NEW DELHI (Staff Report) – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday led thousands in a mass yoga programme in the capital on the first ever International Yoga Day.
Mr Modi did stretches, bends and breathing exercises with 35,000 school children, bureaucrats and soldiers. Security was tight in the city with thousands of police and paramilitary deployed for Sunday morning’s event, the BBC reported.
Millions of others are expected to do yoga at similar events planned in hundreds of Indian cities and towns.
Mr Modi, a yoga enthusiast who says he practises the ancient Indian art daily, lobbied the United Nations to declare 21 June International Yoga Day.
“Yoga is more than only physical fitness. We are not only celebrating a day but we are training the human mind to begin a new era of peace,” Modi told the crowd at Rajpath avenue.
“This is a programme for human welfare, a tension-free world and a programme to spread the message of love, peace and goodwill,” said the premier, wearing a crisp white outfit with a national tricolour scarf.
Modi then surprised the crowds by leaving the stage, removing his glasses, and securing a spot at the front of the massive session to mirror the stretches, breathing, and meditative moves beamed on giant screens along the historic avenue.
He took a brief break in the middle of the session to walk around and inspect students doing yoga around him before rejoining the routine of 15 different poses, including the crocodile and “wind-releasing” posture, a French news agency reported.
Thousands of colourful mats were laid out on Rajpath – King’s Avenue – where the main event was held.
Authorities said 35,000 people attended the 35-minute yoga session on Rajpath, aimed at setting a new Guinness World Record for the largest yoga class at a single venue.
Guinness officials said they would announce the results in a few hours.
Yoga was also being performed on the Siachen glacier and the high seas, the defence ministry said.
The day is also being celebrated around the world and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj says “tens of millions” will do yoga on Sunday.
Ms Swaraj herself will be in New York where she will attend the celebrations with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In Times Square, 30,000 people are expected to do yoga.
But the day, being billed as one to promote “harmony and peace”, met with criticism in the run-up to Sunday, with Muslim groups accusing Modi of pushing a pro-Hindu agenda in officially secular India.
They have complained that chanting the sacred Hindu sound of “Om” during yoga and certain poses, such as “surya namaskar” or sun salutation, have clear Hindu overtones and were against Islam.
Many others say Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has an agenda in promoting the ancient Indian discipline.
However, the authorities deny the charge – they say participation in the yoga day is not mandatory and reports that Muslims are opposed to yoga are exaggerated.
