In 2014, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi first addressed the United Nations General Assembly, he arrived with a mission: to propose a resolution that recognises June 21 as the International Day of Yoga and India as the spiritual birthplace of yoga.
To a gathering of nearly 200 political leaders, Modi enthusiastically framed yoga as “an invaluable gift of [India’s] ancient tradition”. He suggested that honouring yoga could help foster world peace, mitigate the consequences of climate change and combat armed violence. The following year, the world celebrated its first yoga day.
And on Wednesday, the UN welcomed Modi back to its headquarters to lead this year’s event. But what version of India did Modi showcase to the world?
It was the one that builds on the mainstream portrayal of India as the world’s largest secular democracy and home to a growing economy. Not the version that acknowledges a wrecked democracy – signalled by the rise of an authoritarian, Hindu nationalist and caste supremacist agenda – in Modi’s India.
Since becoming the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Modi and his spiritual allies have appropriated yoga as propaganda for Hindu nationalism and right-wing policies; to rewrite India’s history; and divert public attention away from their Hindu supremacist political agenda.
Simply put, Modi has weaponised yoga to conceal the political and systemic violence he has advanced against oppressed minorities in India.
That’s what he did before world leaders and yoga followers on UN Yoga Day – it was a spectacle of what I call om-washing, used to mask a radical agenda of ethno-nationalist state violence.
None of this must be confused with any genuine conviction to use yoga to build a more just, unified and liberated world.