By Kamal Chenoy
Some 200 crores have been spent on International Yoga Day. Why? Was Yoga unknown before Modi?
Reports say that the PM has become stout and overweight. He certainly was not as limber as most of the younger yogis as press photographs show. While Yoga is good exercise and for the more developed to rest the mind, it attracted only some 30,000 people despite all the bandobast including compulsory attendance of PSU and Govt. personnel.
In a country where according to international statistics 68.7% of the population is below the poverty line, is this extravaganza, the best buck for the money? Or is this event meant to divert attention from guilty leaders from the BJP like Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje? While the Yoga media blitz was on, all this was forgotten. Not by the RSS. Through the govt they pushed for 21st June to be the International Yoga Day. Why?
Because 21st June is the death anniversary of K.B. Hegdewar, the first supreme leader of the RSS. This was no coincidence.
So do Yogic meditation and transcend corruption and dire poverty. People can be distracted. Boors like Ram Madhav can be unleashed to attack the Vice President Hamid Ansari on flimsy pretexts. Let’s wait now for the next event for the middle strata and the sangh. The art of Indian wrestling next? Very useful in the Parliament.
(Kamal Chenoy is a Professor at SIS, JNU. This article is reproduced from his facebook post.)
