In 2014, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi first addressed the United Nations Basic Meeting, he arrived with a mission: to suggest a decision that recognises June 21 because the Worldwide Day of Yoga and India because the non secular birthplace of yoga.
To a gathering of practically 200 political leaders, Modi enthusiastically framed yoga as “a useful reward of [India’s] historic custom”. He prompt that honouring yoga might assist foster world peace, mitigate the results of local weather change and fight armed violence. The next yr, the world celebrated its first yoga day.
And on Wednesday, the UN welcomed Modi again to its headquarters to guide this yr’s occasion. However what model of India did Modi showcase to the world?
It was the one which builds on the mainstream portrayal of India because the world’s largest secular democracy and residential to a rising economic system. Not the model that acknowledges a wrecked democracy – signalled by the rise of an authoritarian, Hindu nationalist and caste supremacist agenda – in Modi’s India.
Since turning into the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP), Modi and his non secular allies have appropriated yoga as propaganda for Hindu nationalism and right-wing insurance policies; to rewrite India’s historical past; and divert public consideration away from their Hindu supremacist political agenda.
Merely put, Modi has weaponised yoga to hide the political and systemic violence he has superior in opposition to oppressed minorities in India.
That’s what he did earlier than world leaders and yoga followers on UN Yoga Day – it was a spectacle of what I name om-washing, used to masks a radical agenda of ethno-nationalist state violence.
None of this should be confused with any real conviction to make use of yoga to construct a extra simply, unified and liberated world.
World peace?
In insisting that historic Indian tradition “sees the world as one household”, Modi typically means that yogic philosophy guides his efforts to advertise democracy and peace inside India’s borders and with world companions. Nonetheless, democracy is in steep decline in Modi’s India.
The nation has seen a surge in state-sponsored and vigilante assaults on Muslims, Christians, Dalits and different oppressed minorities since Modi has taken workplace. Not solely has Modi legitimised Hindu nationalists to be extra emboldened in attacking marginalised populations, however his administration has additionally weakened impartial establishments of Indian democracy, together with the judiciary.
Globally, he has strengthened army partnerships with states like Israel, France and the USA – nations which are invested within the politics of Islamophobia and war-making. Modi’s touting of yoga as lending itself towards peaceable and democratic ideas masks his devoted funding in militarism and warfare.
Local weather change?
Modi has additionally prompt {that a} yogic life-style can reverse the devastating influence of worldwide warming and promote environmental sustainability. Calling for a mass motion in opposition to local weather change, Modi has pledged India’s dedication to internet zero emissions by 2070 whereas urging on a regular basis local weather yogis to do their half by altering their behaviours.
Whereas yoga can actually be used to fight local weather change, Modi’s continued funding within the fossil-fuel trade and army spending signifies his pledge to curb emissions is an empty promise – particularly when army emissions are persistently excluded from local weather change agreements.
Local weather scientists and environmental activists have argued that responding to the ever-threatening local weather disaster would require radical divestment from a consumer-driven capitalist economic system. However Modi stays dedicated to individualised options that make no radical adjustments within the construction of the economic system and serve his final agenda of feigning assist for “inexperienced” insurance policies whereas advancing programmes that actively destroy our planet.
Combating ‘terrorism’?
In his 2014 speech to the UN, Modi additionally spoke of the necessity for world leaders to collectively fight “terrorism and extremism”. Nonetheless, Modi makes use of the Islamophobic discourse of the “Battle on Terror” to invisibilise state-sanctioned militarism.
In August 2019, Modi’s authorities revoked the semi-autonomous standing of Jammu and Kashmir, which India’s solely Muslim-majority state had loved because it acceded to a newly impartial India in 1947. That was adopted by a crackdown – political exercise was banned, politicians have been positioned below home arrest and the web was choked, as India deployed further troops to one of the vital militarised zones on this planet.
In the meantime, the Indian military posts pictures of its troopers in yoga poses. Distinction that with the human rights abuses the Indian army is accused of in Kashmir, and it turns into obvious how Modi and his allies additionally use om-washing to sanitise India’s brutal observe document in Kashmir.
With Modi’s yoga day efficiency live-streamed at Occasions Sq. and on social media platforms, I think about 1000’s of politically impartial attendees may need joined in too. In any case, what’s the hurt in doing yoga with Modi, proper? It’s not like doing yoga with him and 1000’s of others is in itself any endorsement of a political agenda.
However I encourage these on the fence to recognise how collaborating in such occasions legitimises Modi’s makes an attempt at om-washing – this agenda of utilizing yoga to hide his Hindu supremacist ideology. It’s time to reclaim yoga by rejecting Modi’s appropriation of this historic follow.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
