International Yoga Day: A nation united, by just stretching a muscle

Earlier, it used to be said that cricket, Bollywood and politics united this country - from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. That turned out to be a bit short-sighted: cricket is so polluted with controversies now that people are shifting to hockey for clean air, Bollywood has little resonance in the south and politics divides more than it unites.

So, how do you tie this diverse country together? What could be the threads? And most importantly, who would be the tailor? In 2014, after securing a solid majority in Lok Sabha, at least the name of the tailor became obvious: Narendra Modi. But the big question was: How could the 'tailor' sew up a deeply divided country?

Modi came up with a double-crochet option: yoga and cleanliness. For centuries, we have lived with both, practised these in our own ways at our homes, but never did we look at these as threads that could bind this country and unify us. The prime minister noticed these two low-hanging (but taken for granted) fruits, and he plucked them.

Yoga and ‘Swachhta’ became brand campaigns, a national movement and even a matter of vanity. A yoga camp at Worli Sea Face, Mumbai, became a place where you needed to be seen; cleanliness drive at a local school in Jammu became a must-attend; your kids would object if you threw garbage on the streets in Jaipur; teaching yoga became a fashionable profession in Guwahati; politicians in Chennai would take turns in claiming ownership of a newly-built toilet.

The two threads, in a matter of years, hardened up like the stitch on a cricket ball.

For a country used to seeing everything through a political lens (especially since it was coming from the most consummate politician of our times), yoga and Swachh Bharat represented an altogether new ‘brand’ of nation-building where no politics was involved.

 Aptly, Rajya Sabha MP and Essel Group Chairman Dr Subhash Chandra tweeted: “On one hand launching a satellite and on the other celebrating Yoga - this amalgamation of tradition and modernity makes India such a great country.” 

एक ओर उपग्रह लांच साथ ही योग जैसी सांस्कृतिक विरासत को महात्म्य देना, आधुनिकता और अध्यात्म का यह संगम भारतवर्ष को श्रेष्ठ राष्ट्र बनाता है — Dr. Subhash Chandra (@subhashchandra) June 21, 2017

The ‘master stitch’ of the ‘master tailor’ was simple: uniting India by just stretching a muscle, and making clean look ‘cool.’

The author is Editor-in-Chief of DNA