The ban on Yoga in Alabama schools in the US may be lifted soon as the state’s House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday with 73-25 votes. The bill, sponsored by Democratic Representative Jeremy Gray, would authorize the Local Education Board to offer yoga options to students in K-12 grades. Please tell that in 1993, the Alabama State Board of Education imposed a ban on yoga.
According to the bill, yoga will be an optional activity in which students will have the option to choose it as ‘alternative activities’. This will give the local board the right to determine the time and day of the yoga period. However, in public schools, the ancient practice would be limited to pose and stretching techniques and all the poses would be limited to sitting, standing, reclining, twisting and balancing only.
Can not ‘hello’
Under the bill, all the poses, exercises and stretching techniques will be named in ‘English’. ‘The use of text, mantra, mudra, mandal and greetings will be expressly forbidden’. The bill will go for passage in the Alabama Senate before it becomes law after the governor’s sign.
School personnel in Alabama are currently banned from doing yoga. Gray said that he came into contact with yoga through football and has been practicing it for seven years. He said that some house members said that they have received a lot of emails about yoga being a part of Hinduism. He said, ‘You can never change the mind of some people’.
The world celebrates ‘Yoga Day’ on 21 June
It is known that since its establishment in the United Nations General Assembly in 2014, the world celebrates International Yoga Day on 21 June every year since 2015. The draft proposal to establish the International Day of Yoga was proposed by India and was supported by a record 175 member countries.