The Politics of Yoga and the Wellness Industrial Complex
When you begin to truly understand the politics of yoga; who controls it, who profits from it, and who is erased in the process you see through the glossy surface of the global wellness industry. Yoga, a sacred and deeply communal spiritual practice born in the soil of working-class and oppressed peoples of South Asia, has been systematically repackaged, corporatized, and sanitized by Indian upper-caste elites and white Western capitalists.
These are the gatekeepers of the wellness world the yoga studio owners, retreat leaders, corporate sponsors, and certification bodies; who extract profit by commodifying wellness, mindfulness, and healing. Yet, the very poor and marginalized the people whose histories and struggles are embedded in these practices are either excluded or tokenized.
The Indian elite, often Brahmanical in their gatekeeping, rebrand ancient practices in elite urban settings, sell it back to the world, and align themselves with Western yoga billionaires. On the other side, white elites reframe yoga as fitness, wellness, or self-care without confronting the colonial theft or capitalist control of the practice. This wellness mafia uses certifications, accreditations, and retreat programs not to empower, but to control; making healing something that must be paid for, certified, and gentrified.
As a result, the poor become the audience, never the author. They are made clients, not co-creators. The funding, the jobs, the benefits they circle back to the powerful, while the masses are offered "outreach" yoga or "community wellness" crumbs.