As something of an aside - being “the other kind of Indian” I have always been aware of the tightrope-walk of cultural appropriation with regards to regions and disciplines such as yoga. As well as how USians tend to be blind to the reality of Christianity being an appropriation from the east also. I found these two parts of the article to be subtly at odds:
An official with the centre explained that, as yoga comes from cultures that “have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy … we need to be mindful of this and how we express ourselves while practising yoga.”
That is easy for me to appreciate and agree with, from an American context as well as the focus using yoga to facilitate mindfulness generally. But:
Practising yoga could make you complicit in histories of imperial rape.
Goes against the classical tenets of yoga. That since the term yoga refers to the union and harmonizing of the many apparent aspects of self, everybody is actually “practising yoga” all of the time, whether they know it or not. With the difference that those who aren’t aware of it tend to not do as well as those who do it deliberately. So the contrast between this and yoga-as-commodity-lifestyle-choice can be seen itself as a symptom of reframing due to cultural bias.
