The yoga sales pitch

One of the ideas that some of the religious- and nationalist-minded Indians felt at the turn of the last century is that India has something that the rest of the world does not have — spirituality. It was, no doubt, fuzzy patriotism at work when sensitive Indians were feeling the sense of colonial oppression. The man who mooted the idea was the young Swami Vivekananda, and a few decades later it was again articulated by Sri Aurobindo. They were men of their times and they should not be faulted for their refracted thoughts. The two men who felt the spiritual calling rather intensely thought the way they did because they did not have a fuller understanding of political history. 

It should be recalled that none of the old Hindu sages or texts speak of ‘Bharatavarsha’ being the suzerain, spiritual or otherwise, of the world. The ancient Indian thinkers thought on the grander scale of the universe, how it begins mysteriously, moves forward unceasingly and then dissolves precipitously, only to begin yet again. In contrast, Vivekananda and Aurobindo were modern in their thinking and nationalism was the flavour of the day and they could not but think of a glorious future in terms of the Indian nation.

Thankfully, the Indian political class, including Gandhi, Nehru and conservative leaders like Patel and Rajagopalachari, while admiring Vivekananda and Aurobindo, were aware of the fact that the national task was to provide for the material well-being of the people. And so, independent India strove for economic improvement. The political class drew inspiration from ancient India, from the Vedic, Jain and Buddhist traditions, as well as from the medieval Bhakti-Sufi schools, but they did not lose sight of the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. Development and growth were the mantras for the nation, and spirituality had to be invoked to provide ballast to wants and needs.

Now, in the second decade of this century, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been harping on the century-old theme of India playing spiritual mentor to the world. Sometime in 2013, speaking at the Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi, he referred to the idea of establishing India as the “Jagadguru (the world’s teacher)”. Modi is being true to his right-wing political inheritance. But he is aware of the fact that mere talk of spirituality will not sell. It has to have a physical form. He found that yoga is the most visible embodiment of what Indian spirituality is all about. He has cleverly pitched it as a psychological balm which heals body and mind in a stressed out contemporary world. Yoga is a rejuvenator, the spiritual Viagra.

It would be futile to argue that Modi government’s sales pitch of yoga is a vulgarisation of the Indian spiritual traditions. There is the compulsion to package a product well in order to sell it, and if it means simplifying and falsifying the original content then so be it. It is the marketing imperative. But the crucial question is not whether Modi government is marketing the genuine product. The issue is whether branding India as the global shrink is a good idea in itself. India can play the shrink through yoga without declaring itself to be a shaman. But there is need to be tactical in these matters. For example, the United States effectively plays the global cop while vehemently denying that it has any desire to be the world hegemon. Modi and his team should loudly deny that they want to be a dominant soft power through yoga. Efforts should, however, be made to spread yoga globally.

Modi and BJP should not, however, delude themselves into thinking that they are the first since Independence to leverage India’s soft power. Vivekananda tried to propagate India’s soft power in his own way in the last nine years of his short life. Rabindranath Tagore did it after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and so did Uday Shankar and his troupe in Europe and America in the 1920s and 1930s. Gandhi became India’s face of soft power in the last century. Nehru enjoyed a short spell of soft power success in the global diplomatic circle in the 1950s. India’s information technology (IT) surge in the 1990s was again an expression of India’s soft-power with a dollar edge. Yoga, too, could be turned into a major Indian export, generating billions of dollars. It can make India a super soft power, without raising apprehensions in the world about India’s game plan.
Assuming that yoga will be a global success and that it will make India the global shaman, the key question remains whether soft power is the real power, and whether when it comes to the crunch, soft power will suffice in world affairs. The answer is that soft power is not real power in the short and medium run. Real power lies in economic and military clout. India has a long way to go before it can use its economic and military power to dominate the world scene. 

The US provides a very good example of what it is to be a big soft power and a big economic-military power. Hollywood, American pop culture, American opulence proclaim the US’ soft power. But the US knows that it is not real power. That is why, it is asserting its economic and military power in big and small ways, and in the right and wrong ways.

It is useful to remember that even if yoga becomes a super-hit across the world, it does not make India a major global power. While the Indian government should support and encourage those who are taking yoga beyond Indian borders, they should not be identified exclusively with the product. The Indian government tag will devalue yoga in the same way that the Soviet Union tag had dimmed the artistic sheen of the Bolshoi opera. It is a mistake that Prime Minister Modi and his Cabinet colleagues are committing by being seen to be the sponsors of global yoga. The market fortunes of yoga will fluctuate, and it is better for yoga as well as for itself if the Indian state keeps out of the whole business. Yoga should be a private sector enterprise. It should not be a public sector undertaking.

The author is consulting editor, dna