Yoga is an ancient Indian practice in which gentle physical exercise combines seamlessly with meditative qualities that are said to help improve the mind and emotions. The overall experience, adherents say, is soul-lifting, but even modernists would be hard put to deny the benefits that accrue from yoga.
Numerous Western scientific studies appear to confirm the positive effects of yoga. No wonder this system of body and mind exercise — it would be gross to regard yoga as just another body building effort, for it doesn’t leave the practitioner with bulging muscles anyway — was all the rage internationally, especially in the West, from the 1960s. There is no surprise then that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was able to get the UN to mark June 21 as International Yoga Day, with an overwhelming majority, including many Muslim nations, endorsing the idea. The international recognition for yoga is another instance of the spread of India’s soft power along with, say, Bollywood, Indian music, and the broad Indian notion of tolerance and democracy.
But make no mistake. This soft power would have been elusive were it not for a sustained rise in the country’s economic strength seen in the past two decades. There is no sudden magic that has done the trick. Yoga does indeed come down from the thought of ancient Hindus, from the development of several branches of knowledge in India’s hoary past that have stood the test of time. It is perhaps for this reason that the top leader of the BJP stream, which seeks to emphasise progress in knowledge made in India in contradistinction with advances made elsewhere, to the extent of appearing chauvinistic about it, has pushed for its official recognition internationally.
But let’s be quite clear. Yoga has nothing to do with Hindu religious beliefs, the ground on which some non-Hindus in India sought to raise their objections against its pubic propagation with governmental support. Nevertheless, it is not only non-Hindus who are worried about the government batting for yoga within the country. A governmental push militates against the idea of citizen’s choice.
It is indeed surprising to see New Delhi’s Rajpath, where the annual Republic Day parade is held, being taken over for days for officially sponsored and government commandeered mass yoga displays. Many government departments have zealously taken up the cause, making India seem ambivalent about official diktats pushing hobby horses. Even ageing men and women in uniform have been roped in, to say nothing of civilian state employees. The PM, like several of his predecessors, including Jawaharlal Nehru, is said to be a yoga enthusiast. But all this is going a bit too far.
