14 November: #ठरकी_दिवस or #बाल_दिवस

Since 1964, every year on November 14, the birth anniversary of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is celebrated as Children’s Day all over the country. This year it was not celebrated as Children’s Day on social media especially on Twitter, but some mischievous accounts dubbed it as #ठरकी_दिवस. They used this hashtag along with some pictures of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru standing with some women.

Rumors and various pictures of India’s first Prime Minister being Playboy are going viral on social media. Our team has listed some fake images to show you the reality behind them:

First of all, a collage of 9 pictures of Pandit Nehru is going viral. Not only this year, but it has been circling since 2012 and this can be validated through the examples shown in Table 1 showing data from 2017.

Table 1: Table showing misleading collage of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru viral on social media since 2017

2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
More in 2017: Sir Jadeja Fan sharing misleading images of Pandit Nehru Majinder Singh Sirsa shared misleading images of Pandit Nehru	More in 2018: Anurag Saxena sharing misleading Collage Arun Rane sharing misleading image	More in 2019: Satish Rathod shared misleading Collage Aparna shares misleading images of Pandit Nehru	More in 2020: Sanatani Thakur shared misleading picture Ravi HTF Sharing misleading pictures of Pandit Nehru	More in 2021: Ankita Singh sharing misleading images of Pandit Nehru Raj Sanatani sharing misleading images of Pandit Nehru

Fact- Checking all the images shown in the collage.

Table 2: Fact-checking all the misleading pictures shown in the viral collage

Along with this collage, another picture was going viral on social media. Several users used that picture for India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with the hashtag #ठरकी_दिवस.

The reality behind this picture:

On performing simple image search, we found an article of a website called ‘Theartsdesk.com’ which had the same photograph and had mentioned that it was a part of the aforementioned play which was shown at London’s Hampstead Theatre.

Hence, the viral image is from a play titled ‘Drawing the Line’ by Howard Brenton which revolves around Cyril Radcliffe and the part that he played in India’s partition in 1947. According to the theatre’s official website, actors Silsa Carson and Lucy Black played the roles of Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten respectively.

Hashtag #ठरकी_दिवस : Analysis

A) Hashtag used along with #ठरकी_दिवस

Not only was the #ठरकी_दिवस hashtag trending on November 14, 2021, but many more hashtags were used along with it including #रंगीला_चिचा_ठरकी_दिवस and #रंगीला_चचा_ठरकी_दिवस. The graph below shows these hashtags.

B) Accounts that tweeted/ replied mostly on the hashtag of #ठरकी_दिवस

Accounts which tweeted/ replied using the hashtag #ठरकी_दिवस are mentioned in the graph below:

Analyzing the top 10 accounts which used this hashtag maximum number of times. Some important points were noticed.

• These accounts have many common followers, following all these 10 accounts. (@DhirajK179 follows 6 accounts of the above 10 accounts, @tankarv21, @ShrutiT73157568, @DivyeshShrivas3 , @KeshavPrasadMi6 follows 5 accounts of the above 10 accounts)

On analyzing the common followers of the above 10 accounts, it was found most of the accounts were created in October, 2021.

• These accounts follow each other. (@suni_kamboj follows @hinduunity_ and @saffron_ar, @pankaj1105A4384 follows @hinduunity_, @saffron_ar follows @suni_kamboj and @neerajsharms, @neerajsharms follows @saffron_ar)
• Most of the accounts are retweeting Sudarshan News and Suresh Chavhanke tweets, including @pankaj1105A4384, @HINDUAVINASH11 and @Satyave58751262.
• These accounts are in conversation with each other. (@guptamayank40 replied to @amit41118053 and @saffron_ar replies to @neerajsharms and vice versa)
• The accounts are made to amplify hashtags by using the hashtag multiple times in replies as depicted in Table 3.

Table 3: Depicting how account amplify a particular hashtag through replies

• Replies and retweets percentage of these accounts is more than tweets as depicted in Table 4.

Table 4: Depicting the details of the 10 top accounts active in using #ठरकी_दिवस hashtag

C) Accounts which were tagged mostly using the hashtag #ठरकी_दिवस

The verified account of Rahul Gandhi (@rahulgandhi) and Congress (@INCIndia) were at the top accounts that were tagged mostly with the hashtag of #ठरकी_दिवस.

Such amplifier accounts are commonly available on social media these days which are made only to increase hashtags. “Reply and Retweet” is the main way these accounts are used to promote hashtags. The percentage of tweets from these accounts is less than the percentage of retweets and replies. When you come across accounts created for the purpose of promoting such type of hashtags that tarnish the reputation of our country and our country’s honorable person, you should report it and not fall prey to misleading content posted by such accounts.