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How the West ruined yoga by making it ‘the new sexy’ and India an ‘exotic playground’
- More practitioners of Indian descent are developing a critical view concerning Western appropriation of the 5,000-year-old practice
- Shed of its cultural and religious aspects, commercialised yoga is often seen as little more than a workout routine nowadays
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From a workout to a meditative routine and a tool for spiritual awakening, the global perception of yoga has shifted over the past few decades, thanks in part to celebrity fans such as Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Britney Spears.
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Interest in the ancient Indian art rose significantly during pandemic lockdowns as millions of people were confined indoors and YouTube was flooded with practice-from-home instructional videos.
The perception of yoga evolved as the global wellness industry strengthened. And for some people in India, its current depiction in pop culture does not sit right.
The influence of orientalism, cultural appropriation and consumerism on yoga is getting harder to ignore, especially for practitioners of Indian descent, said Goa-based yoga instructor Vikramjeet Singh.
“I could not access my own culture because it’s been wiped out and suppressed by colonisation,” he told This Week In Asia. “I’ve been ridiculed and made fun of. And now my own culture is being repackaged and sold to me under a different form.”
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