Last week I was at the Rashtrapati Bhavan for the presentation of the first copy of a book on yoga to Rashtrapatiji. The book has been written by Nivedita Joshi, daughter of Murli Manohar Joshi. She has worked tirelessly to produce a manual which will enable those who are visually challenged to learn yoga. She was assisted in this project by a voluntary group of technical experts. A disciple of the renowned yoga guru, B.K.S. Iyengar, she is a yoga expert herself. For years she was almost bedridden due to a debilitating back problem. Yoga cured her, and changed her life.
I practise yoga every day. In fact, I have been doing so for quite some time and take pride in the fact that I can perform with relative felicity some rather difficult asanas. I strongly believe that yoga is good for an individual and is a priceless part of our ancient heritage. It is, as Patanjali spelt out over a millennium and a half ago in his Yogashastra, a complete discipline which exercises both the mind and the body. Contrary to popular knowledge, yoga is not only about the physical exercises or asanas. It consists of an eight-fold path that takes an individual through yama or correct behaviour, niyama or personal discipline, asana or physical exercise, pratyahara or control of the senses, dhyana or mind control, dharana or focused concentration, and, finally, samadhi or the state of cognitive trance where all notion of the self is obliterated.
It is a matter of pride for India that the United Nations has recognised June 21 as International Yoga Day. Such recognition has given to the already existing worldwide popularity of yoga a further boost, and the government should be commended for having achieved this. Having said this, I am quite unable to understand the misplaced evangelism that is so abundantly displayed by the Bharatiya Janata Party government on the celebration of Yoga Day. The venerable Rajpath, and its adjoining lawns which are used primarily for celebrating India’s birth as a democratic Republic, have been taken over for a mass yoga display of some 37,000 “volunteers” under the “yogic” eyes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. The attempt is to put this mass display into the Guinness World Records. An event management company is working feverishly for weeks now to arrange mats and carpets and barricades and giant LED screens for this great yogic event.
The cost, we are told, is around Rs 3 crore, but this appears to be a highly conservative estimate. Several times more has been spent on full-page advertisements, with the PM’s photograph emblazoning the message. Ministers have been dispatched all over the world to participate in yoga celebrations. The less lucky ones, along with BJP party functionaries, are visiting state capitals for yogic events with the full attendance of the bureaucratic hierarchy. In any case, circulars have been issued to all government departments to commemorate the occasion. The first circular was in the nature of an “advisory”; the second diluted it by saying that only those “genuinely interested” should take part.
But bureaucrats get the hint very fast, and very few, I suspect, will have the courage to say that they are not “genuinely interested”. In similar vein, all CBSE schools have been asked to provide a report on how they celebrated the Yoga Day. AYUSH, the government’s yoga and ayurveda department, is pulling its hair to arrange sufficient numbers of T-shirts for participants. Sushma Swaraj, the besieged external affairs minister, has left for the US of A to adorn celebrations there, secure in the knowledge that all the embassies and high commissions under her across the globe have been instructed to “suitably” celebrate the event.
Nobody would be off the mark in believing that in this over-the-top “celebration”, there is much more than meets the eye. It is one thing to celebrate Yoga Day, it is quite another to hijack the nation by making this appear as the sole and central priority of the government even as a farmer commits suicide every half an hour. Moreover, there is tangible evidence that the dividing line between government action and the BJP’s agenda is being deliberately blurred. Even more disturbing is the unnecessary communal angle being given. A senior BJP MP went to the extent of saying that those who don’t do yoga should go and drown in the sea or leave for Pakistan.
What kind of language is this? And, for how long can the BJP continue to encourage its MPs and ministers to spew such venom and then attempt to distance itself by saying it is not the party’s view? Furthermore, in a country like ours, it is essential that the feelings of all communities should be taken into account before ramming through a programme of near mandatory “celebration”. For instance, Mizoram, which is 87 per cent Christian, has protested the “imposition” of celebrating Yoga Day on a Sunday. Yoga, in the spirit in which Patanjali conceived it, would never be diminished by taking into account such sentiments which reflect the vibrant plurality of our nation. Similarly, if some Muslims feel that some aspects of yoga, such as the surya namaskar, are contrary to their religion, they should not be made to feel that they are unpatriotic or anti-national. In fact, the same logic applies equally to Hindus. The glory of Hinduism is that it derives its great strength from being open and eclectic, not didactic and dictatorial.
But credit must be given to the BJP’s current leaders. Only they could convert a symbol of genuine pride into a totally unnecessary and damaging controversy. Only they could have the talent to transform something that unites into something that divides. Only they could change voluntary appreciation for a great aspect of our heritage into soulless evangelism. The great sage Patanjali may or may not be watching from above the extravaganza on Rajpath, but he would certainly be wondering what happened to the spirit in which he had conceived the science of yoga.
Author-diplomat Pavan K. Varma is a Rajya Sabha member
