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This US state may lift yoga ban in schools. Just don’t say ‘namaste’
The bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jeremy Gray, would authorise local boards of education to offer yoga to students in grades K-12.
A ban on yoga in public schools of US’ Alabama may soon be lifted after the state’s House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday in a 73-25 vote. In 1993, the Alabama State Board of Education banned yoga after a push from right-wing groups over its Hindu roots. The bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jeremy Gray, would authorise local boards of education to offer yoga to students in grades K-12.
Yoga will be an elective activity where students will have the option of opt-out in favour of “alternative activities”, according to the bill. It provides exclusive discretion to local boards to determine the duration and frequency of periods of instruction in yoga. However, the ancient practice in public schools will be limited to poses and stretching techniques and all poses will be limited exclusively to sitting, standing, reclining, twisting, and balancing.
Under the bill, all poses, exercises, and stretching techniques must have exclusively “English descriptive names”. “Chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, and namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited,” a subsection of the legislation reads. The bill will now go to the Alabama Senate for its passage before the governor signs it into law.
School personnel in Alabama are currently prohibited from using any techniques that involve the induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, meditation or yoga. The state has banned meditation by calling it separate from “secular meditation” and defined it as an altered or dissociative state, of consciousness often synonymous with hypnosis.
Gray said that he was introduced to yoga through football and has been practising it for seven years, reported the Associated Press. According to Gray, some House members said they “got a lot emails about it (yoga) being part of Hinduism.” “Some people’s minds you can never change. If you have to vote your district, I understand it,” Gray added.
Since 2015, the world celebrates International Yoga Day on June 21 every year following its inception in the United Nations General Assembly in 2014. The draft resolution establishing the International Day of Yoga was proposed by India and endorsed by a record 175 member states.
(With AP inputs)
