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| - Fact Check: Viral Audio Claiming Lakshmi Mittal Criticized India’s Secularism is Fake
Our investigation has revealed that the audio clip going viral in the name of industrialist Lakshmi Mittal, criticising India’s secularism and advocating making Hinduism the state religion of India, is fake.
- By: Abhishek Parashar
- Published: Dec 12, 2024 at 03:37 PM
New Delhi (Vishvas News). An audio clip of industrialist Lakshmi Mittal is going viral on social media, where he can be heard allegedly criticising India’s secularism. It is being claimed that he praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi while criticising secularism and calling India a Hindu country. He said that over 99% of the population here is Hindu and therefore, the country’s state religion should also be Hinduism, similar to some other Western countries.
In its investigation, Vishvas News found this claim to be false. The viral audio clip is not of Lakshmi Mittal, and his company Arcelor Mittal has refuted this claim. This fake audio clip previously went viral on social media during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
What is viral?
Many users have also shared this audio clip on Vishvas News tipline number +91 9599299372, claiming that it is of Sunil Mittal.
Several users across different social media platforms have shared this audio clip with the same claim.
Investigation
The viral audio clip is about four minutes long, and Lakshmi Mittal can be heard saying, ” Religion is in trouble. Uh, America has got one. Religion. The Western world has one religion, which is Christianity. The Middle East has got, uh, Islam as their only religion. The East has got Buddhism or Christianity as their religion. It is only India, which is multicultural and multi-religious. We did not thrust. I mean, the independence was thrust upon us by the Muslim League. They wanted a separate state for themselves. And having done that, then it was Nehru’s fault to have declared India as a secular country. Today, 99% of politicians are bending backwards to appease minorities as if there is no other agenda. There is no development, nothing else. The first thing that they started is we are a secular state. Who the @#*** cares you are a secular state or not? Britain is not a secular state. They are a developed country. Germany is not a secular state. They are a developed country. Italy, France, Canada, America. Name it. What has secularism got us? Hindu by nature is secular. That’s why 1000 years we have been ruled by Marudas. We don’t need to be preached and taught secularism by these, Johnny, it is all a question of, uh, you know, suppressing the majority. And when they find a messiah and Modi, why is everybody today? Uh, you know, up in arms. This is one community which has been subjugated, has been humiliated, has been massacred. Our temples were destroyed, our books destroyed. This is an old civilization. 10,000 years old. I have friends in the UK, Germany and Italy. I was working in Munich for 3.5 years, and everybody in Europe appreciates and accepts the fact that when you guys had universities in India, we were out, cavemen out here. India was left behind because the British ruled us at the time when the Industrial Revolution was happening. World war. My grandfather was one of the second largest steel manufacturers in the country after Tatas. And we were so heavily restricted by the British government not to allow, not to manufacture more. We were not even allowed to manufacture screws and nails which used to be imported from Sheffield and Manchester and Bristol. That is what India has come out for. This is the first Prime Minister. We have had who looks at India first and we are accusing him. He happens to be Hindi, so be it. It’s a 10,000-year-old country. It is Hindus who belong here, wherever else. Where will they go? There are close to 70 80 countries that are Christian and Catholic. There are 50 countries which are Islamic. Show me one Hindu country. If one does not Hinduism here, everybody has a problem here. Nobody goes and says the same thing to the Vatican, to Saudi Arabia, to America. Why only here and if that wasn’t the case, could we be focusing on development? We are not. Because half the time the fighters, anything that it has is seen with the prism of Hinduism.”
The entire conversation is a critique of India’s secularism, advocating Hinduism to be declared as the state religion. Lakshmi Mittal, the executive chairman of ArcelorMittal, a global steel giant, generally refrains from engaging in political rhetoric.
In this context, Mittal’s alleged criticism of India’s secularism and constitutional democracy seems unfounded. If such claims were true, they would have been widely reported, but no credible sources have mentioned any such statement from him.
However, upon searching, we found a rebuttal from the official X handle of ArcelorMittal. The statement read, “An audio file is circulating online claiming to be remarks on Indian politics and religion by our Chairman and CEO. We do not know who the speaker is, but it is not Mr Lakshmi Mittal.”
We found Lakshmi Mittal’s video interview in other news reports, and the voice in the video does not match the viral audio clip. This also confirms that this audio clip is fake.
To check the possibility of the audio clip in the viral video being AI-generated, we checked it using the True Media Tool. However, the analysis report confirms the minimal possibility of the audio clip being AI-manipulated.
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we contacted Abhijeet Parashar, an expert in AI and machine learning. He explained, ‘The analysis of AI detection tools depends on several factors. If these tools fail to detect manipulation in multimedia, it does not necessarily mean that the media is original.‘ He added that misinformation is often spread using imitated voices, and in such cases, tools may not detect the manipulation because the audio resembles a natural human voice.
Conclusion: Our investigation has revealed that the audio clip going viral in the name of industrialist Lakshmi Mittal, criticising India’s secularism and advocating making Hinduism the state religion of India, is fake.
- Claim Review : akshmi Mittal Criticized India's Secularism
- Claimed By : Tipline User
- Fact Check : False
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