International Yoga Day: A nation united, by just stretching a muscle

Earlier, it used to be said that cricket, Bollywood and politics united this country – from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. That turned out to be a bit short-sighted: cricket is so polluted with controversies now that people are shifting to hockey for clean air, Bollywood has little resonance in the south and politics divides more than it unites.

So, how do you tie this diverse country together? What could be the threads? And most importantly, who would be the tailor? In 2014, after securing a solid majority in Lok Sabha, at least the name of the tailor became obvious: Narendra Modi. But the big question was: How could the ‘tailor’ sew up a deeply divided country?

Modi came up with a double-crochet option: yoga and cleanliness. For centuries, we have lived with both, practised these in our own ways at our homes, but never did we look at these as threads that could bind this country and unify us. The prime minister noticed these two low-hanging (but taken for granted) fruits, and he plucked them.

Yoga and ‘Swachhta’ became brand campaigns, a national movement and even a matter of vanity. A yoga camp at Worli Sea Face, Mumbai, became a place where you needed …read more