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Recently, student leaders at the University of Ottawa cancelled a free yoga class that had been running for the past seven years. An email from the Centre for Students with Disabilities at the university, quoted in the Ottawa Sun and elsewhere, stated that since many cultures “have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy … we need to be mindful of this and how we express ourselves while practising yoga.”

I am a Kundalini Yoga teacher, and will be moving to Ottawa to teach yoga in the New Year. I am Punjabi, born in Malaysia. My maternal great-grandparents fled India during the Partition. My grandparents do not have a home in India anymore, as their villages are located in present-day Pakistan. My family has experienced displacement due to colonialism.

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Practising yoga mindfully to be sensitive to the suffering of my culture seems to me to be a minimization of the suffering experienced by my family and culture. Practising yoga “properly” will not make the suffering less and it does not make me feel better. It actually makes me feel worse. Using my suffering to deny others access to the transformational powers of yoga is disempowering not only to me but to everyone around me.