How Rajyavardhan Rathore, Hrithik Roshan, Virat Kohli, PM Modi lit up Twitter with #HumFitTohIndiaFit

In March this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a "Fit India" movement, focusing on the benefits of yoga, in ‘Mann Ki Baat’, a radio programme in which he addresses the nation.

Rajyavardhan Rathore, the recently appointed the minister for information and broadcasting, seems to have taken a cue from the PM to take the initiative forward. On May 22, he tweeted a video of himself doing push-ups with the hashtag .#HumFitTohIndiaFit.

In his tweet, he asked India cricket captain Virat Kohli, Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan and Badminton player Saina Nehwal to take up the challenge. Twitterverse went into a spin with Rathore’s tweet garnering over 10,000 retweets and over 280,000 views.


The first to accept the challenge was Hrithik Roshan. The actor posted a video of himself commuting to office on a cycle.



The next day, cricketer Virat Kohli posted a video doing planks — complete with knee bends — calling it his “favourite core workout”. He also challenged his actor wife Anushka Sharma, PM Narendra Modi and former India cricket captain MS Dhoni to post their videos.



PM Modi responded to Kohli's challenge by promising to share a fitness video of himself soon. “Challenge accepted, Virat! I will be sharing my own #FitnessChallenge video soon. @imVkohli #HumFitTohIndiaFit”, he tweeted today.



How did #HumFitTohIndiaFit fire up the social media platform? An analysis of how the tweets worked and propelled the message further shows that Hrithik Roshan’s tweet led to an immediate spike in the number of related tweets. This was around 9PM on May 22.

The next day, India woke up to the buzz, which led to another spike. Virat Kohli’s tweet later in evening saw another surge in traffic with the #HumFitTohIndiaFit hashtag .

This morning, the Prime Minister tweeted his response accepting the challenge, which led to another massive spike in the hashtag’s popularity on Twitter.



Of course, a number of sportspersons, politicians and celebrities have been tweeting with the hashtag and posting their own videos and tweets. Among them are minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju, who performed a series of push ups.


While railway minister Piyush Goyal posted an image of himself doing yoga


Several other BJP ministers and politicians joined in to promote the message.

Olympic medalists Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu also took up the challenge.



Other sportspersons who joined in included captain of the Indian women's cricket team, Mithali Raj, cricketer Gautam Gambhir, wrestlers Babita Phogat and Sangram Singh as well as sprinter PT Usha.