AI Letter Falsely Claims India Got Independence On 99-Year Lease

An image of a purported letter from Lord Louis Mountbatten to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is being shared on social media to claim that India was granted independence from the British on a 99-year lease beginning August 15, 1947.

BOOM found that the letter is fake and AI-generated. The document also contains errors which are inconsistent with an official historical letter.

Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leader Ruchi Pathak had claimed in October 2021 during a media panel discussion that India did not get complete freedom in 1947 because the British Crown handed over the country on a 99-year lease.

The Claim:

The purported letter, dated August 14, 1947, appears on a Buckingham Palace letterhead and claims that Mountbatten informed Nehru that India’s independence had been granted “on a lease of ninety-nine years”

BOOM also received the image on our WhatsApp Tipline number (7700906588) inquiring about it.

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What We Found:

1) AI-detection tool flag the image as AI-generated

BOOM analysed the image using OpenAI's image detection tool, which detected a SynthID watermark embedded in the image, confirming it was generated using OpenAI's tools.

2) The Letter Contains Textual Errors

The document also contains anomalies inconsistent with an official historical letter. For example, the word “stability” is misspelled as “staellity” in the final paragraph.

3) Indian Independence Act Makes No Mention Of A 99-Year Lease

We also checked the legal instrument governing India’s independence, which was the Indian Independence Act, 1947, which received Royal Assent on July 18, 1947.

Section 1 of the Act states that from August 15, 1947, “two independent Dominions” would be established as India and Pakistan. There is no reference to a 99-year lease or an expiry date for India’s independence.

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