The 1982 ASIAN games stamp issued by Indira Gandhi doesn’t have any communal angle
Claim
Indira Gandhi issued this stamp in 1982 at the time of Asian Games. This postage stamp depicts an Ottoman Muslim wrestler beating a Hindu top striker. You can think from this what is the mentality of Congress and how much the Congress hates Sanatan Dharma.
Rating
Explanation
In the viral post shared by the user namely ‘C Srinivas M P’ there is a stamp where we can see two wrestlers fighting with each other. The stamp is on an yellow background and has written ‘Bharat’ in Hindi and ‘India’ in English along with the number 100 on it. Along with this, we can also see ‘IX Asian Games, Delhi 1982’ written on one side of the stamp.
#Indira #Gandhi Issued this Stamp in 1982 at the time of Asian game. This Postage Stamp depicts an Ottoman Muslim wrestler beating a Hindu top Striker…
You can think from this what is the mentality of #Congress and how much the khongress hate Sanatan Dharma… pic.twitter.com/NVUAIbSmrq— अखण्डभारत ❤️ (@Sarkar_sandyy) July 17, 2021
This stamp was shared with a claim that Indira Gandhi had issued it during the time of the Asian Games depicting an Ottoman Muslim wrestler beating a Hindu top striker. The user further added that this shows how much Congress hates Sanatan Dharma. This same post was also shared by some users in previous years and can be seen here and here. Come let’s check the authenticity of this viral claim.
What’s the truth?
When we started our research using the simple Google reverse image process, we found that particular wrestling stamp on the website of the Olympic Council of Asia along with many other stamps. If you look closer, you can see a stamp inspired by the Mahabharata showing an archery scene. Thus, we found that the viral postal stamp is not the only postal stamp that was launched to commemorate the 9th Asian game, there were other postal stamps as well.
Subsequently, we searched further and found a website that has collection and information about the stamps namely, “iStampGallery.Com.” The website stores the archives of the postage stamps online with all the details.
According to the information on the website, “the stamp depicts a painting on a wrestling bout. The scene is laid in the golden ground with fowering trees and plants. The Persian influence is predominant on the style of the painiting. The work is executed in the Mughal style of the early 17th century and is propably a copy of the Persian original. This painting is done by Janaki is available on National Museum, NewDelhi.”
Moreover, it also provides the information of the designer of the stamp namely, “A. Ramachandran” on the basis of the transparency obtained through the National Museum, New Delhi.
However, there is no mention or description of the players depicted in the stamp regarding their religion or caste. When you have a closer look at the stamp image, you can notice that both the wrestlers have sikha(Tiki) which is seen mainly among Brahmins and temple priests.
Thus, the claim stating that a Muslim wrestler is knocking down a Hindu/brahmin wrestler appears to be falsely made up as the conclusion.
Likewise, we also got our hands on the stamp issued during the same 9th Asian Games at 1982 depicting the scene from Mahabharatha and another stamp showing an elephant logo for your reference.
We also searched the stamp in the artist website namely, “Art of Ramachandran.com”and we saw the same with many other stamps which can be seen in a slide show.
The above all evidence proves that, the stamp doesn’t portray anyone denoting any particular religion. So, it’s fabricated story circulated on social media to disrupt the communal harmony.
Conclusion:
Therefore, we conclude that the stamp claimed showing a Muslim man knocking down a Hindu is an assumption rather not the truth. In reality, there is no proof for the caste or religion to which either the two men belong.
