Yoga only for the US?

“I’ve developed this style and it is my intellectual property right”, a quote that will probably go down in the history books of yoga. Believe it or not this is what yogis in the US are saying to defend their action of patenting the century-long Indian tradition. According to the information from the US Patent Office, there have been about 150 yoga-related copyrights. In addition to that patents have been awarded for 135 yoga accessories and there are 2315 yoga trademarks alone in the US. Not only US but even countries like China, Russia, Germany and the list goes on beyond expectations. Vikram Choudhary, a yogi in the US, has himself patented 26 yogic postures. An US patent has been given for a special mat for yoga and also for a special chair enabling the user to do yoga even when he is sitting idly. Well these are the statistics with which nobody can relate to not even me. But a careful look at these stats will make the situation clearer.

There has been this sudden uproar now against the US awarding patents to traditional Indian culture. Let us see what India’s response to this is. Many MP’s have broken the party line (or the lakshmanrekha) and have expressed their dissent to this. Naveen Jindal, Congress MP, and V.K. Malhotra, Senior BJP leader, are some of the many who have expressed their sorrow of how the Indian culture is slipping away from the Indians. They, as usual, promise that the government would take the correct decision and also give a proper response to the US. Well the government has decided to establish a task-force to look into this matter. The task-force will catalogue traditional knowledge. So far is the story from the government’s side.

What about the Indian yogis? They see this move as a way to earn money. In fact we cannot put aside that point too. The US government earns around $3 billion every year from this yoga industry. Now everybody considers yoga as a perspective way of making money. The Indian yogis have been utterly disappointed by this move of NRI yogis. “Books can have copyrights but not postures”, says one Indian yogi. The origin of yoga is from Sanskrit which, as everybody knows, is a language connected to India. They say that when the origin of yoga belongs to India then what right do others have to patent it.

This is one such incident of many others where India has lost her traditional wisdom to many nemeses. In 1995, the University of Mississippi acquired a patent for turmeric powder but it was later revoked in 1997. In 1997, Rice Tec Inc. acquired a patent for Basmati rice. They sold aromatic rice as Basmati. Then there was the Darjeeling tea. Kenyan and Lankan tea were being sold as Darjeeling tea and in order to stop this malpractice The Tea Board of India finally patented it.

With such a history it is no surprise that yoga is next in line. As always, we are late to realise what is happening to Indian culture and when we do realise it seems like crying over spilt milk.