Muslim organizations in Mumbai have decided to meet the chief minister on Wednesday asking that Yoga sessions should not be made compulsory for Muslims.
Days after Maharashtra government passed a command for schools to remain open on Sunday, i.e. on June 21, to mark International Yoga Day. Several Muslim outfits in Mumbai slammed the order saying that yoga, including Surya Namaskar, requires a person to bow (to Sun God), and bowing was a practice reserved for Namaz.
“It is deleterious to our religious freedom. Islam being a monotheistic religion, the followers cannot bow down before anyone except Allah,” said Mohammed Zahoor, education secretary of Jamat- e-Islami Hind. “Muslims taking up Yoga should be a voluntary move, making it mandatory is unfair,” he added.
AIMIM MLA from Byculla, Waris Pathan called the move “unconstitutional”. “If students choose Yoga, Sanskrit, Gita recitation of their own free will, its fine with us, but making them mandatory is unconstitutional, and would disturb the harmony and peace and damage the very foundation of secularism.
According to me it is an indirect way of promoting a ‘Hindu rashtra’ by the BJP government. “Recently, a Muslim girl won prize for Gita recitation, none of the Muslim organizations objected to that as it was her own decision,” claimed AIMIM MLA.
June 21 was declared as the International Day of Yoga by the UN General Assembly in December 2014, following which the state government had asked the schools to devise programme to mark the day.
Though School Education and Sports Minister Vinod Tawde had then said schools could celebrate it on another day except Sunday, but the state govt urged the schools to call students on Sunday, June 21 only.
“While the minister claims Yoga Day may help students de-stress, we think it will overburden students if we call them on Sundays for Yoga. Students already have got too many activities… hence starting mandatory Yoga practice will not be feasible,” said the principal of a school in south Mumbai.