Is it Jinnah shaking hands with Savarkar in the viral photo?
Claim
The tweet in Hindi roughly translates to “To the traitors of the country…Stooge of the East India Company#Jinna and #Savarkar pieces of india holding hands in 1942 on the discussion of doing meeting in lahore//@BJP4India of #ISI pakistani Evidence of betrayal of spies Have met
Rating
Explanation
An old black and white image of the former President of the Hindu Mahasabha, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is seen shaking hands with an unknown man who is claimed to be Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah is widely shared on all social media platforms with various captions. The above claims are done by the well-known former cricketer namely Kriti Azad on his Twitter page. Similar tweets are shared by another user which can be seen here.
Earlier, on 6 May 2018, Sanjiv Bhatt former IPS Officer also tweeted similarly claiming that “Hindu Mahasabha of Savarkar and Muslim League of Jinnah, opposed the Quit India call given by Mahatma Gandhi. The two friends and political allies, preferred to join hands with the British, under the garb of the ‘pragmatic politics’. Their descendants can’t do without each other.”
Come, let’s see if the claims are actually true.
Hindu Mahasabha of Savarkar and Muslim League of Jinnah, opposed the Quit India call given by Mahatma Gandhi. The two friends and political allies, preferred to join hands with the British, under the garb of the ‘pragmatic politics’.
Their descendants can’t do without eachother. pic.twitter.com/fns94LPlfa
— Sanjiv Bhatt (IPS) (@sanjivbhatt) May 6, 2018
What is the truth?
When we started our research with the simple reverse image process, we came across the event “Cripps Mission” which is repeatedly popping along with the image.
Taking that as a cue, we went on to search more about the Cripps Mission and articles related to that particular time of history.
Eventually, we found a video on the 1942 Cripps Mission that happened in Delhi in the month of March, when British Labour party minister Stafford Cripps met with various Indian leaders. In the video Hindu Mahasabha president Vinayak Savarkar can be seen at exactly 1:32 minutes. The black and white video was uploaded by Nehru Memorial Museum and Library on YouTube in October 2013 with the caption, “Cripps Mission, 1942”.
Moreover, we were also able identify the unknown man in the viral picture with the same clothes in this video. He is none other than Stafford Cripps who led this “Cripps Mission” to India.
Futher when we intensified our research, we found the same image uploaded by the research scholar Anuj Dhar in his twitter page. To this tweet, Vikram Sampath, who wrote two of Savarkar’s biographies, said “This is such a stupid argument! The picture is of Stafford Cripps welcoming the Hindu Mahasabha delegation for talks in 1942 (before Quit India!). Mahasabha was the only party that opposed Cripps’s mission. Nehru & Azad had firmed association & Nehru was to be a defence minister.”
Similarly, we can see that some twitter users have shared the same image with the different caption. The tweet can be seen here.
Finally, we got our hands on the same viral image of Savarkar meeting Cripps in March 1942 published in the book ‘Savarakar and His Times (1950)’ authored by Dhananjay Keer.
On viewing the book ‘Savarkar and His Times (1950)’ on Archive.org, we found the same photo which was little dark between page number 260 to 261. The photo of Savarkar meeting Cripps is published with the caption of the photo reading, ‘Savarkar and Cripps’.
Comparison of both the pictures
While we ran a comparison of the two pictures, we can clearly say that, they both are same. The only difference we can visibly notice is one is in darkened version from the book and the viral picture is slightly in lighter version.
Thus, the person standing opposite Veer Savarkar in the photograph was undoubtedly identified as none other than Sir Stafford Cripps, who led the Cripps Mission which was a failed attempt held on March 1942 by the British government in order to obtain the support of Indian cooperation regarding the British war efforts in 2nd World war.
Conclusion:
Thus, we conclude from the above information that, the viral image circulated in the social media claiming Savarkar shaking hands with Jinnah is misleading and the person whom he actually met was Stafford Cripps.
Nowadays, there are more such people in social media delibrately spreading false claims with some political motives.
Proof Links
