Fact Check: Did Nehru take British Citizenship in London in 1956?

A claim is revolving on social media that Nehru took the citizenship of London in 1956. Users are sharing a 52-sec video with the claim, in which he is seen attending some sort of event hosted in London. In the video, we can hear a man saying to Jawahar Lal, “It is my privilege as Chamberlain of this city to offer you both the right hand of fellowship and greet you, Mr. Nehru, as a citizen of London.

The claim made by users

A user named Achhabachha shared the video on X platform and wrote “Nehru took the citizenship of London to forever be a servant to the Queen of England. Proves his anti-Hindu and anti-India stance”

Another user also claimed: “In 1956, Nehru took citizenship of London & took oath to be true to the Queen Elizabeth.”

Fact Check:

To investigate the viral claim DFRAC team converted the video into some keyframes and then reverse-searched the video. We found the video uploaded on a YouTube channel named ‘British Pathé’ on April 13, 2014. The title of the video was ‘London Honours Two Great Premiers (1956)’, 

The viral part of the video starts at 0.46 seconds in which Nehru is shown accepting the Freedom of the City of London honor in the City Chamberlain. “The City Chamberlain speaking to Holland and Nehru: “It is my privilege as Chamberlain of this City to offer you both the right hand of fellowship and greets you Mr. Nehru as a citizen of London and you Mr. Holland.”

Moreover, a report of BBC dated 03 July 1956, stated “Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Sir Sidney Holland of New Zealand were honoured in a ceremony at the Guildhall in the British capital”.

Conclusion

Therefore, it is clear from the DFRAC’s fact check that the claim stating Jawahar Lal Nehru has taken the citizenship of London is misleading as he was given honorary citizenship and it does not indicate that he became a citizen.