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| - Fact Check: Here's the real story behind Nehru's viral photo with a dog on a plane
A fact check of a story behind Nehru's viral photo with a dog on a plane. The real story is different.
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India Today Fact Check
The dog in the photo is Nehru’s pet Pepi, a golden retriever, which was not imported. The photo was taken when the two were travelling to Kulu-Manali from Delhi in 1961.
Back in July, the row over the “new” national emblem lions atop the new parliament building brought wild cats into the public discourse. A couple of months later, felines are once again in the spotlight.
Following the import of eight cheetahs to India from Namibia, the animals have been used by different political factions and their supporters to either praise or mock the Narendra Modi-led government.
Now, alongside cheetahs, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and a dog have entered the fray. Clapping back at critics of Modi, many shared a photo of Nehru in an aeroplane with a dog juxtaposed with a photo of the plane that flew in the eight African cheetahs.
The contention: If it was okay for Nehru to supposedly import dogs, isn’t it hypocritical for critics to now pour scorn on Modi? This, comparison , however, at least in terms of the photo being shared, is disingenuous. AFWA found that in the photo, the dog was Nehru’s pet, Pepi — who was not an import.
Let’s go through the evidence
When we reverse-searched Nehru’s photo, we found it on Timescontent.com. As per its description on the website, the photo showed Nehru with his pet dog, Pepi, at the Palam airport in New Delhi on January 1, 1961. They were on their way to Kulu-Manali.
MO Mathai, Nehru’s private secretary, mentioned the dog in his book “My Days with Nehru”. Mathai wrote that following the death of the Nehru family pet Lassie, he bought a golden retriever pup from Hoshiarpur, Punjab, in 1955, for the young Indira Gandhi. It was she who christened the dog “Pepita Nichivo”, a Russian name that would soon get shortened to Pepi.
Mathai also wrote of another Nehru family pet called Madhu. She too was a golden retriever. He wrote, “Pepi and Madhu became famous as Nehru’s dogs, and two of the most photographed ones.” And photographed they were. There’s even a photo of former First Lady of the US, Jackie Kennedy, petting Nehru's dog at the PM’s residence in 1962. It’s unclear, however, if the dog in the photo is Pepi or Madhu.
Not the pets’ first tryst with political opposition
Nehru’s pets, of course, did not just receive loving pats from foreign dignitaries. They also became the subject of pointed attacks on Nehru and the Congress party by socialist leaders. In 1963, when JB Kripalani moved the first-ever no-confidence motion on the floor of the Lok Sabha, socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia criticised Nehru’s leadership by comparing India’s poverty with how much Nehru spent on his pets.
In his Parliament speech on August 21, 1963, Lohia said that while daily wage workers earned 12 annas (75 paise) a day and school teachers earned Rs. 2 a day, businessmen managed to make up to Rs. 3 lakh a day. At the same time, Lohia claimed, Nehru’s spent up to Rs. 3 on his dog every day. This censure even made it to the international press. Time magazine’s report on this was titled, “India: The Case of Nehru's Dog”.
(Sumit Kumar Dubey and Pathikrit Sanyal)
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