About the book

"Yoga as Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens on Caste, Gender, and Sacred Resilience in Yoga History" illuminates the essential - but often unseen - relationships between caste and gender in yoga. Bridging scholarship, history and cultural analysis, yoga educator and practitioner Anjali Rao exposes how caste oppression, patriarchy and colonization impact contemporary practice and offers readers radical ways to re-envision a yoga grounded in liberation, inquiry, discernment and even dissent.

Rao calls upon us to realize the work of co-creating a compassionate and courageous world, uplifting the stories of women and gender-expansive people who confront caste and gender dominance. The stories or kathas, reflect different parts of yoga history from the Upanishads, the Puranas and the Bhakti renaissance - and highlight theseismic shifts in consciousness about the potential of spiritual teachings for social change. 

In the book Anjali explores

  • Foundational histories of yoga, caste and Hinduism

  • The tensions among yoga, nationalism, anti-colonialism and Indigeneity

  • The impacts and intersections of yoga, gender, caste and culture

  • Brahminnical appropriation and its relationship to eros, spirituality and loving devotion

  • Sanskritization, vernacularization and the impact of patriarchy on bodily expression Bhakti as a subversive tool of personal agency and anticolonial resistance

Meet the Author

Anjali Rao is a yoga educator-practitioner and our faculty member whose work deconstructs the dynamics of power in yoga with a multidisciplinary approach integrating philosophy, art and history. She offers insight into the stories that have been obscured by heteropatriarchy, orthodoxy and colonisation. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies, exploring the formulation of movements of dissent and resistance in the religio-spiritual context. She is on the faculty of many yoga teacher training and continuing education programs. She is also the host of The Love of Yoga podcast, where she shares thought-provoking conversations with yoga scholars and activists on the frontlines of liberatory movements.

About Radical Darshan Yogi Book Club

At Radical Darshan, our Yogi Book Club is an invitation into collective learning, reflection and liberation centered dialogue.

Each quarter, we choose a book written by an author whose work aligns with our values of decolonisation, intersectional equity and social transformation. This is not just about reading - it’s about engaging deeply with ideas that challenge, expand and root our practice in a broader context of justice and community.

Over the course of 2 months, participants are invited to move through the book at a steady pace. Every two weeks we share reflection prompts, questions and ‘food for thought’ to support deeper integration. You’re encouraged to engage in whatever way feels meaningful - whether that’s journaling, discussing with others on socials or simply sitting with what arises.

In the final month of the quarter we gather for a live session with the author. This is a space to hear directly from them, listen to excerpts from the book and participate in a thoughtful Q&A that brings the text to life through shared inquiry.

The Yogi Book Club is a space for collective study, critical reflection and community connection - where reading becomes a practice of awareness, dialogue and liberation.