Let me begin with the export potential of yoga. I believe it is somewhat limited. The yoga industry (teaching and merchandising) is already a $27 billion behemoth in North America. I suspect that the size in Europe and the more affluent countries of Asia, though much smaller currently, is catching up. This, however, does not mean that thousands of Indian instructors find jobs in the West. Teaching is dominated by instructors of local origin and expatriate Indian teachers are few in number. Multiple lists of the 10 most inspiring yoga teachers currently teaching in the US and Canada that I searched for on the web did not have a single Indian name.
The merchandise industry (mats, pants etc) is dominated by both by big manufacturers like Reebok and mid-size niche companies like the Canadian Lululemon. Some Indian entrepreneurs believe that the "Made in India" tag will help them gain market share. However given the marketing firepower of Western big "yoga" companies, my prognosis is that this will remain a limited boutique market.
Yoga tourism is a large, established industry but is not confined to India. Thailand and Wales, to take two diverse examples, have some excellent and popular yoga retreats. There is certainly scope for increasing the flow of yoga tourists to India but this would be driven entirely by improvements in the tourism infrastructure as a whole. The fact is that a yoga retreat is located in India is unlikely to fetch a premium. It is important to note that women constitute the larger share of active yoga practitioners in the West and the perception about women's safety in India needs to improve if the market has to grow.
The upshot of all this is that the globalisation of yoga has created large internal markets in most affluent economies and getting a share of that market is not easy. There is no need to despair though. There is still a large internal market in India that remains untapped. I would argue that the critical "demographic" to focus on is the 16-30 age segment in India that I believe is relatively neglected in the promotion of yoga. Getting their share of "workout time" would not only create a large domestic market given their sheer numbers but would also address public health issues like lifestyle diseases that this cohort could develop as they grow older.
Here's what I think are the key elements of a successful yoga policy. The first step would be to stop treating yoga as an undifferentiated system. Instead we should identify the components of this very large and diverse system that are relevant to a particular segment (one can think of these segments in terms of age or any other parameter) and pitch it aggressively to them. Let me start with what I think would work well for the 16-30 age band.
In this context, it is important to understand the process of globalisation of yoga. The narrative in India associates the export of yoga with the gush of naïve "orientalism" that brought the West's overwrought spirituality seekers to our shores in the sixties and seventies. While the narrative is dominated by images of "hippies" blissing out in their tie-dyed sarongs and dabbling in a combination of pop meditation, ingestion of mind-bending substances and learning the lotus pose, what is not so well-known is that others were taking serious instruction from Indian instructors like BKS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois. These teachers, among many others, were the pioneer innovators resurrecting yoga as a form of hard physical exercise whose rigour could compete with if not outdo the rigours of alternative systems like the East Asian martial arts. Their students took this new yoga to the West and it is largely this form of physically challenging yoga that has thrived there. I believe that if it is promoted correctly, this could have a strong appeal for the sixteen pluses.
But let's not forget the competition. There is a visible fitness boom among the younger population. Gymming is no longer a metro phenomenon. Travel around and you will notice that even the smallest of towns have the ubiquitous gym with a mandatory shot of Arnie Schwarzenegger on their signage. The challenge is to pitch yoga to this emerging gym generation as an alternative to damaging knees on dodgy treadmills and gulping down equally dodgy protein shakes. This can only be done by re-positioning yoga as a safer but equally demanding and complete exercise form that can build strength and create the rippled physiques they so desire. Yoga as therapy is another "product" that needs to be promoted differently to a different category
A couple of things need to be borne in mind. It is important not to scoff at innovation and hold on to an inflexible sense of tradition. The combination of pilates, tai-chi and yoga for instance has given rise to an extremely powerful exercise system. Why not at least consider it in our yoga drive?
The other imperative is to face the fact that we face a huge skill gap. The effective pool of teachers who can teach safe, scientific and injury-free yoga is actually miniscule. On the other hand the number of untrained teachers who make promises of the "lose six kgs in two days" kind is on the rise. The government ministry has its task cut out in building up a formal certification programme along with the regulation of yoga instruction if international yoga day is to enable India's yoga decade or century.
The writer is chief economist, HDFC Bank. These views are his own