How appropriate that a minister with a stain on her reputation as big as the bindi on her forehead should have been sent to New York to represent India at the International Yoga Day celebrations. What should have been a day of pride for all of us has instead been turned into a Hindutva tamasha by our Events Manager to beat all Events Managers.
We certainly did not need to wait for Modi to learn that Yoga is a valuable part of the Indian heritage. An earlier Prime Minister had done so long ago. One only has to turn to pages 185-189 to discover 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.
Nehru then remarks - and remember he is writing 70 years ago - that "Yoga is a word well-known now in Europe and America". So it did not take Modi to inform the world through his UN resolution that there was such a thing as "yoga" in the Indian heritage. That has been known, very well known, for centuries. Indeed, if it had not been known that long, it is doubtful that Modi would have found the 177 votes he got to get the UN to declare June 21 as International Yoga Day. Actually, the UN calendar of days to commemorate has grown so long that they could not find a vacancy in the calendar to fit in a Day of Yoga; so, Yoga shares 21 June with Hydrology for marking an International Day in its honour!
It must, however, be admitted that 70 years ago, Nehru recognized that Yoga is "little understood" in the West and "is associated with quaint practices, more especially with sitting Buddha-like and gazing on one's navel". Of course, over these seven decades, dozens of Indian gurus have travelled to the West and taught them yogic postures that foreclose navel-gazing, and so most Yoga enthusiasts in the outside world now know rather more about Patanjali than they knew back then - but the credit for enlightening them surely goes to these California - and Swiss-based experts than to the Indian delegation to last year's UN session - where they had nothing of significance to say about Palestine, but went into overdrive about Yoga. That was more akin to Nehru deriding those who teach "odd tricks for the body" to "impress and exploit the credulous and the seekers after the sensational."
Nehru praised yoga as "much more than these devices and is based on the psychological conception that by proper training of the mind certain higher levels of consciousness can be reached." He cautions, however, that "it is meant to be a method of finding out things for oneself rather than a preconceived metaphysical theory of reality or the universe." Please note the words, "finding out for oneself". Not having it imposed on the dumb masses by a diktat from above -which is what is being done by converting an essentially individual experience into world-wide theatre.
The advantage with this is, says Nehru, that Yoga "can be adapted and used by any system of philosophy, whatever its theoretical approach may be." But that presupposes that the individual, of whatever faith, comes to Yoga as a personal route to spirituality, not as a kind of wholesale "ghar wapasi". The problem with Modi's Yoga rally is that many hundreds, probably thousands, of the 35,000 participants compelled by Government to fetch up at Rajpath were not driven by personal quest, but forced by administrative fiat to attend. How anyone forced to attend a yoga session can find in it a path to "spiritual training" strains credulity. How can such force majeure "lead" as Nehru suggests it ought, "to some kind of intuitive insight or to a condition of ecstasy?" There can be no path to self-realization if yoga is imposed like a PT class on recalcitrant schoolboys.
Explaining that "this old and typical Indian method of preserving bodily fitness is rather remarkable when one compares it with the more usual methods involving rushing about, jerks, hops, and jumps which leave one panting, out of breath, and tired out", Nehru finds "poise" in yoga "and an unruffled calm even while it exercises the body". Moreover, he says, asanas"are suited to any age", leading to "a control of the senses; then comes contemplation and meditation, and finally intense concentration, which should lead to various kinds of intuition". But, of course, such noble ends are incapable of being attained if Yoga is converted from a deeply personalized experiment with Truth to a public nautanki.
Modi should have quoted Nehru to his little gathering. Especially as Nehru freely confesses to being no expert; he has picked up most of his knowledge from Swami Vivakananda's writings, "one of the greatest modern exponents of Yoga and the Vedanta." The two are intertwined - if the goal is to be attained by understanding through reason. Nehru quotes Vivekananda: "No one of these Yogas gives up reason, no one asks you to be hood-winked, or to deliver your reason into the hands of priests of any type whatsoever". (He did not add, however, "or into the hands of Prime Ministers of any type whatsoever"!) Vivekananda added: "Each one of them tells you to cling to your reason, to hold fast to it", for "what we call inspiration is the development of reason". He concluded, "In the study of this Raja Yoga, no faith or belief is necessary. Believe nothing until you find it out for yourself." What has Vivekananda's exegesis on Yoga to do with the "Greatest Show on Earth" put up by our PM-version of an AVM studios kind of extravaganza?
Based on his study of Patanjali, Vivekananda and Aurobindo, Nehru stresses that the Yoga system is to be a form of "ethical preparation" which includes Non-violence. "Non-violence," explains Nehru, "is something much more than abstention from physical violence. It is an avoidance of malice and hatred." And this was recognized by the UN more than a decade ago when, at the instance of Sonia Gandhi and the Manmohan Singh government, the UN declared October 2 as the International Day of Non-violence. Modi forgot all about this on Gandhiji's birthday. If the ultimate aim of Yoga is to build values such as Non-violence, does not Modi ignoring October 2 to celebrate 21 June constitute a searing example of his imperfect understanding of Yoga?
(Mani Shankar Aiyar is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.