2014 image of Seva Bharti workers shared as RSS relief work during recent Kerala floods - Alt News
Pooja Chaudhuri
4th September 2018 / 9:21 pm
“केरल में संघ लगभग 3800 राहत शिविर का संचालन कर 700000 बाढ़ पीड़ितों को प्रतिदिन मदद दे रहा है। बड़े खरनाक हैं ये भगवा आतंकी !!! (In Kerala, Sangh is operating approximately 3,800 relief camps which are helping 7 lakh flood victims every day. These saffron terrorists are very dangerous – translated).” This message was viral on social media with the image of RSS workers allegedly providing relief aid to Kerala flood victims.
An individual user on Facebook अरबिन्द कुमार गुप्ता (Arbind Kumar Gupta) shared the image which was reshared 2,700 times.
Another Facebook user Sandeep Gharat shared the image with the identical claim on a group called I Am Proud India.
Gharat has shared the post in three other groups – We Support Narendra Modi 2019, Once Again Modi Raj 2019 and Narendra Modi Fans. It has a combined share count of over 1,100 and has been liked nearly 4,100 times.
It was also shared by one RJ Pamod Gupta and attracted 1,000 shares and over 2,400 likes. A couple of users on Twitter also circulated the image with the accompanying claim, including a user who identifies himself as an RSS worker and another who is followed by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal’s Office.
Alt News reverse searched the image on Google and found that it was published in 2014 by a website called samvada.org in an article titled – ‘RSS Swayamsevaks helps devotees during ‘Punarjani Guha crawling festival’ in Thiruvilwamala Kerala’. The website samvada.org is associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
According to the report, during the state’s annual Tunnel Crawling Festival, ‘Seva Bharati’ workers offered food, water and shelter to the people at Punarjani Guha.
As floods wreaked havoc across districts in Kerala, several old images and videos of unrelated RSS work poured in on social media. Alt News has debunked them several times in the past. Circulating images with a false narrative during a disaster is an insensitive tactic to garner commendation.
Pooja Chaudhuri is a senior editor at Alt News.
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