Swami Ramdev - The character and vision of Krishna

Swami Ramdev is an unparalleled case of religious entrepreneurship and can only be compared with Swami Vivekananda of yore. I cam across articles on his life in the Pioneer and found that Swamiji exemplifies both the character and strategy of Lord Krishna. Here is how.

Swamiji was born to a poor farmer’s family in Haryana. In childhood he suffered from a debilitating disease which left him with a partial disability but he was not dissuaded by the limitations that it posed on him. He learned yoga asanas at his Guru’s hermitage and began a career teaching yoga to people. However even from the beginning he had the conviction that one day he would be the world’s number one yoga exponent. In the late 90s he used to go on a rickety vespa to teach yoga to the SSP’s wife in Hardwar. The SSP remembers the fierce determination of the man that he would one day be the world’s foremost authority of yoga.

Swami Ramdev would have made his initial impact by his use of wit and humor. In my book ‘The Avatar Way of Leadership’ I have pointed out how humour can influence people around oneself and how Lord Krishna used humour to buttress his position. That sense of humour is evident in Swami Ramdev's meetings, which he starts by teasing the youngest and moving slowly up the age ladder. A sense of humour plays a crucial role in reducing distance between the leader and followers and in generating a positive regard for the leader.

This is also one of the reasons Jayendra Saraswati could never build a following the way Swami Ramdev has done. Jayendra Saraswati hobnobbed with political leaders and always maintained a formal distance from the common people. The result was that he failed to get any popular support when he was attacked.

Then Swamiji realized the strategic opportunity that presented from TV channels especially those on religion. An expert communicator, Swamiji also realized that most yoga acharyas on TV hardly made any effort to communicate with the people. They came, expounded the virtues of yoga and admonished people to practice extremely difficult and physically contorting asanas.

Not so Swami Ramdev. The first thing that he did was to make Yoga simple. No longer people with stiff joints had to bend their bodies impossibly. He also focused on stressing on breathing. This was significant not only because most yogic texts have stressed on the necessity of correct breathing in regulating body functions but also in terms of ease that it offered to practitioners. Pranayama had hardly received as much attention by yoga practitioners who stressed on difficult asanas almost as if they were involved in a show of gymnastics.

The result was that he became a hit from the very start. It was not that he was fated to become a hit. Rather it was the attention that he paid to generating the maximum impact among the people that made him a hit. He followed this up with mass camps across the country where people got the opportunity to practice what they had seen on television. he set up a rigorous schedule criss crossing the country with thousands of camps. They not only brought in revenue but made him directly accessible to the common people. The people came into contact with Swamiji and were mesmerised by cheerful and outgoing personality, becoming his devoted followers.

This was not all. He realized that there was a need to safeguard the country’s medical heritage in Ayurveda. From the very beginning he had the vision to build a formidable enterprise that would combine the best of east and the west. It would not be a shoddy enterprise. Talking to reporters of the Pioneer his associate said that he was overwhelmed by the scale of Swamiji’s ambitions "5000 out-patients a day under one roof, a self-sustaining herbal plantation for a one-crore tablets a day pharmacy and an international facility spread over 650 acres to debate and evolve Ayurveda on a global scale"! He advised Swamiji to begin modestly since there was no money in their pockets. But Swamiji was committed to his grand vision. This committment to a powerful vision that has never been realized before and which seems completely impossible is one of the hallmarks of the archetype of Krishna.

Today that vision is a reality. Swamiji’s Patanjali Yogapeeth will soon be operational. It has "eight wings, five sections, a state-of-the-art yogshala and centrally air-conditioned diagnostics section and an in-patient department". Further, the four-storeyed Divya Yog Pharmacy in the industrial belt of Hardwar, is the biggest building in the area. This fully-computerised facility combines the best of ancient and modern wisdom and will soon start mass production of fully tested one crore tablets.

Of course success brings problems. Lord Krishna faced powerful enemies throughout his life and Swamiji has had the same fate. Swamiji seemed as an easy target. Most Hindu sages unfortunately hardly know how to deal with organized opponents. The biggest example of this was the ease with Jayendra Saraswati was humiliated. The Kanchi Shankaracharya's arrest hardly raised any protest. Rather the arrest only embarrassed the Kanchi Mutt.

In meeting the challenge posed by Ms Karat, Swami Ramdev showed the strategy of Lord Krishna as well. He changed the terms of the debate from one that focused on him to one that focused on allopathy vs indegenous medicine and indegenous vs foreign companies. Further, he mounted a campaign against the communists and exposed their intentions. He also ensured that his entire network of sympathisers was fully activated to meet the threat. The resulting hue and cry was so great that Ms Karat and had to backtrack.

Indian social and religious leaders would also do well to consider the difference in the reactions gathered by Jayendra Saraswati and Swami Ramdev. The difference lies in the nature of leadership style and the kind of leader-follower interactions of the two leaders. There is much that Indian leaders can learn about winning the hearts of people from Swami Ramdev.

Swami Ramdev is an example of the heights that one can achieve with determination and vision. His achievements are not just meant to be lauded but also emulated. Our ancestors made a mistake when they turned Rama and Krishna into a pedestal to be worshipped and not be followed. The result was that the quality of Indian leadership deteriorated badly. Today we have the opportunity and the challenge to to follow the great Avatars ourselves.

Reference:
The analysis of Swamiji's achievements is my own but the facts on his life and the information on his pharmacy as well as the attck on him has come from the following two articles in the Pioneer on Sunday, 15 January.

1. Meenakshi Rao & Debashis Mohanty, 'CEO of Yoga Inc', The Pioneer New Delhi, Sunday 'Foray', January 15, 2006
http://www.dailypioneer.com/foray1.asp?main_variable=SUNDAYPIONEER%2FFORAY&file_name=fory1%2Etxt&counter_img=1

2. Apurva Pandit, 'Ramdev - A Well Planned Blitzkrieg', The Pioneer, New Delhi, Sunday 'Foray' January 15, 2006
http://www.dailypioneer.com/foray1.asp?main_variable=SUNDAYPIONEER%2FFORAY&file_name=fory2%2Etxt&counter_img=2

Vice Admiral Krishnan of the Indian Navy – Tricking India’s enemies Krishna style

Rarely do we honour war heroes in our armed fores who use much ingenuity to outwit India’s enemies. On the other hand we are prone to surrendering all our victories on a silver platter to those whom we defeated. This account is about a war-hero whose brilliant Krishna like strategy led to the winning of the 1971 war. The full details of his exploit may be found in an article published in India Today Magazine. Its reference is provided at the end.

Vice-Admiral Krishnan, Flag Officer Commanding, Eastern Naval Command used a highly creative Krishna type strategy in the 1971 war with Pakistan. In the month before the war, Krishnan was concerned about INS Vikrant that had been given the charge of blockading the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from the sea. However the vessel was deeply threatened by the formidable Ghazi submarine of the Pakistan Navy that was to be deployed in the Bay of Bengal.

Like Krishna, Krishnan prepared an elaborate deception plan to let the Pakistani Navy believe that INS Vikrant was stationed in the port of Vizag. He got an ageing destroyer INS Rajput to pretend to be Vikrant by sailing it out of Vizag and generating heavy wireless traffic. This would create the impression of a large ship in the area.

That was not all. He even tricked his own naval authorities in Chennai by falsely informing them that INS Vikrant would arrive in Vizag and began ordering huge quantities of rations which would indicate that the fleet was in the harbour. The Pakistanis fell for the trap and Ghazi was ordered to change directions and move to Vizag. Within a few days it was hit by an explosion and destroyed.

In the meantime, INS Vikrant and her escorts had been safely stationed in one of the Andaman islands. Three days after the sinking of the Ghazi, the Vikrant launched its first air strikes which dazed the Pakistani army in East Pakistan.

Thus the safety of the Indian aircraft carrier and eventually the victory of India in the
eastern sphere was due to the cunning strategy of a Vice admiral who lured the enemy to
a chosen area where it couldn’t damage the aircraft carrier and where the submarine was
presumably destroyed.

Reference
Unnithan Sandeep, "The Ghazi Mystery", India Today, January 26, 2004, P.58-61