Modi isn’t the first to use yoga as govt policy. It’s a Nehru legacy

On the 6th International Day of Yoga, we must remember Nehru for his contributions towards popularising yoga and making it part of India's policy.

File photo | Nehru in sirasana | Soham Chintha

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has taken full credit for transforming yoga into a global movement. While there is no doubt that Modi and the BJP government have taken great efforts popularise yoga and galvanise yoga research, it is important to acknowledge that many of their initiatives and programmes can be traced back to the efforts of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Since 2014, Modi has astutely promoted yoga as ‘India’s gift to the world’ through the International Day of Yoga initiative, while tacitly expunging the contributions of leaders such as Nehru.

From demonstrating asanas on television on Yoga Day, to the ‘Yoga with Modi’ YouTube channel, to his government’s ‘Fit India’ campaign — Modi has used every platform at his disposal to brandish his saffron yogi credentials. Modi has become the face of yoga, while his government has heavily invested in promoting and researching the ancient Indian discipline. Hundreds of crores are spent on the Ministry of External Affair’s annual International Day of Yoga celebrations and the Ministry of AYUSH’s yoga research projects.

However, ahead of the 6th International Day of Yoga, we must remember Nehru for his contributions towards popularising yoga and framing India’s first yoga policy.

Nehru’s favorite form of exercise

It is a well-known fact that Nehru regularly practiced yoga. His tryst with yoga began in 1929 when he met Swami Kuvalayananda, a medical doctor-turned-yoga guru. By 1931, Nehru had seriously begun practicing yoga.

In an interview with the American journalist Edgar Snow, he spoke about how yoga had made him “more tolerant of life’s vagaries”, and how it had helped him during his imprisonment from 1931 to 1935. Nehru had once publicly demonstrated sirsasana (headstand), and on one occasion, presented pranayama (breathing exercises) to Ian Stephens, the editor of then British-owned publication Statesmen.

Nehru was perhaps the first political leader of independent India to recognise yoga’s potential in improving physical and mental wellbeing. In Discovery of India, he wrote that yoga was a system of disciplining the body and mind. In this book, he indicated his preference for yoga over other forms of exercise — “this old and typical Indian method of preserving bodily fitness is rather remarkable when one compares with more usual methods [of exercise]”. He further noted that it was suited to India because it fit in “with the spirit of her philosophy”.

In 1952, it was Nehru who moved a resolution in the Rajya Sabha stating that yoga should be a part of India’s health education. In 1953, he ensured that yoga exercises were included in the ‘National Plan of Physical Education and Recreation’, which was prepared by the Central Advisory Board of Physical Education.

Yoga as a science

Nehru also played a critical role in promoting the scientific study of yoga. In 1958, he visited the Kaivalyadhama Health and Research Center at Lonavala, where Swami Kuvalayananda was pioneering research that looked into the scientific foundations of yoga. In his meeting with Kuvalayananda, Nehru applauded Swami’s work, and said “Yoga could not progress unless it was examined in light of the advances in modern science.”

Despite yoga’s religious historical context, Nehru, like Swami Vivekananda before him, argued that the practice of yoga was self-experimental and grounded in reason. He promoted it as a secular practice that would benefit anyone who practiced it. He suggested that the disciple of modern psychology could benefit from studying yoga decades before contemporary psychologists and scientists became interested in it.

Similar to how Modi pursued international outreach that led to the UN declaring 21 June as the International Day of Yoga, Nehru, too, had promoted yoga internationally. In 1956, he felicitated Swami Yogananda during a state visit to the United States, and encouraged the famous yogi bodybuilders Buddha Bose and Bishnu Ghosh to promote yoga internationally. While Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi became a spiritual classic inspiring thousands to pursue yoga, Bishnu Ghosh and his students spread the practice in Japan and Thailand.

There is no doubt that Prime Minister Modi has contributed much towards reviving yoga’s popularity. But it is unfortunate that he and his government have failed to recognise Nehru’s role in popularising the ancient form.

Nehru’s early initiatives really laid the groundwork for Modi’s present yoga policy. Be it the ‘Fit India’ campaign or the Science and Technology of Yoga and Meditation (SATYAM) programme, government yoga initiatives were first envisioned by Nehru 70 years ago. As author Jerome Armstrong notes in his book Calcutta Yoga: “Prime Minister Modi has led a national push towards popularising yoga practice within India. However, before this, the role which Nehru played in the fifties was pivotal for the adoption of modern yoga practice within India”.

The author is a graduate student studying religion at McGill University. Views are personal.