Fact-check: Narendra Modi's remarks on Muslims fact-checked and debunked

In a recent interview, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi denied making divisive remarks targeting Indian Muslims by calling them “infiltrators” and “those who have lots of children” during an election rally.

Modi’s claim is false.

Claim

On May 14, in an interview with the Indian news channel News 18 India, the news anchor asked India’s prime minister why he had used terms like “ghuspethiyo” (infiltrators) as well as “zyada bache wale” (those who have lots of children) for Indian Muslims while delivering a speech.

Modi denied it. “I am shocked,” he said, “Who told you that when I talk about [people] having more children I am only talking about Muslims? This is the situation in poor households in our country as well. They are not able to educate their own children. You can be from any religion but where there is poverty there are more children [in a household].”

He later further added that he neither mentioned Hindus nor Muslims in his speech.

The video had amassed over 113,000 views on YouTube alone, at the time of writing.

Fact

Modi did indeed use the terms “ghuspethiyo” (infiltrators) as well as “zyada bache wale” (those who have lots of children) for Muslims in a political rally last month.

In a speech delivered on April 21, in India’s northwestern state of Rajasthan, Modi alleged that the manifesto of his rival political party Congress was “troubling” as it spoke about the distribution of properties amongst the population, if they come to power.

“Their [Congress] previous administration had said that Muslims would have the right over state properties,” Modi had said, “What does this mean? Who will they distribute these properties amongst? Amongst the zyada bache wale (those who have a lot of children). Amongst the ghuspethiyo (infiltrators). Should your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators? This is what the Congress manifesto says.”

Modi’s remarks are clearly directed at Muslims living in India.

The fact was also corroborated by Abhishek Kumar, a senior fact-checker from Alt News, an independent fact-checking website in India.

“Of course, he used these words for Muslims,” Kumar told Geo Fact Check over the phone, “The statement given by Prime Minister Modi during his speech in Banswara, Rajasthan, directly targets Muslims in which he is taking the speech of former [Indian] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh out of context and saying that when Congress was in power, Dr Singh had said that Muslims have the first right on the resources of the country.”

Kumar further said Modi’s statement is “divisive and targets Muslims”.

“At the same time it [Modi’s speech] is also spreading misinformation because there is nothing written in the manifesto of Congress that talks about redistribution of wealth in the country, leave alone any particular community or Muslims,” he added.

Alt News has also debunked Modi’s false claim, which details other times when Modi used the exact same words for Indian Muslims. The fact-check report can be viewed here.

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