It will be exactly one year when the Indian holistic life style panacea India Yoga became the world brand with United Nations declaring the day as International Day of Yoga. And the credit goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making this art of well being a world brand. This year he will be leading the nation from Chandigarh’ s Capitol Complex. Last year also the whole world practiced breathing, bending, rolling etc as part of the day celebrations. At that time a section of the society even tried to give a religious colour by saying it is against its ethos and teaching of their religion. Even some of the political leaders did not hesitate to jump into the bandwagon to keep the controversy going. After that Union Government has come out with an explanation that education is a concurrent subject and State Governments administered schools within their jurisdiction (also) develop and prescribe their own curriculum. Before Modi took yoga to the world it was B.K.S Iyengar who gave the Iyengar Yoga. Yogacharya B.K.S Iyengar with his intellectual and spiritual practices has masterminded the techniques which can be used by all practitioners of yoga. “Research based experience” and “experience based research” has helped him in evolving this technique which is now known as Iyengar Yoga. He has therefore made it possible for ordinary human beings to experience the wisdom of the Yoga Sutras. An earlier Prime Minister had done so long ago. One only has to turn to Nehru’s Discovery of Yoga. He says, “The yoga system of Patanjali is essentially a method for the discipline of the body and the mind”, then adds, “leading up to psychic and spiritual training.” The link having been established between yoga and “spiritual training”, it is hardly surprising that some should ask what spiritual training is being talked of – spiritual training as a broad, cosmopolitan concept, or as linked to a particular religion, perhaps the religion of Patanjali. Remember Nehru wrote 70 years ago – that “Yoga is a word well-known now in Europe and America”. The Nehruvian idea of a modern post-independence India is a multicultural, secular, socialist state striving to be culturally neutral and socially progressive. The predominant thinkers behind it are from the Left, including a number of Marxists. What is Modi trying to bring through yoga ‘Bharatiyata’ the great ancient spiritual culture on the earth?
