A black and white video of BKS Iyenger — popularly known as the father of modern Iyenger Yoga — is doing the rounds on social media with a false claim that it is a rare video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi practising Yoga.
CLAIM
The claim along with which the viral clip is being circulated translates to: “A rare sight of Prime Minister Modi practising Yoga, which you would’ve never seen before.”
The clip with the aforementioned claim is being massively circulated on Facebook and Twitter.
WHAT WE FOUND
We fragmented the viral clip into multiple keyframes using the InVid Google Chrome extension and ran a reverse image search on one of the frames.
This directed us to several YouTube videos and blogs which suggested that the person seen in the clip is BKS Iyenger — the father of Iyenger Yoga.
We found a 45-minute-long video uploaded by one Tom Martin on YouTube in 2012 which carried the same visuals as the viral clip. The description along with this video stated that it is a 1938 newsreel showing T Krishnamacharya and BKS Iyengar practicing Yoga.
Next, we searched for BKS Iyengar on Google and found reports by The Atlantic and The Washington Post which made references to the 1938 reel he shot with his teacher T Krishnamacharya.
Further, we looked for BKS Iyenger 1938 reel and found a DVD of the session being sold by UK-based Iyenger Yoga Centre. The cover of the DVD as displayed on the website of the Yoga centre matched with a frame in the viral video.
As illustrated, BKS Iyenger practising yoga in 1938 is being falsely identified as Prime Minister Modi in a viral clip on the internet.
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