In the midst of Ramzan, a picture of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet has gone viral on social media, with the claim that it shows the first post-Independence Iftar party, hosted by then Education Minister Abul Kalam Azad.
The Facebook post has had around 54,000 views and 11,000 shares, as of April 23.
But in reality, it has nothing to do with an Iftar party.
To check the veracity of the claim, The Hindu did a reverse image search and found the same picture on Wikimedia. The picture was labelled: “Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with his cabinet, including Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the then law minister, sitting down for a meal.jpg”. It did not have any reference to an Iftar party.
The caption, which was in Marathi, said the picture was taken in June 1948, when then Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel hosted a banquet after C. Rajagopalachari became the Governor-General.
We then did a keyword search of the caption and found the original picture on the stock image site Alamy.
We searched further and found the same image with a similar caption in a publication brought out by the Mumbai Corporation to mark the 125th birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution. (page 65/68).
We also came across posts with a similar photograph of the same occasion, which was credited to Homai Vyarawalla, India’s first woman photojournalist.
Hence, the picture of the then Union Cabinet having a meal together does not show “India’s first post-Independence Iftar party”.
Fact check
Misleading
