New Delhi: Call it the Narendra Modi effect and the Indian Prime Minister’s effort to promote yoga at the international level. Communist Russia’s military has decided to go in for India’s traditional yogic exercises and the ancient art of ayurveda to cure the ill and heal the injured. These two disciplines are among a host of Oriental disciples, including medicinal systems of the Tibetan, Uighur, Buryat and Yakut.
Russian media quoted Colonel Vyacheslav Polovinka, head of the Moscow branch of the S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, as saying: “The decision to use methods of traditional oriental medicine was made by the main military medical directorate of the ministry of defence”.
The training of specialists in these fields will start next year at the Moscow branch of the S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy and dedicated and specialised rooms dealing with these systems will soon be set up in all Russian military medical facilities.
“We are studying the experience and subtlety of oriental medicine, which evolved over thousands of years, and are trying to integrate them into our standard treatments,” Col. Polovinka was quoted as saying.
The move comes in the backdrop of a controversy in June 2015 when authorities in central Russia’s Nizhnevartovsk referring to the “occult” character of yoga reportedly instructed the city’s culture, sports, and education department to “take measures to stop the practice of yoga in municipal institutions.”
Interestingly, in November 2015, Russian and Indian military troops practised yogic exercises like “Anulom-Vilom”, “Suryasana”, “Vajrasana” and “Ardha Matsyendrasana” in special sessions during the “Indra-2015” bilateral military exercise in Rajasthan.
Besides physiological improvements, yoga is also said to enhance an individual’s capacity to deal with stress, mental tension, and emotional overload.
Indian military and the paramilitary as also the defence forces of many western countries are taking to yoga in a big way and have made it part of their daily activities.
