Within hours of it being widely reported that an Indian PhD scholar at Columbia University named Ranjani Srinivasan self-deported after their visa was suddenly revoked by the US government last week, a video of a woman sloganeering in Hindi in favour of a free Palestine at a demonstration went viral on social media. It is claimed that the woman seen in the footage is Ranjani Srinivasan. In the demonstration, the woman leads fellow protesters in chanting "azadi" slogans.
Several media houses reported on Ranjani leaving the US after US homeland security secretary Kristy Noem on March 14 shared a video on X and wrote, "When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country. I'm glad to see one of the Columbia University terrorist sympathizers use the CBP Home app to self deport."
The next day, the Mojo Story (@themojostory) shared a video collage on X identifying the woman raising the slogans as Ranjani Srinivasan. (archive)
Mojo Story did a full-length show on the issue which is available on YouTube. The sloganeering video was played on the screen from the 15.08-minute mark onward.
The Pamphlet, a YouTube channel with more than 1 lakh subscribers that calls itself "a new age digital media," put out a video report on Ranjani Srinivasan, calling her a Hamas sympathiser and stating that she was 'reaping' her own doing. At 0:36 sec, they identified the woman featured in the viral video as Ranjani Srinivasan.
X user PallaviCT (@pallavict), too, shared the video and wrote "This is Ranjani Srinivasan" and her visa had been revoked because of pro-Palestine slogans. (archive)
The video was shared on Facebook as well with similar claims.
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Fact Check
To begin with, we noticed that there were significant differences in the appearances of the two individuals in question -- the one seen in the viral video and Ranjani Srinivasan. They do not seem to be the same person at all. Below is a comparison among two frames from the video where the woman's face is clearly visible and a photograph of Ranjani that we obtained from a New York Times article on her ordeal:
Alt News then tried to find out who the woman in the viral video was and we could independently establish her identity. Multiple sources who personally know the individual have confirmed her identity to us. We have also gone through the individual's available social media profiles to corroborate what we learnt from our sources. She is not Ranjani Srinivasan. We can not disclose further details about the woman in the video keeping her best interests in mind.
Since we noticed an Al Jazeera logo on the viral video, we went through their X timeline and found that they had shared the video on April 23, 2024.
We also located a report by Al Jazeera from April 2024, which identified the video as footage from an April 19 demonstration at Columbia University. The report says, "Pro-Palestine protesters caused a stir when they used this Urdu chant. Some interpreted it as instance of anti-Semitism on campus."
Upon closer examination, we noticed that the news outlet credited an X account named Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus of Columbia U (@CampusJewHate). A quick keyword search led us to the original video, which was shared on April 20, 2024. Barnard College, which is an affiliated college of Columbia University, was tagged in the tweet. Taking a cue from this, we performed a keyword search and found a few Indian media reports as well on the April 19 incident.
'Not Even in the US'
Alt News reached out to Ranjini Srinivasan.
Refuting the claims of it being them in the video, Ranjani told us that they were not in the US from August 5, 2023 to April 22, 2024, during which time they were on a field-work trip to Chennai and Bengaluru. Ranjani also shared relevant flight tickets with Alt News in support of their claim of not being in the US on April 19, 2024.
When Alt News spoke to Ranjani, we noticed that their Hindi was heavily accented by dint of their South Indian origin and they did not possess a fluency in Hindi that is anywhere close to the woman raising 'Azadi' slogans in the viral video.
To sum up, the woman in the viral video raising Azadi slogans is not Ranjani Srinivasan. Several social media users have misidentified her as such. Media outlet Mojo Story used the video in their reportage on Ranjani without verification.
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