Bhai is a Hindi word that literally means brother. Recently, it’s been used to foster relations and reduce tensions between India and China by emphasizing their historic cultural ties. Politics and history aside, what both countries want now are new markets where consumers can buy the vast amount of goods and services each produces. And the new tool for easing those tensions (literally and metaphorically) to enhance India-Chinese relations is, of all things, yoga! The leader of the cause (and asana practice) is India’s latest yoga guru du jour, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It turns out that Prime Minister Modi is quite the adept yogi, pictured here doing breath work (pranayama) while in full padmasana—no easy pose! He’s also more than willing to build goodwill and broaden markets through the benefits of yoga. According to the article, “Modi has taken on the role of a yoga guru for Chinese internet users. He is providing his followers on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, a daily lesson of yoga exercise complete with sketches about different poses, and a list of benefits.”
Interestingly, it is working. In just a few weeks, Modi’s yoga account has acquired nearly 200,000 Chinese followers on Weibo and he’s currently involved in helping develop a yoga university in China. Modi is overtly using Indian culture, yoga, Ghandism and Bollywood films, to help build inroads into Chinese society. It’s a well-calibrated soft power push that the Chinese seem to be responding to en masse. In addition to Modi’s yoga Weibo followers, the new yoga university in Yunnan and the Ghandian Studies department at Shanghai’s Fudan University, the two countries just announced that Jackie Chan has signed on to play the lead in a new film. The film, Kung Fu Yoga, is being financed between the two nations. Now, if that’s not an example of exquisite inter-cultural harmony, then what is?
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