Smriti Irani’s ORS talk was misled and mocked by Priyanka Chaturvedi.
Claim
In a recent tweet, Priyanka Chaturvedi, deputy leader and spokesperson-Shivsena says that “At age of 23, Smritiji claims to be next to the Ambassador who introduced ORS( the ghol) to India.”
Rating
Explanation
A tweet has been posted by Priyanka Chaturvedi, MP-Rajya Sabha, ShivSena UBT with a video of an interview given by Smriti Irani, National President of the BJP Mahila Morcha on a YouTube channel. The shared video is seen to have some edited portions and added clips with memes in it. The tweet further says, “Dr Dilip Mahalnabis came up with ORS while working in Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.” And, Priyanka Chaturvedi takes a jibe at Smriti Irani with the edited version of the video. The tweeted video can be seen in the given link below for your reference:
https://t.co/eUfaYKt6pP Just for context, “Dr Dilip Mahalanabis was working in overflowing refugee camps during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war when he came up with ORS, which The Lancet called “the most important medical discovery of the 20th century.’’
But wait, at age of…
— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) July 23, 2023
What is the truth?
The viral video had many edits and memes added to it. So, we checked for the original video in the BeerBiceps channel as the viral video contained the logo of “The Ranveer Show” which is a show run in the said channel. The show is hosted by Ranveer Allahabia in his famous talk show, “The Ranveer Show”.
The original video can be seen here. (watch the timings from 26.47-27.17). In the video, we saw the host asking Smriti Irani “Why did you become a politician”?. For this question, Smriti told “I wanted to change policy. I was a US-AID ambassador to India at WHO. So what popularly…. If I describe the aspect of that job, you see… you see conversations about the ORS ghol.. with zinc. I was the Ambassador who introduced it to India. I was 23 years old.” This was the exact conversation she had with the host of the channel.
But, here you can see the circulated video claiming with a tweet, that “Smritiji claims to be next to the Ambassador who introduced ORS( the ghol) to India.” Instead, we can see the original version, where Smriti Irani clearly states that she was a USAID ambassador at WHO for India where she introduced ORS goal with zinc to India.
In our search, we also found a picture taken in 2005 which shows Smriti Irani distributing Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) on ORS day.
In the podcast, She goes on to talk about her experiences in social work & philanthropy during her early acting career during which Gopinath Munde, a senior politician in Maharashtra, advised her to join politics if she wants to really bring about change as it can come only through legislations and policies.
So, in an exchange for a question about why she wanted to be a politician, Smriti Irani talked about her association with the USAID program which was distributing ORS to the people back then.
A portion of that exchange is clipped to insinuate that Smriti Irani claimed that she was the first person who introduced ORS to India, though she only was talking about the rationale behind her political foray during which she had said “I was the Ambassador who introduced it to India” which is not factually correct if taken in isolation. But with the context it was said, it is evident that the discussion was only about her political entry and she was narrating her life experience.
It should be noted that Dr.Dilip Mahalanabis is credited for pioneering ORS as a treatment for diarrhea which has been adopted as a model by the World Health Organisation as well. So, long before the USAID and WHO initiative which Smriti Irani was part of, ORS was used in India during the 1970s itself.
Conclusion
A video of Smriti Irani from the podcast she did with a popular YouTube channel is clipped and shared with claims that she had claimed she was the first person who introduced ORS in India.
