Would the English or the French say their languages have been appropriated by many nationalities albeit in different dialects and accents?
Yoga is becoming hugely popular around the world, but exceptionally so in the West. Writing in the Times, dated Monday 12 December 2022, Charlie Gowans-Eglinton says that celebrity yoga practitioners like American actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston have helped this phenomenal rise of yoga. Brazilian supermodel, Giselle Bundchen, who is one of the highest paid models in the world, is also a devout yoga devotee. She said: “Whether it involves music or mantra or breath work or meditation (yoga is) powerful spiritual practice. Yoga gave me back my life.” In 2021, 460,000 British people participated in yoga classes. There are 10,000 yoga teachers in the UK.
Yoga classes take place in leisure centres, church halls and many other places. Texas-based Adriene Mishler, whose channel has 11.6 million subscribers, had 48 million people watch her video, “Yoga for Complete Beginners”. During the Covid crisis, Adriene turned out to be a saviour of the stressed out populace. Her videos like, “Yoga For Anxiety” were extremely popular.
Yoga has developed into a multi-billion-pound industry. In 2019, the global yoga industry was an estimated $46 billion. In the UK, the industry was worth £926 million by 2020. In her recently published book, “The Yoga Manifesto: How Yoga Helped Me and Why it Needs to Save Itself”, Nadia Gilani, who is also a full-time yoga instructor, writes that most yoga teachers and students are white and that yoga has been divorced from its 5,000-year-old roots. She is annoyed to see Sanskrit words like Namaste on T-shirts and images of Hindu gods tattooed on hands as well as the Om symbol printed on yoga mats. It’s cultural appropriation and offensive, she says. The definition of cultural appropriation is that it takes place when members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way.
Vikram Jeet Singh, a Goa-based yoga instructor claims that the “West has created a system where it appropriates and teaches from the East.” According to him, yoga in the West has become synonymous with a workout session stripped of any cultural background.
However, Nadia Gilani, who is London born of Pakistani origin, has great admiration for yoga. She says, “I don’t think claiming yoga back as an Indian practice for Indians only is the way. The conversations have to be nuanced. It’s not as simple as saying, the West has stolen yoga.” Indeed, the Hindu American Foundation has a campaign called, “Take Back Yoga”. Gilani endorses the idea that there is a whole philosophy attached to yoga. According to her, yoga is both a secular practice compatible with all faiths and also a spiritual practice. A yoga student should be made aware of the bigger picture.
According to Anna Murphy, fashion director at the Times, she is one of those with expensive leggings and expensive yoga mats who started practising yoga 17 years ago. “What began purely as a physical practice for me has become a tool for psychological, philosophical journey of self discovery. Yoga is the primary means by which I have changed myself and my approach to life for the better.” Yoga, she says, changes lives so let’s not sweat in the detail. Let’s get it to more people.
This indeed is proof that when one takes up yoga there will be an inner transformation. Almost all serious students of yoga give up meat eating, which is another sublime concept originating from India. Just as Buddhism adapted as it spread to different countries, yoga may adapt in changing circumstances. According to Anna Murphy, yoga master Iyengar, one of the first to bring yoga to the West, tweaked it to put more emphasis on asanas.
The core values of yoga will remain intact and a serious student will dive into its depth, while others will enjoy a healthier life. Sivananda Yoga Centres are places where a serious student can learn not only yoga but Hindu spirituality comprehensively.
Would the English or the French say their languages have been appropriated by many nationalities albeit in different dialects and accents? No, they would be proud that their language is spoken in so many places. Is it not something to be proud about to see around 3,000 people doing yoga in New York, Time Square every year?
Yoga is India’s gift to the world. Putting up imagined barriers will make us look miserly. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Swami Ramdev and many others want yoga to be given to the world freely. There is no appropriation. Those who continuously claim appropriation will deter millions of people all over the world from taking up yoga. Though they think they are safeguarding their Dharma they will actually be doing great disservice to it.
Nitin Mehta is the founder of Indian Cultural Centre, London.