A video showing a sword fighting instructor performing tricks with a sword was repeatedly shared in social media posts that falsely claimed she was the newly appointed deputy chief minister of India’s Rajasthan state. The false posts surfaced online after the appointment of deputy chief minister Diya Kumari, who traces her lineage to a royal warrior clan.
“Princess Mrs Diya Kumari, Deputy-Chief Minister (Rajasthan),” reads the Bengali-language caption of the video shared on Facebook on January 28, 2024.
Diya Kumari was appointed deputy chief minister of Rajasthan following the victory of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in assembly elections in the western state in December (archived links here and here).
According to local media reports, Kumari is the great granddaughter of Man Singh II, the last ruling king of Rajasthan’s Jaipur city and descendant of the warrior Rajput community.
The one-minute 21-second video shows a woman in traditional sari garment brandishing a sword in front of a cheering crowd while music dedicated to the Hindu deity Ram plays.
The video was also shared with a similar claim elsewhere on Facebook here and here.
The woman in the video, however, is not Rajasthan deputy chief minister Kumari but a sword fighting instructor from Gujarat state.
Mistaken identity
A Google reverse search of the video’s keyframes found it shared on Instagram on January 22, 2024 by a woman named Nikitabaa Rathod (archived link).
The Gujarati-language caption of the post translates to English as: “Only one name in everybody’s heart. Hail Lord Ram, Hail Lord Ram.”
It refers to the Hindu deity Ram and was shared on the same day of the inauguration of the contentious Ram Temple in Ayodhya, a holy city in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in the false posts (left) and the clip posted on Instagram (right) with similar elements highlighted:
Rathod told AFP her video was “shared on social media with false claims”.
“I performed this stunt at a program organised in Ahmedabad on January 22 to celebrate the inauguration of Lord Ram’s temple in Ayodhya,” she said. Ahmedabad is the largest city in Gujarat.
Rathod said she teaches sword fighting. Videos showing her training children can be seen on her Instagram and YouTube channel here and here (archived here and here).
Below is a photo of Rathod from her Instagram account (left) and a picture of Kumari from the AFP Forum website (right):
