Fact-Check: TIME Magazine Cover Juxtaposing PM Modi With Hitler Is Fake

Similar edited images of Russian President Vladimir Putin on TIME magazine were viral earlier this year.

Fact-Check | A morphed image of a TIME magazine cover that likens PM Modi to Hitler has gone viral. 

(Photo: The Quint)

A photograph of a purported TIME magazine cover, likening Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Adolf Hitler, has gone viral. However, we found that the image was fake and it showed a morphed version of a TIME magazine cover.

Similar images that likened Russian President Vladimir Putin with Hitler had gone viral earlier this year in February amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Quint's WebQoof team had debunked the images of the magazine cover back then.

THE CLAIM

The image was shared by Y Sathish Reddy, the social media convenor for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), with a caption that read, "Modi is a PM with no vision, no intellect & absolutely no desire to uplift the needy of the nation. All he has is, hunger to power! #ByeByeModi"

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

TRS supporters shared the same image with the hashtag #ByeByeModi on Facebook and Twitter, archives of which can be found here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We looked at the TIME Vault, which hosts all the archived versions of the older covers, and found that none of the covers resembled the one being shared online.

A link to the vault can be found here.

(Source: The Vault/Screenshot)

We then looked at the viral cover and noticed that it didn't have the name of the issue and the date mentioned, which is present on all other magazines.

Comparison of the viral magazine cover and an original one. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Similar images, juxtaposing Putin with Hitler, were shared in February, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began. In our fact-check, we found that the fake cover was created by one 'Patrick Mulder'.

He later clarified and said, "I wanted to create something that added to the conversation around the invasion of Ukraine and captured the public mood" and added that it was intended to be a TIME cover but he felt 'a powerful image deserved a powerful frame.'

The images were later marked as "manipulated media" by Twitter.

Evidently, the image of the TIME magazine cover juxtaposing PM Modi with Hitler is a morphed one.

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