On August 28, in the 92nd edition of the monthly radio show ‘Mann Ki Baat’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to actively participate in the annual ‘Poshan Maah’ or Nutrition Month. Since 2018, every year the month of September is celebrated as National Nutrition Month. In his half-hour-long address, PM Modi talked about various topics including how innovative campaigns are being executed in different regions of the country to eradicate malnutrition. Against this backdrop, on August 30, two days after the episode was aired, an opinion piece was published on The Wire Science titled “Dear PM Modi: Good Food Will Reduce the Burden of Malnutrition, Not Bhajans”. The piece, authored by Pankaj Kumar Mishra, a PhD scholar at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), was shared by The Wire on Twitter with a caption that read, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi said conducting bhajans can be part of the solutions to reducing malnutrition.” This tweet received over 1400+ likes and 400+ retweets. Quote-tweeting The Wire’s tweet, Dr Shashi Panja, the West Bengal women and child development minister, wrote, “Dear PM @narendramodi, availability and easy access to healthy food will reduce the burden of malnutrition, NOT BHAJANS.” She also called the PM “a colossal failure” when it comes to the lives of children of this nation. Dear PM @narendramodi, availability and easy access to healthy food will reduce the burden of malnutrition, NOT BHAJANS. Give up your stupidity! You are a colossal failure when it comes to improving the lives of our children in this nation. https://t.co/YYO1pLTMrT — Dr. Shashi Panja (@DrShashiPanja) August 31, 2022 Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, tweeted on the matter saying that “PM Modi says singing Bhajan (Hindu devotional song) can solve malnutrition problem.” His tweet garnered over 10k likes and 1000+ retweets. On August 31, Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader K.T. Rama Rao tweeted on the issue saying “I seriously hope it was a teleprompter typo where Bhojan was typed in as Bhajan”. We carefully analysed the opinion piece written by Pankaj Kumar Mishra for The Wire Science and noticed that the author argues that the PM said that “conducting bhajans and singing devotional songs can help reduce the burden of malnutrition.” Below we have added the relevant portion from the piece. On the official YouTube channel of PM Narendra Modi, we found the clip of him talking about innovative campaigns to eradicate malnutrition. In this four-minute-long clip, the PM talks about three states — Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand — where local administrations have come up with innovative ways to tackle the problem. At the 1:00 minute mark, while talking about Madhya Pradesh, the PM says “Can you imagine that songs, music and bhajans can also be used to fight malnutrition?” He goes on to say that in the Datia district of Madhya Pradesh, under the “Mera Bachha Campaign”, bhajan-kirtans were organized in which teachers, known as nutrition gurus, were called. He further adds that a ‘balbhoj’ or meals for children event is also organised using grains provided by women to the Anganwadi centre. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEsfZcnnaY?start=66] Alt News accessed the English translation and the Hindi transcription of the address through the website of All India Radio (AIR). Below we have added the Hindi transcript of the segment: The English translation of the script available on the AIR website was inaccurate. However, a different translation was provided on the official YouTube channel of PM Narendra Modi which was more faithful to the original Hindi speech. It says: “Can you imagine that songs, music and bhajans can also be used to fight malnutrition? It was successfully used in ‘Mera Baccha Abhiyan’ in Datia, Madhya Pradesh. Under this bhajan-kirtan programs were organised in the district, where teachers known as ‘Poshan Guru’ were called. A ‘matka program’ is also organised. In this, women bring a fistful of grains to the Anganwadi Centre and with these grains ‘bal bhoj’ is organised for children on Saturdays. This helped in increasing the attendance of children in Anganwadi Centres and also decreased malnutrition.” (sic) It is quite evident from this excerpt that the Prime Minister did not say Bhajans can be a solution to the problem of malnutrition. His speech rather focused on how local administrations had come up with unique solutions to fight malnutrition, among which bhajan-kirtan was a crucial tool. In fact, using various art forms to raise awareness is not uncommon at all. We can find instances of them in the battle against climate change or Covid-19.