ABSTRACT
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) is an organization dedicated to ensuring ‘an accurate understanding of Hinduism as a living tradition’ (according to the HAF website, https://www.hafsite.org). In 2010, the HAF contacted the editors of Yoga Journal, a magazine that promotes yoga practice and philosophy and boasts over a million subscribers. The HAF wrote to inquire why the journal never made any reference to Hinduism. The reply they received was both short and pointed, ‘Hinduism comes with too much baggage.’ This reply prompted the HAF to launch a campaign designed to reclaim yoga for Hinduism. The campaign was dubbed ‘Take Back Yoga,’ a phrase that clearly communicates a fear that yoga has been hijacked from Hinduism by commercial interests. Such a concern can also be heard in the comments of Aseem Shukla, a cofounder of HAF, in a Washington Post blog claiming that Hinduism is the victim of ‘the facile complicity of generations of Hindu yogis, gurus, swamis, and others that offered up a religion’s spiritual wealth at the altar of crass commercialism’ (2010).
