Is Yoga still Indian?

I have spent more than a decade photographing yoga practitioners around the world.
From the shalas of Mysore to high-end studios in New York, from nature flows in Bali to retreats in Mallorca. I have witnessed yoga as sacred practice, performance art, lifestyle branding, and at times, pure commerce.

But yoga did not start on a polished wooden floor with a branded mat. It started thousands of years ago in what is now Pakistan and northwest India.

Stone carvings found in the Indus Valley Civilization show figures seated in meditative postures that many historians see as some of the earliest representations of yogic practice.

That was around 2500 BCE. Long before Instagram. Long before “Vinyasa Flow.”

Somewhere between the sacred carvings and today’s algorithmic feeds, something profound happened. Traditions moved, changed, and were rebranded.

This is not an accusation and not a defense. It is an invitation to look closely at how traditions travel, mutate, get commercialized, and sometimes get stripped of their soul.

This is why I keep asking myself a question...

A practice born in India

Yoga’s roots are deep and clear. The earliest textual references appear in the Rig Veda more than 2,500 years ago. Over centuries, the Upanishads and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras shaped yoga into a spiritual discipline. It was never about flexibility or abs. It was about devotion, discipline, and liberation.

Sanskrit was the language of its transmission. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism shaped its evolution. For millennia, yoga remained embedded in the cultural, spiritual, and philosophical fabric of India.

When Yoga left home

From the 1960s onward, yoga became a global phenomenon. It landed in California studios, London gyms, and Berlin lofts. Along the way, something changed.

The chanting faded.
Sanskrit cues were replaced with English ones.
Altars were taken down to make the space “neutral.”
Hindu deities were removed because they were considered “too religious.”
The physical practice became the main event.

In many Western studios today, there is even a policy of no Sanskrit. No mention of Shiva or Krishna. No reference to philosophy. It is marketed as fitness with a hint of mindfulness.

All in the name of “inclusivity.” But what happens to a tradition when you remove its language, its symbols, its philosophy, its story?

Cultural appreciation or cultural appropriation?

This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable and necessary.

When Westerners practice yoga, is it cultural appreciation or cultural appropriation?

Cultural appreciation is about respect, acknowledgment, and learning. It means honoring the tradition, naming its origin, and engaging with it deeply.

Cultural appropriation is about stripping a culture of its meaning, repackaging it, monetizing it, and often silencing the people it came from.

Practicing yoga is not appropriation in itself. But profiting from it, erasing its context, or presenting it as your own invention can be. Especially when those who benefit are not the ones who carried the tradition through generations.

Culture is not just an aesthetic. It is memory, identity, and often power.

Modi and the yoga politics

When India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the UN in 2014, he called yoga “one of India’s greatest gifts to the world.” This led to the International Day of Yoga on June 21, celebrated in over 170 countries. It was a moment of global visibility and a strong statement of cultural authorship.

But Modi himself is a deeply polarizing figure. In the West, he is widely criticized for supporting far-right Hindu nationalism and for enabling the growing polarization between Hindus and Muslims. His government has been accused of encouraging hate speech, restricting freedoms, and pushing an exclusionary vision of Indian identity.

This creates a strange tension. On one hand, yoga is presented as India’s peaceful gift to the world. On the other, it is being framed by political narratives that divide rather than unite.

The same word, yoga, is being used both as a global bridge and a nationalist banner.

The modern irony

Here is the twist I find fascinating and revealing.

When I am in India, I often see young Indians learning yoga through Western platforms like Alo Moves, YouTube tutorials, or Instagram influencers. Their reference is no longer Patanjali or even Krishnamacharya. It is Los Angeles.

India gave yoga to the world.
The world rebranded it.
Now that version is being imported back to India.

This is not just funny. It is a perfect mirror of how cultural power moves. Who controls the narrative? Who decides what yoga looks like? Who gets to represent it?

My take

I am not outside this story.
As a photographer, I have spent years glorifying the aesthetics of yoga. I have contributed to the clean, curated, global image that dominates the feeds.
But over time, I have also seen the shadows.
The erasure of context. The tokenization of culture. The privilege of who gets visibility. The tension between sacred practice and commercial product.

This is not about guilt. It is about awareness. Awareness gives us a chance to act differently.

Whose yoga is it now?

Is modern yoga Indian?
Yes, in its roots, its language, its spirit.
No, in its global branding, its Westernized packaging, its fitness-first identity.

Today yoga is a hybrid. Born in India, raised by the world, reshaped by commerce, technology, and culture.

The real question is not about ownership. It is about responsibility.

An open call

If you practice or teach yoga in the West:
• Acknowledge where it comes from.
• Learn a little Sanskrit.
• Name your teachers.
• Recognize the difference between practicing and profiting.
• Hold space for the culture that birthed it.

And if you are Indian, or from any culture that gave the world a tradition, remember: your heritage does not disappear because it travels. But how it is represented matters.

Final thoughts

Yoga can be a bridge or a mirror.
It can unite, or it can be used as a tool for identity politics.
It can connect cultures, or erase them.
It depends on how we hold it.

So, is modern yoga Indian?
Yes. No. Both. Neither.
It is alive. And like anything alive, it can be honored or exploited.

The choice, at least partly, is ours.