Authors
A Twitter post attributes a video showing an Indian band playing dhol on the streets of Spain to celebrations of Ram Mandir being built in Ayodhya otherwise known as the land of Ram.
The tweet in context garnered over 9K likes and 2.5K retweets at the time of writing this fact check. The accompanying 2.2 minute video in the post shows an Indian band with both women and men dressed in Indian tricolours and playing the dhol on a street.
This video has been widely circulating on social media platforms with similar claims. While the above claim attributes the video to celebration of Ram Mandir in Spain, others associate it to celebrations in New York. Below are a few examples:
Fact Check/ Verification
A relevant keyword search on Google led us to Youtube videos posted by an account named “swargandhar dhol tasha pathak.”
There we found a 2018 video titled “Dhol Tasha on the streets of Spain (2) – Swargandhar Dhol Tasha Pathak” which received over 13 million views at the time of writing this fact check.
Another video posted on 12 November, 2018 on the same channel is titled “Swargandhar’s International Tour to Spain 2018 | Dhol Tasha Pathak | Documentary | Spain.” The video’s description reads as follows:
“Swargandhar, a Dhol Tasha Pathak from Mumbai made its way to Spain to perform in Folk Music Festival. The team carried our Marathi Culture across the seven seas.”
Here, we observed that members of the band wore the exact same outfits as in the claim. We also noticed a frame in the above video to be identical to one in the claim. See below:
A 2019 news article by The Hindu writes about gender stereotypes being broken by women playing the dhol in Maharashtra. It also writes about Prasad Pimpale who started Swargandhar in 2014 and led a 30-member team to the European Union of Folklore Festival (EAFF) in Spain, 2018.
You can read more about how these Maharashtrian women from all walks of life come together to play the dhol here and here.
Note that this video has gone viral at a time when the bhoomi pujan (laying of foundation stone) for the construction of Ram Mandir is fast approaching on 5 August, 2020.
You can read about this claim in our Hindi fact check here.
Conclusion
Our research makes it clear that the video in the claim showing an Indian band playing dhol is from 2018 shot during a folk music festival in Spain. The claim in context has nothing to do with Ram Mandir.
Result: Misplaced Context
Our Sources
Dhol Tasha on the streets of Spain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvlWKqQj9RU
Swargandhar’s International Tour to Spain 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbVsh4fkv4k&t=888s
Deccan Chronicle: https://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/culture-and-society/020919/rocking-to-a-different-beat.html
The Quint: https://www.thequint.com/videos/women-in-dhol-pathaks-this-ganpati
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