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| - Fact Check: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's tweet offering to absorb Sri Lanka into India is FAKE
The viral screenshot of the tweet was digitally altered. Jaishankar did not tweet anything of that sort regarding Sri Lanka.
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India Today Fact Check
The viral screenshot of the tweet was digitally altered. Jaishankar did not tweet anything of that sort regarding Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan foreign minister GL Peiris announced on April 20 that India will give the troubled island nation an additional $500 million in financial assistance to buy fuel. This will be the second $500 million India has provided in fuel credit to a Sri Lanka government battling the country's devastating financial crisis.
Amid this, a screenshot of a tweet purportedly from India’s external affair minister Dr. S Jaishankar has gone viral. The viral image claims that India wants to make Sri Lanka part of itself, in exchange for solving its economic crisis.
This supposed tweet read, “If the people of Sri Lanka are agreeable, India is willing to proclaim that Sri Lanka becomes a State of India.”
It also said, “As a result, India will be able to solve the gas, fuel, milk food, fertilizer and many other essential goods problems that the country is facing. Additionally, India will look after all the future issues of Sri Lanka too,” adding, “India is extending an hand of survival to people of Sri Lanka.”
The viral image of the tweet features Jaishankar’s profile photo and the verified blue tick. Several Facebook and Twitter users shared it, apparently believing it to be a genuine statement from the Indian External Affairs Minister.
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that the tweet was fake. Jaishankar made no such claim.
The viral posts are archived here and here.
AFWA probe
Looking carefully at the viral screenshot we noticed some striking anomalies.
First of all, the language in the supposed tweet. There are glaring grammatical, syntactical, and punctuation errors that are hardly expected from the Twitter account of an Indian External Affairs Minister who had also served the nation as a diplomat.
For example, there is no comma between the words “milk” and “food”. Sentences like “If the people of Sri Lanka are agreeable, India is willing” or “an hand of survival to people of Sri Lanka” are grammatically incorrect.
Second, we know that a tweet can contain maximum of 280 characters. The text in the viral screenshot, however, contains 390 characters — this is technically not possible.
We looked for archived tweets of Dr. S Jaishankar in the Wayback machine and did not find the viral tweet. Had he shared this, it would have been reflected in the archives.
Finally, the Centre clarified that the viral image was digitally altered. The official handle of the High Commission of India in Colombo, Sri Lanka tweeted, “We have seen a morphed image purported to be from the Twitter handle of External Affairs Minister @DrSJaishankar. This is completely fake and fabricated. We strongly deny its malicious contents. Such mischievous attempts by desperate parties will never succeed in affecting the close, friendly and age-old ties between #India and #SriLanka.”
We have seen a morphed image purported to be from the twitter handle of External Affairs Minister @DrSJaishankar. This is completely fake and fabricated. We strongly deny its malicious contents. Such mischievous attempts by desperate parties will never succeed in affecting (1/2) — India in Sri Lanka (@IndiainSL) April 20, 2022
We also looked for news reports regarding the External Affairs minister making such a statement and found nothing of this sort was reported by any news outlet.
Thus, we concluded that such a statement was not issued by Jaishankar on his Twitter account, or anywhere else for that matter.
(with inputs from Yash Mittal)
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