No, this is not a ‘rare’ video of young Narendra Modi doing Yoga

This week, a black and white video of a man doing yoga has been making rounds on social media. A Twitter user shared the image and wrote, “You must have never seen this yogi form of Mr. Modi.” (Archive link)

मोदी जी का यह योगी रूप आपने कभी नही देखा होगा। pic.twitter.com/69iIrCbj6M

— Gajendra Chauhan (@Gajjusay) November 24, 2020

Akash RSS, who has previously spread false news on various occasions, also shared this video claiming it shows the prime minister.

The viral messages say that the ‘secret’ to Narendra Modi’s success is yoga. One such post by Facebook user Navraj Kumai Moudgalya read, “A rare yoga video of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi at 35 years old. Mahatma Narendra Damodar Das Modi has achieved success after a lot of hard work and perseverance. Hail India.” This video had garnered 2,700 views at the time of writing. (Archive link)

Another Facebook user shared the viral clip with a Gujarati caption.

Twitter user @ShakunthalaHS tweeted this video with a Kannada message. Here, it garnered 1,200 views before being deleted (archived link). The clip has also made its way to Facebook, where users believe it shows a young Modi. We also received some requests to fact-check the video on the Alt News official android app.

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Fact-check

Alt News performed a reverse image search of a few frames of the video and found a YouTube video uploaded on May 31, 2009. It states that the men featured here are Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar and Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. According to the caption, this video is from the year 1938. It is worth mentioning that Narendra Modi was born on September 17, 1950.

Next, a keyword search led us to another video from May 12, 2006. Scenes from the viral clip are seen in this video. According to the caption, the person doing yoga here is BKS Iyengar. BKS Iyengar is an eminent yoga teacher known as the father of the yoga style Iyengar Yoga.