jinnah to Sardar Patel. He said, “This kind of divisive mindset will not be accepted by the people of India”. He added, “This is Talibani mindset which always believes in dividing people, first he had tried to separate the social Talibans (radicals) on different grounds and when his every intention to create divide failed, he started insulting great men”.
Yadav on his part hit out at his detractors, asking them to read history books again.
In the meanwhile, a case has been filed against Akhilesh Yadav for praising Jinnah on the orders of a court in Bareilly. The court issued the order to register a case against the SP chief on a complaint filed by advocate Virendra Gupta. Gupta had filed a complaint with police, but after the police refused to register the case, he had approached the court. Taking cognizance of the same, the ACJM court ordered the police to register a case against Akhilesh Yadav.
