Yoga as an Academic Disciple in Indian Public Universities. The Case of the Department of Yogic Art and Science, Vishva Bharati (West Bengal)

With the arrival of a Hindu nationalist government in 2014, yoga became central to Indian politics. A government ministry dedicated to its propagation has since devoted considerable resources to promoting it around the world but also, and above all, to integrating its teaching into Indian public infrastructure. This paper will look at one part of this phenomena by studying the entry of yoga in Indian Public Universities taking as a case study the building of the Yoga Art and Science Departement in Vishva Bharati (West Bengal). By analysing the effects of this policy rather than its stated intentions, this paper proposes to approach this phenomenon from an ethnographic perspective focused on the actors and movements implicated in the establishment of this new 'institutional yoga'.