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  • 2019-07-02 (xsd:date)
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  • No, this video does not show a Kuwaiti singer demanding the construction of a Hindu temple in India (en)
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  • A video has been viewed more than one million times in multiple posts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube published in February 2019 which purport to show a Kuwaiti singer serenading a former Indian foreign minister about the construction of a Hindu temple in India. The clip has been doctored; the original footage has circulated online since at least October 2018; it shows the singer performing a different Indian spiritual song which does not mention a Hindu temple. The 47-second video has been viewed more than 1.3 million times in this Facebook post dated February 13, 2019. It has been shared more than 50,000 times. The post’s Hindi-language caption translates to English as: Sushma Swaraj went to Kuwait recently, Sheikh Mubarak Al-Rashid sang a song in honour of Swaraj and he won our hearts, must watch. The video purports to show Kuwaiti singer Sheikh Mubarak Al-Rashid singing to Sushma Swaraj , an Indian politician and former external affairs minister. In the song, the Sheikh appears to demand the construction of a temple in India for the Hindu god Ram . Below is a screenshot of the misleading post: The lyrics of the Hindi song heard in the video translate to English as: Those who don’t belong to Ram, are not worthy. When will you construct the Ram temple, Ayodhya city is asking the same question. The glory is losing quickly and we need a big battle, and in today’s age the devotees of Lord Ram needs someone like Ram to get going with the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. An extended version of the same song is on YouTube here . It refers to a long-running dispute over the construction of a temple in the Indian city of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is described in this AFP report. The same video has been shared here on Twitter and here on YouTube with a similar claim. The clip has been doctored; the original footage has circulated online since at least October 2018; it shows the singer performing a different Indian spiritual song which does not mention a Hindu temple. A reverse image search on Google using keyframes extracted from the footage using digital verification tool InVid found a similar video posted to Twitter here by Asian News International (ANI), an Indian news agency, on October 30, 2018. The caption of the tweet reads: #Watch: Kuwaiti singer Mubarak Al-Rashid sings the favourite bhajan of Mahatma Gandhi ‘Vaishnav Jan to Tene Kahiye’ during an event in Kuwait, in the presence of EAM Sushma Swaraj. #WATCH : Kuwaiti singer Mubarak Al-Rashid sings the favourite bhajan of Mahatma Gandhi `Vaishnav Jan to Tene Kahiye’ during an event in Kuwait, in the presence of EAM Sushma Swaraj. pic.twitter.com/aKqy1HM2hn — ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2018 In the above video, the singer is singing a traditional Indian spiritual song called ‘Vaishnav Jan to’. Unlike in the doctored video, there is no backing track. Here is a video of another rendition of the same song on YouTube. The lyrics are about the Hindu god Vishnu ; the construction of a temple for the god Ram is not mentioned in the song. Sushma Swaraj visited Kuwait on October 30-31, 2018. Here is a government press release about her visit. Another video of the same performance by the Sheikh, filmed from a different angle, was published here on Twitter by India’s external ministry spokesman on October 31, 2018. Indian media also reported on the performance; for example here in the Economic Times and here in News18. (en)
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