Happy Yoga Day! pic.twitter.com/FWrCTdUlwo
— Shobhaa De (@DeShobhaa) June 20, 2015It seemed like a noble idea: Declare an international day of yoga. Who knew it would be so controversial? India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi put forth the proposal during his maiden speech before the United Nations last September. Modi, who himself does yoga, called the ancient practice “India’s gift.”…. But certain clerics in India’s minority Muslim community aren’t supporters of this event. They’ve said the government’s push to promote yoga is a bid to promote the Hindu religion that the majority of Indians practice. These critical clerics say the yoga pose known as the “Surya Namaskar” — the sun salutation — violates Islam because it means genuflecting to an entity other than Allah, namely the sun. In the pose, yogis stand up, hold their arms to the sky and bend backward a bit. Historian Rizwan Qaiser, former director of the Center for Comparative Religions and Civilizations at Jamia Millia Islamia University, laughs as he says, “In Islam there is only one god, and no other god — including [the] sun god.”
I suppose you could reasonably file this one under “Relgion f—-s everthing up”….
The argument against an international day of yoga seems absurd on its face. How could a reasonable person manage to conjure a threat (to anything save one’s musculature) out of a day intended to celebrate the practice of an ancient art dedicated to peaceful coexistence and well-being? Except that in India “reasonable” and “religion” aren’t generally to be found being used in combination with one another. The age-old tradition of (sometimes bloody and exceedingly violent) sectarian mistrust, animus, and conflict has left millions on the Indian subcontinent with a (not unjustified) distrust of those who follow other faith traditions.
Yeah, about that whole peace, love, and co-existence thing….
When it’s been proven time and again that people are willing to kill those not “enlightened” enough to share faith in their flavor of Imaginary Friend, it’s not difficult to understand why something as benign as yoga could be controversial. Something that in this country would undoubtedly be seen as cute and quaint- 35,000 people assembling at 7 a.m. for a 35-minute yoga exercise- is viewed by some in India as a clear and present danger to religious freedom. Yes, it’s ridiculous that anyone could see their way clear to opposing yoga on religious grounds…but when Hindus sow discrimination and intolerance, they can’t claim to be surprised when they reap blowback from Muslims that feels like a faith-based episode of Theater of the Absurd.
And you thought Bryan Fischer was “out there”….
The yoga tensions had been exacerbated by earlier events. Over the past several months, Hindu fundamentalists had issued a stream of bigoted remarks — how Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to vote, for example — and waged campaigns to rewrite school textbooks in ways that elevate Hindu achievements.
In this light, it’s understandable why Muslims might, with very good reason, assume malevolent intent on the part of the Hindu majority. Given the volatile history of religious strife on the subcontinent (read up on the violent partition of British India in 1947), differences over Imaginary Friends can easily devolve into violent, bloody, and protracted conflict. People have killed, will kill, and will continue to kill when/if they feel their faith has been insulted or their religious freedom threatened. It’s silly, it’s sad, and it runs completely counter to the express purpose of most faith traditions- which as a rule teach such radical concepts as peace, love, and co-existence (Who could have known??).
The government was forced into yoga day damage control after one parliamentarian from Prime Minister Modi’s party, the firebrand Yogi Adityanath, said that those who opposed the “Surya Namaskar” should drown in the sea.
Foreign Minister Swaraj disowned the remark. She denied that the government is using yoga to impose Hinduism or is coercing any community to participate.
But the government has removed sun salutations from the June 21 program, saying the pose would be difficult for people who have a bad back.
In India, nothing relating to religion is EVER taken lightly. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the desire for political power driven by an amalagam of fear, mistrust, and hatred camouflaged as religious faith. Every word, deed, and thought is parsed to the nth in order to divine malevolent intent. When you’re looking feverishly for the worst, you’ll invariably find it, even in places where logic withers and dies from a lack of oxygen. Then again, when one can with a straight face assert that those who oppose an international day of yoga “should drown in the sea,” my only response would be:
RELIGION- YER DOON IT RONG!!!! Jeebus, sheeple; why ya gotta be like that??
