An old photo is doing rounds on social media which was also shared by Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai which claims to show the then-Prime Minister of India forcing then-JNUSU president and now CPI leader Sitaram Yechury to read out an apology letter to her during the Emergency in 1975.
The caption in the picture says that Gandhi had brought police with her to JNU and proceeded to beat up Yechury for protesting against the Emergency, before forcing an apology out of him.
Check out the post:
Folks is this true @SitaramYechury ? pic.twitter.com/kS5fqAeYi2
— Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) January 10, 2020
Pai, however, is not the first person to have shared this photo, which has been doing the rounds on social media for a while. Many others have also shared the photo with the same caption in the wake of the recent violent clashes at JNU.
Fact Check:
Claim 1: As per a media report and a reverse check on the photo, it was found that the same photo in an article titled “When JNU Students Forced Indira Gandhi To Resign” on a website called India Resists.
The caption along with the photo said that it was from September 1977 and identified both Indira Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury as the people in the photo. It further credited the photo to Hindustan Times.
Claim 2: Further, the caption suggests that Yechury was, in fact, reading a memorandum presented by students to demand Gandhi’s resignation as Chancellor of the university.
on running a Google search with keywords Sitaram Yechury, Indira Gandhi and Hindustan Times, we came across an interview of Yechury published by the newspaper where the same photo had been used.
A copy by IANS also talks about the incident where the JNUSU forced Gandhi to hand in her resignation after the reading of the memorandum and some sloganeering. She quit her post the next day. The same anecdote is shared by Professor Chaman Lal, who was the author of the post on the website India Resists.
Moreover, the CPI(M) website also confirms that Yechury was in fact elected as President of JNU Students’ Union thrice during one year (1977-78), which also matches the date given by Hindustan Times in their photo caption.
Final Verdict
Therefore, it is clear that the photo shared by Pai bears a fake claim and has no basis in truth
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