Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday led tens of thousands of people in a yoga session in the center of New Delhi to showcase the country’s signature cultural export, which has prompted criticism of fomenting social divisions at home.
The ancient Hindu discipline which has become an estimated US$27 billion industry in the US is being celebrated across the world as an International Yoga Day which Modi pushed for soon after taking power last year.
More than 35,000 people dressed in white rolled out yoga mats at Rajpath, a ceremonial boulevard in Delhi, to perform 21 asanas, or postures, that were begun by a prayer and chants of “ohm.”
Photo: Reuters
Modi, dressed in a loose kurta and trousers with a scarf depicting the colors of the Indian flag, also joined in the demonstrations, working on various parts of the body such as the neck and the spine. It ended with some light meditation.
“This program is only about human welfare, about freeing the universe from stress and about spreading the message of love, peace, unity and goodwill,” Modi said in a speech before the 35-minute session that was being marked across the country.
However, activists said Modi’s hardline Hindu nationalists are trying to force yoga on minority groups and schools.
Others said they practiced the ancient discipline under their own volition and did not need Modi to tell them what to do.
“This is about the mind and the body. Let us not play politics with yoga,” said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is a bitter critic of Modi.
More than 170 countries including the US and France are expected to join in mass yoga gatherings. Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj is to lead an event in New York’s Times Square.
Yoga, a discipline that dates back thousands of years, has gained immense international prominence over the past several decades as a holistic regime for the mind and body.
Modi set up India’s Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy last year as part of efforts to reignite interest in yoga in the country of its country of birth.
The government has also asked Guinness World Records to recognize yesterday’s event as the largest gathering of people doing yoga together in the capital.
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