A video showing heavy police presence leading a rally by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is being widely shared on social media, claiming to show a route march by the organisation in Tamil Nadu's Tiruvannamalai.
The claim: The video is being shared to claim that it shows a recent march by RSS after a court order permitted the lighting of the lamp at 'Deepathoon' on Thirupparankundram Hill on the occasion of Karthigai Deepam, Tamil Nadu's festival of lights.
This post by X user 'MeghUpdates' gathered over one lakh views at the time of writing this report.
(Archives of more posts with this claim can be seen here and here.)
Is it true?: No, the video is neither recent nor from Tamil Nadu.
It dates back to October 2025 and shows a RSS rally in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh.
How did we find out the truth?: We ran a reverse image search on the video, which led us to a Facebook post which had shared the same video on 7 October 2025.
The post was shared as one of an RSS rally to mark 100 years of the organisation.
In its comments, one user noted that the video showed visuals from Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search using the term 'Ratlam RSS Rally''.
This led us to a report by Dainik Bhaskar's English-language wing, which had shared similar visuals in its report about RSS' rally in Ratlam.
In one section of this report, it mentioned that two RSS groups had come together near Ratlam's Power House road and marched together.
When we watched the viral video carefully, we noticed that the side of one of the buildings read 'Ájit Jain And', while also showing a board reading 'Chartered Accountants'.
Using all available information, we looked for the place along Ratlam's Power House road and found the same structure.
This makes it evident that the video is from Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam.
For context, in late 2025, a petitioner sought judicial permission to light a lamp atop the Thiruparankundram hill in Madurai, where the Arulmigu Subramaniya Swamy Temple stands.
Traditionally, for the Karthigai Deepam festival, the lamp had been lit inside the temple every year. However, in 2025, a petitioner got the Madras High Court's assent to light it at a site called the 'Deepathoon', closer to the Sikandar Badusha Dargah, a 13th-century Sufi shrine on the same hill.
The Tamil Nadu government, police, the state's Wakf board, and the dargah's management opposed this move, in contempt of the court's order.
The government then challenged the initial order, but it was upheld by the Madras HC in a hearing on 6 January.
Conclusion: An old video from Madhya Pradesh is being shared to falsely claim that it shows recent visuals from a RSS rally in Tamil Nadu.
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