Clipped Video of PM Modi Shared to Make Misleading Claims About His Education

The extended version of the video showed PM Modi mentioning completing BA and MA through external examinations.

A clip from a video interview of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with former journalist Rajeev Shukla for his show Ru-Ba-Ru back in 2001 has gone viral again to claim that PM Modi has only studied till high school (10th grade).

Who is making these claims?: The viral video was shared by Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan and other social media users associated with the Indian National Congress.

(Archives of more such posts can be found here and here.)

The truth: This is a clipped video shared with misleading context.

• The extended version of the interview shows Modi talking about his higher education, including a Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Master of Arts (MA).

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a relevant keyword search on Google and found a longer version of the viral video.

• The video was shared on YouTube on 1 March 2013 by a channel named Samina Khan.

• The description of the video read, "Old Interview (pre-2001) of Narendra Modi by Rajeev Shukla (when he was a journalist) on Ru Ba Ru."

• The extended version of the video clip shows Narendra Modi detailing his higher education, saying that he had completed BA and MA degrees through distance education.

• The viral video’s part starts at the 20:35 mark, where Shukla asks Modi about his educational qualifications, to which he replies, “I left home at the age of 17 after high school. From then on until today, I am very much focused on learning new things.”

• Then Shukla proceeds to ask whether Modi has only finished his schooling, to which Modi replies that he completed high school.

• Modi then adds, “After high school, a senior in the Sangh pushed me to finish my graduation. So I graduated through an external examination from Delhi University and then finished my postgraduate as an external student when they pushed me to do an MA. I stood first in the university but haven’t seen a college’s gates.”

Conclusion: A clipped video is going viral on social media to claim that in the past, PM Narendra Modi had said that he was only high-school educated. 

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