‘War Rukwa Di’: How Modi’s Ad with False Information Became 2024’s Top Meme

The promotional video is an extension of the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders’ claim of India’s intervention in halting the war between Ukraine and Russia for the safe passage of Indian students.

A promotional video posted on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official Youtube channel last month became the butt of all jokes on social media. 

The said video is set in the premise of an unknown airport’s arrival gate where some troubled parents are waiting for their children. In the next few frames, we see a young woman hugging her parents and claiming that the Prime Minster Modi “stopped the war”. Interestingly, the promotional video does not mention the countries in which the said “war” was stopped. 

The promotional video is an extension of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders’ claim of India’s intervention to halt the war between Ukraine and Russia for the safe passage of Indian students. In February 2023, BJP President JP Nadda, during a poll rally in Karnataka, had said that Prime Minister Modi “stopped the Russia-Ukraine war to evacuate 22,500 students from there back to India.”

However, Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), debunked these claims of India stopping the war between Ukraine and Russia. He said that all these claims were “absolutely inaccurate.”

This false claim came to the fore again in March 2024 after Prime Minister Modi posted the promotional video. The catch phrase from the video – “War Rukwa Di, Papa” – became the source of all memes. 

Watch The Wire’s fact check of this video here.

 

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Here is a compilation of some viral posts and memes on the “War Rukwa Di” video.

Youtuber Dhruv Rathee too made a video about this false claim.

 

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also joined the bandwagon:

Other posts that went viral: