Government Yoga Day: India's prime minister leads hundreds of people through exercises

Stretching his back and kneeling on a mat, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi led hundreds of people through the exercises at a mass event in the Indian region of Kashmir on International Yoga Day.

The joint yoga session in the city of Srinagar, which had to be held indoors due to rain, was attended by numerous government employees, teachers and students from across the region on Friday. After the exercises, Modi urged them to make yoga a part of their daily lives. "Yoga promotes strength, health and well-being," he emphasized.

The event in the predominantly Muslim region of Kashmir was not without controversy. "This yoga is being forced on our children to culturally change the next generations and control their minds," one resident told the AFP news agency. "It is an imposition on us."

Although yoga is not a religious practice per se, it has its origins in Hindu philosophy. The god Shiva is said to have been the first yogi.

The mountainous region of Kashmir has been divided since India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947. Both countries claim the area completely for themselves and have already fought two wars for control of the mountain region. Since 1989, several rebel groups have been fighting for the independence of the region or its annexation to Pakistan. Tens of thousands have been killed in the conflict.

In 2019, the Indian government removed Kashmir's special status from the constitution and placed the region under the direct control of New Delhi.

June 21 was declared International Yoga Day ten years ago. Since then, India's Prime Minister Modi has practiced yoga with hundreds of people at symbolic locations across the country and, last year, at the UN headquarters in New York.