The mighty land of Twitter, home to Twitteratis busy exercising their thumbs, saw a lot of heavy duty Yoga related action on Tuesday morning after t he government decided to trim the inaugural International Yoga Day celebrations to be held on June 21. The decision came after protests by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board against the plan of including Surya Namaskar as part of the Yoga drill in schools. Apparently Surya Namaskar goes against the religious principles of certain communities with Muslim clerics in Rajasthan even ordering children of minority communities to boycott their classes if the government did not roll back mandatory Surya Namaskar.
Obviously, Twitter went berserk.
I dont know what is surya namaskar. I am married and have been doing biwi namaskars – 20 times a day since last many many years
— Atul Khatri (@one_by_two) June 9, 2015 Surya Namaskar is all about saluting the Sun God, so don’t tell me it has nothing to do with religion Good or Bad is a different debate
— FreedomFighterz (@PuliArason) June 9, 2015 The best way to get everyone to do Yoga might be to ban it. People of all religions will begin doing Surya Namaskar out of sheer outrage.
— What Ho! (@waatho) June 9, 2015 Surya Namaskar is anti-obese people How can the Govt force such things when a good percentage of Indians are fat #ShameOnModi
— IndiaSpeaks (@IndiaSpeaksPR) June 9, 2015 We don’t really know where the below Twiterrati’s loyalties lie:
@iamrana Maun vrat to be part of Yoga Day? Atleast for half a dozen motor mouths, it should be.
— Shekar (@samvithshekar) June 9, 2015 With such a fiery debate on, could our Ministers of Parliament (MP), famed for their symptoms of the foot-in-the-mouth-disease be far behind? One particular firebrand passed a Hindu fatwa declaring that those who oppose Surya Namaskar should lock themselves in a dark room (No sun, get it?). Or better still, drown themselves in the ocean. Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yogi Adityanath, infamous for courting controversies, stirred the hornet’s nest with his choicest of comments: “Jinko Surya mein bhi saampradaayikta nazar ati hai, mein unse vinamrata se kahunga ki woh samundra mein jaakar doob jayein.” Passive aggresion at its best!
Source: Yogi Adityanath
According to a The New Indian Express report , he made the remarks while participating in a temple festival at Varanasi, the constituency of our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Twitter didn’t spare the Yogi either:
Why can’t the Yogi Adityanaths be told to stay silent?
— Rana Safvi رعنا राना (@iamrana) June 9, 2015 Yoga makes good sense, Yogi Adityanath is utter nonsense
— Cricketwallah (@cricketwallah) June 9, 2015 When they said achche din they meant asking you to leave the country or drown in the sea should you disobey their diktats. #YogiAdityanath
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) June 9, 2015 Yoga has certainly made #YogiAdityanath very calm! https://t.co/GulLlbaV1d
— swati chaturvedi (@bainjal) June 9, 2015 According to Adityanath, those opposed to the sun should not benefit from it as well. By the way, he also feels that those who don’t want to do the Surya Namaskar have no right to live in India. Ouch.
Our sympathies lie with all the couch potatoes.
With the heat wave in full swing, we at ScoopWhoop, wouldn’t mind taking a dip in the water. As long as it isn’t disputed territorial waters!
Source: Image Kid
Amid the hullabaloo Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that yoga should not be related to any caste, religion or community. He reportedly added that several Muslim countries in the world, including Bangladesh, are celebrating International Yoga Day.
No compulsion on doing Yoga on Int’l Yoga Day; Yoga should not be related to any caste, religion or community: Rajnath Singh.
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) June 9, 2015 PS: For those interested, t he celebrations commemorating the first International Day of Yoga, by the United Nations and to be presided over by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, will be broadcast at Times Square to a global audience. The India-led celebrations will also feature a special lecture and demonstration by Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Feature Image Source: Dawn
