Kathmandu, March 29 (Inditop.com) Like thousands of others in Nepal, the country’s Maoist chief Prachanda has also got hooked on to yoga.
Over the past couple of months, the chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has been seeking spiritual and physical shelter in traditional Indian ‘pranayama’ (breathing exercises), light yoga and alternative healing to rid himself of an “ailing neck and cultivate a positive lifestyle”.
The Communist honcho has also sent out the message of yoga to his red rank-and-file for “positive thoughts” as Nepal readies to draft a new constitution.
In 2007, his party had objected to an Indian yoga camp in the capital of the country. Three years on, he clearly seems to have had a change of heart.
Clad in a casual combination of a white workday shirt, a khadi waistcoat and black trousers, Prachanda spread his prayer mat on the ground at Tundikhiel in Kathmandu amid a crowd of 30,000 people with a string of wooden prayer beads around his neck Monday.
He became yet another practitioner of Indian yoga with a happy smile on his face as his spiritual mentor Ramdev welcomed him back to the roots. The people of Nepal say “that the ideology of Maoism and the spirituality of yoga could work wonders for the common man of the country”.
“When I met Ramdev in New Delhi for the first time, he said he wanted to reach out to the people of my country with yoga to better the centuries-old social and cultural bonding between the two nations. The conversation between us was very interesting. I was also suffering from a neck-related problem for which I sought acupressure therapy from his clinic. It gave me instant relief. I felt the power of yoga in that instant. And I wanted my party to adopt yoga for a better lifestyle and health,” Prachanda said.
“I realised that this traditional fitness regimen, which is intrinsic to Indian society and culture, could help Nepal at a time when it was gearing up to write a just constitution for its people. The positive energy of yoga could enrich the Communist ideology to make Nepal more dynamic,” he said.
Prachanda said “his party was making an effort to ensure that the constitution was drafted on time and was talking to members of the ruling coalition and several other opposition parties to see the democratic process through”.
Later, addressing the media in an informal interface, Prachanda said “India could benefit if Nepal utilized its water resources optimally”.
Denying support to the Maoists in India at any point during his tenure as the country’s prime minister and as the leader of the Communist Party, Prachanda said, “ideologies of the Maoist groups are different across the world”.
“We have never offered any help to the Maoists in India,” he said.
Prachanda (Pushpa Kumar Dahal), who was elected prime minister of Nepal Aug 15, 2008, resigned from his post May 4, 2009 following his move to sack the Nepalese chief of army staff.
