India: Could a yoga guru win votes?

Sudha Ramachandran

The Asia Times (Hong Kong)

A TV yoga evangelist wants to rejuvenate India’s “rotting body politic,” said Sudha Ramachandran. Everyone scoffed last year when wildly popular guru Baba Ramdev announced he was creating a political party. Ramdev was mocked as an empty-headed celebrity with delusions of grandeur. But nobody’s laughing now.

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With his multimillion-dollar yoga empire—which includes camps, spas, hospitals, and even a university—and TV shows that reach more than 40 million viewers a day, Ramdev commands a huge audience. Over the past year, he has rallied hundreds of thousands of Indians with a bizarre platform that combines anti-colonialism with asceticism. “Be Indian,” he tells his followers. “Reject foreign clothes and lifestyles. Throw out Coca-Cola.” He even wants to ban the beloved sport of cricket, because it was a British import.

A self-professed follower of Gandhi, he’s no pacifist: Ramdev wants to dole out capital punishment for corruption, rape, dowry killings, terrorism, and the killing of cows. His message resonates with the many Indians who are fed up with endemic government corruption and ineptitude, and India’s “political heavyweights” are worried. The Hindu nationalist party, BJP, is frantically trying to appeal to Ramdev’s ego to persuade him not to field a party, saying, “politics is too narrow a field for a legend like him.” Will it work? Who knows? Ramdev is “a loose cannon,” and so far, he’s enjoying all the attention.