In the view of many people, Baba Ramdev embodies the practice of modern yoga in twenty-first century India. A tremendously successful entrepreneur, infamous ‘godman’ with political ties, and a highly visible TV personality, he is also a vocal supporter of pahalwani (Indian wrestling) as a way of life and of wrestling in India as a national sport. Beyond sponsorship of tournaments and support for a new professional wrestling league, he promotes a form of modern, nationalistic masculinity that draws on the ‘ideals’ of yoga, competitive athleticism, ‘Hindu’ conceptions of embodied power, and fetishized Vedic asceticism. In complex and often contradictory ways, Baba Ramdev's embodiment of these ideals shapes the bio-morality of wrestlers as they train, compete, and endorse his products. Critically analysed in terms of gender theory, his sponsorship of wrestling belies deep contradictions in religious nationalism, middle-class modernity, and in the gendered morality of both wrestling as a sport and yoga as a form of practice.

中文翻译：

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Pahalwan Baba Ramdev：在印度与瑜伽和中产阶级男子气概搏斗

在许多人看来，巴巴拉姆德夫体现了二十一世纪印度现代瑜伽的实践。他是一位非常成功的企业家、臭名昭著的“神人”，与政治关系密切，并且是电视名人，他也是帕哈瓦尼（印度摔跤）作为一种生活方式和摔跤在印度作为一项民族运动。除了赞助锦标赛和支持新的职业摔跤联盟之外，他还提倡一种现代的、民族主义的男子气概，这种男子气概借鉴了瑜伽的“理想”、竞技运动能力、体现力量的“印度教”概念以及拜物教的禁欲主义。巴巴拉姆德夫以复杂且常常相互矛盾的方式体现了这些理想，塑造了摔跤手在训练、比赛和认可他的产品时的生物道德。从性别理论的角度进行批判性分析，他对摔跤的赞助掩盖了宗教民族主义、中产阶级现代性以及摔跤作为一项运动和瑜伽作为一种实践形式的性别道德的深刻矛盾。