‘WE WANT TO TAKE YOGA TO EVERY VILLAGE OF INDIA’
SHRIPAD NAIK ON THE MODI GOVERNMENT’S EFFORTS TO PROMOTE YOGA IN THE COUNTRY AND ABROAD
Shripad Naik
MoS (IC)
FOR AYUSH
Q. What is your yoga promotion strategy?
A. The prime minister has shown us the way. Our national vision is to take yoga to every village in the country. We also aim to take yoga to all corners of the world—an objective that took a giant stride when, due to the PM’s efforts, the United Nations declared June 21 as International Yoga Day.
Q. How are you achieving this?
A. Since 2015, we have been holding annual yoga festival around the time of International Yoga Day. Representatives from 80 countries participated in the first festival held in New Delhi. In all, 38,000 people had participated. We won two international awards. The festival keeps shifting cities, and every year the PM is present as the prime mover. In 2016, we held it in Chandigarh; last year, it was Lucknow and this year, Dehradun. We have introduced yoga in government institutions and the paramilitary. At the state level, we hold Arogya Melas, of which yoga is a major component.
Q. Fake yoga trainers are taking people for a ride.
A. I agree—such people have split yoga into parts in the name of morning yoga, evening yoga, face yoga and so on. To ensure that real yoga is practised, we have standardised the asanas in a regimen covering practitioners in the age group of 10 to 70. It’s called the Common Yoga Protocol and has been finalised with the concurrence of respected yoga gurus across India. This has been done by a committee that also helps certify yoga teachers.
Q. What’s your next plan?
A. We want to make yoga a part of the physical training curriculum in schools and colleges. Under a new scheme, a grant of up to Rs 90 lakh will be given to people to start wellness centres on their own land. We want to encourage wellness centres in towns and the rural areas. We also have a programme under which yoga trainers teach across 100 big parks of a city.
Q. How do you view yoga in totality?
A. Yoga is not a medical system based on cure, but a preventive system that has the power to transform not just societies but the entire world. By unifying the mind, body and soul, yoga replaces negative thoughts with positive ones and violent ones with ones of peace. It has the power to connect you to the supernatural. It can change the world order by making true peace the centre of world fulcrum.