Did Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian touch a Hindu leader’s feet in reverence? What’s the truth?

A viral video falsely suggests Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian bowed to touch a Hindu spiritual leader’s feet. A longer video shows him bending down to pick up something from the floor, with the leader assisting him.

A video is circulating widely on social media claiming to show Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who visited India for the 2026 BRICS summit, touching the feet of prominent Hindu spiritual leader Jagadguru Swami Sateeshacharya Maharaj during a meeting between the two. However, OBC found the claim misleading

What is circulating online?

The clip was first traced to an Instagram post dated 13 September,  shared by the account ‘News18assamne,’ the official North-East regional handle of the News18 media group. The video shows a saffron-robed figure standing among a small group of people alongside the Iranian President. A short while later, Pezeshkian is seen bending down in front of the saffron-clad man and then straightening up again.

As of 19 September, the video has been viewed nearly ten thousand times and liked by 218 people so far.

The saffron-robed figure in the video is Jagadguru Swami Sateeshacharya Maharaj, a well-known spiritual leader who heads Parameshwar Dham in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

The post claims that after listening to Sateeshacharya’s address on Sanatan spiritual tradition and humanity, the Iranian President sought his ‘blessing’.

Because the source appeared to be a mainstream outlet, several people commented believing the story to be entirely true, while others questioned its authenticity.

A keyframe analysis of the video turned up several similar posts.

The Instagram account “sangh_geetha,” known for regularly sharing RSS-aligned content, posted the same video on 15 September with an English caption claiming that, having grasped the message of Sanatan Dharma, the Iranian President bowed to touch the feet of the Hindu spiritual leader.

The post has drawn over five thousand views as of 19 September.

The X (formerly Twitter) account ‘@Sanatan_Prabhat,’ which regularly shares content aligned with Sangh Parivar viewpoints, shared the same clip too — but with a more communally charged caption than the other posts, claiming that Pezeshkian’s act of touching the feet of Hindu ascetics during his BRICS visit had provoked widespread anger among Pakistanis and religious zealots.

How did we verify?

We found no credible media reports or any official reports which support the viral claim that the Iranian President genuinely bowed to touch Jagadguru Swami Sateeshacharya Maharaj’s feet.

Notably, Swami Sateeshacharya Maharaj himself posted a video of his meeting with the Iranian President on his own Instagram account. The visuals do not contain the segment being circulated showing him touching anyone’s feet, nor does the caption make any such claim — it merely congratulates Pezeshkian.

Subsequently, in responses to the social media posts, we identified that several users suggested that the President was simply bending down to pick something up that had fallen to the ground. The same video also shows Iran’s Ambassador to India, Dr Mohammad Fathali, and Dr Abdul Majeed Hakim Ilahi, representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader in India, also meeting with Swami Sateeshacharya.

Reports do confirm that a meeting took place between President Pezeshkian and Sateeshacharya Maharaj, held at The Oberoi Hotel in New Delhi. The Iranian Embassy in Delhi had organised a special reception and cultural dialogue for the President during his visit for the BRICS summit, and the circulating video is from that event. In his Instagram post, Swami Sateeshacharya explains that he had been invited to a special dinner by the Iranian Ambassador to India.

A further reverse image search uncovered another video of the same event posted by the Instagram account ‘manchh_official on 13 September,’ filmed from a different angle. The viral video only shows Pezeshkian looking down and then bending forward — it cuts off before showing what happens next.

In the visuals shared by ‘manchh_official,’ however, it becomes clear that as the President bends down, Sateeshacharya also looks down and bends along with him, after which both men can be seen bowing together. Filmed from a different angle than the viral clip, this footage makes clear that Pezeshkian was reaching for something that had fallen to the ground, with Sateeshacharya then trying to assist him.

Therefore, the viral video has been circulated by selectively cutting out only the opening portion of the footage, without showing what actually happened next.