The Congress has urged Goa’s Education Department to withdraw its circular mandating Yoga Day attendance on Sunday. The dispute has widened into a debate over parental choice, holidays and the politicisation of yoga.
The Congress on Saturday asked Goa’s Education Department to withdraw its circular making it compulsory for school students and teachers to attend Yoga Day programmes. The Directorate of Education has instructed all schools to hold yoga sessions on Sunday, June 21, which is observed as International Yoga Day.
The party said yoga should remain a matter of personal choice and objected to making attendance mandatory on a Sunday. It said the weekly holiday is often reserved for family time, prayer and religious observance, and that parents should be free to decide how their children spend the day.
In a statement, Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar said, “Yoga is a personal choice, and should never become a compulsory obligation.” He added, “Sunday is the only day many families spend together. It is also a day of prayer and religious observance for many communities across Goa,” and said parents should have the freedom to decide how their children spend their weekly holiday.
Responding to the statement, Goa BJP Medical Cell co-convenor Dr Sneha Bhagwat said it was “sad and unfortunate” that the circular was being politicised. She said a student could attend a yoga session at any place near their house and added, “Yoga is for health, wellbeing, mental and emotional stability which is a very much a necessary right for students.”
Bhagwat said more than 193 countries have accepted yoga and claimed that over 300 research papers have shown that a daily 20-minute yoga practice can improve life expectancy and quality of life “by 70 per cent”. She also claimed that research had established that yoga can prevent 90 per cent of idiopathic diseases, where the exact cause is not known.
