Ramdev plays Swadeshi card: IPL ducks the Patanjali googly; does it matter?

One of the biggest advertisers across media today, Ramdev has declared his brand out of the annual cricket jamboree

Ramdev has spent the past couple of years carefully building up his Patanjali brand of products as a back-to-the-roots, pure-swadeshi label. Be it the advertising he does, or the fights he picks up with global brands, the image of a nationalist brand taking on the invading and exploitative multinational has been meticulously nurtured. The strategy has worked phenomenally well, catapulting Patanjali from near nothing to a company with Rs 100 billion worth of net sales in 2016-17. However when the 52-year old yoga guru announced last week that he was going to stay away from the two-month long Indian Premier