Yoga Day is June 21, and the nonsense over how to celebrate it is back again. Of courlse the Sanghis want chanting of Om and some shlokas to be part of this celebration of the "wisdom of ancient India". And rightly a lot of people are objecting to this blatant thrusting of a communal agenda.

But the larger point, that escapes many, is the nonsensical claim that Yoga is some great discovery of "Indian" culture and wisdom. It is such a blatant and obvious Brahmanical product (together with its practice of course by some ascetics of other castes). It is clearly the product of a section of society that does not lift even a little finger in manual labour. Have you ever heard of Dalit yoga? Have you heard of peasants and agricultural workers from any caste have their own yoga peculiar to them? Not to mention craftsmen of any sort? And only a contemporary elite with such an incredible distance from any manual labour whatsoever could hail this as some celebration of knowledge of the body and wax eloquent about it.

Not just the OM and all that, but the very idea of Yoga as some universal achievement of India must be debunked.

And what a breathtaking fraud it is indeed. Here in India we have the great Yoga and horrible rates of ill-health, malnutrition, physical debility and what not. But the Japanese, Koreans, Scandinavians, Scots, Irish, Argentinians, whatever...are NOT vegetarian, are NOT teetotallers, DO NOT practice Yoga and yet live longer, healthier and physically more productive lives than the vast majority of Indians.

Time we called this bluff!! Look up a good American fitness website and go for a good walk or run. Much better for your heart and lungs instead of pretending to breathe hard in an artificial fashion to no useful purpose except donating free ad time for Patanjali products.