An eight-second video of President Ramchandra Paudel speaking in Hindi has gone viral on social media. In the video, Paudel is heard saying, “Fairs will be held on the pyres of martyrs every year. This will be the legacy of those who die for the country.”
“The newly elected president delivers a speech in Hindi immediately after being elected president,” TikTok user @subashkhatiwada44 posted the video on March 10 with the caption, “Newly elected honourable puppet president speaking Hindi to please his master.” The video garnered more than 28,000 likes and a million views. The logo of Dekhapadhi, a Nepali language news site, appears in the video.
Facebook user Tek B Karki posted the same video on a public group called Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, which has more than 62,000 members. His caption read: “Result of India’s blessings.”
Did Ramchandra Paudel deliver a speech in Hindi after being elected president? Nepal Check has examined the facts.
Fact-check
Ramchandra Paudel, the candidate of the Nepali Congress-led coalition, was elected president on March 9, 2023, defeating the CPN-UML’s Subash Chandra Nemwang. The following day, Paudel visited BP Sangrahalaya (BP Museum) in Sundarijal, on the outskirts of Kathmandu. He spoke to a crowd after paying tribute to the late Nepali Congress leader BP Koirala. The video shows Paudel delivering a speech.
Nepal Check found that the viral eight-second video was a part of a 2.33 minute video posted on Dekhapadhi‘s Facebook page. For the first few seconds of the video, President Paudel speaks in Hindi. Following that, he switches to Nepali.
We also found a 4.30 minute video posted by Deshantar, which shows President Paudel talking about good governance and protection of the federal democratic republican system of Nepal. Paudel ended his speech by wishing for the completion of the BP Museum. Toward the end of his speech, Paudel said:
The BP museum is currently under construction. May it be finished properly. From here, I’d like to address those who have given their lives for the sake of the country… Every year, fairs will be held on the pyres of martyrs. This will be the final legacy of those who die in the service of their country. Let us keep a lasting memory of those who died for their country.
Ram chandra paudel
The part he is said to have spoken in Hindi were lines from “Shaheedon ki Chitaon Par” [On the pyres of the martyrs], a ghazal (love song), written by the Indian poet Jagdamba Prasad Mishra ‘Hitaishi’ in 1916. The following is the translation of the lines from the Hindi [“Shaheedon ki chitaaon par judenge har baras mele/ Watan pe marne waalo ka yehi baaqi nishaan hoga”]:
Fairs will be held every year on the funeral pyres of the martyrs
This will be the legacy of those who die for the country.
Hitaishi’s work was published on the cover of the 1916 booklet How America Achieved Freedom, according to Kavita Kosh, a website that collects Indian literary works. According to the website, Hitaishi’s poem was immediately banned after it was published but was secretly circulated among revolutionaries.
President Paudel said in his speech at Sundarijal, referring to the poem written during the Indian freedom struggle, that the BP museum should be preserved to honour the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the country. The sections before and after Paudel’s citation of the Hindi poem were cropped by the users. Only a portion of his speech, in which he mentions Hitaishi’s ghazal has been shared on social media, claiming he delivered a speech in Hindi after being elected President of Nepal. Nepal Check concludes that the video clip was manipulated and thus misses the context.
In fact, President Paudel had quoted just a few lines from an Indian poet’s ghazal to provide context to his speech.
| Claim | Claimed by | Nepal Check Verdict |
| President Ramchandra Paudel delivered a speech in Hindi immediately after his win. | Social media users | Missing context |
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