Health is wealth. It is important to remember this in the fast-paced life of today, where our lifestyles are prompted by the desire to succeed in the rat race and improve our standing in society.
This leads to lack of sleep and also impacts our eating habits, thus taking a toll on our health. This has led doctors and other people in the health sector to urge people to rest and exercise regularly so that they stay fit.
In this respect, the push for people to take to yoga is not out of place. The benefits of yoga are widely recognised. It is believed to be good for the body and the mind and has been accepted as such by the United Nations. June 21 being marked as the International Day of Yoga may seem like a big achievement for some Indians.
However, this cannot be a license for the government to impose yoga on people by making it compulsory in schools across the country. This is the reason that a 2015 decision of the ministry of Human Resource Development to this effect faced severe backlash from various sections of society.
This is also the reason that the Supreme Court recently declined to entertain a PIL by a lawyer who wanted yoga teaching to be made compulsory in schools and asked him to withdraw his plea seeking the framing of a national yoga policy.
The lawyer, Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has said standard textbooks of yoga and health education should be provided for students of classes I to VIII in keeping with the spirit of the various fundamental rights such as right to life, education and equality. This is not tenable as these rights do not include the right to forcibly impose yoga or any such other physical activity on children or, for that matter, on anyone else.
The teaching of yoga is being seen as controversial largely because of the fears of people of other faiths such as Christians and Moslems that it is another move in the attempt to saffronise education and thus society.
This fear is fanned by the active role played by leading members of the BJP, such as Upadhyay, and other such organizations in pushing for the teaching of yoga in schools. Arguments have been made to show that yoga is not linked to Hindoo religion but these have hardly been able to calm the fears. The motives often get mired by the motivators.
The impression that the government is showing excessive zeal is real, as is the impression that there is a tendency to use government employees and institutions to propagate certain views on culture and tradition.
Everyone should have the chance to benefit from yoga. However, this does not require large scale mobilization of resources or mammoth demonstrations as was done at Rajpath 21 June 2015 and 2016. Such actions have led to the fear even among Hindoos that employees and students would be asked to participate in yoga-related events on weekends.
Such an approach is not required and can only prove detrimental to the cause as the huge visible presence of the government machinery in the promotion of yoga will rob it of the character of a people’s movement.
That would be unfortunate keeping in view the health benefits. A similar case in point is the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Simply by slapping a cess on this ‘dream’ scheme, the government has successfully perverted the greater issue.
Once the administration starts collecting tax in the form of a cess for a professed objective, the initiatives move away from becoming a people’s mission and metamorphose into a mundane government program.
The administration should limit itself to raising awareness about the benefits of cleanliness, yoga and such other socially relevant projects. It may, at best, help people decide for themselves by simply providing facilities only.
The government should also work towards ensuring that there is no controversy on these matters. This can be achieved by staying away from contentious areas and taking active measures that its efforts do not attain a political or religious colour. Otherwise, such actions are helping in only vitiating the atmosphere in this country.
