The event has set two new records, for holding the largest yoga demonstration in a day and for "the participation of the largest number of nationalities in a single yoga event," said an article by Wang Dehua, head of the Institute for the Southern and Central Asian Studies of the Shanghai Municipal Centre for International Studies.
The article, titled "Yoga Day brings up long-standing sectarian worries in diverse India" and published in the state-run Global Times today, however, was silent about big yoga get-togethers held in China where the discipline had caught up in a big way in recent years.
As the homeland of yoga, part of the country's cultural heritage, it is natural for India to strive to improve the popularity of this activity, the article said.
"This time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is obviously attempting to play the soft power card by promoting yoga in such a large-scale exercise, in order to showcase India's will to become a global power, boost the nation's global image, and the most important of all, to unite Indian people and promote nationalism," the article said.
"Modi has realised that this can be a great opportunity to strengthen India's national spirit and enhance national cohesion by promoting yoga exercises. But the bitter truth is that it will prove to be hard for things to go exactly as he wished," it said.
"Modi has been laying out loud, clear and cheerful slogans since assuming office, including making India a super power by 2020. But India's industrial strength still lies over in software. Hence, Modi's efforts to promote the country's soft power should be coordinated with efforts in other hard power areas," it said.