500 Andhra Pradesh police join three-day Heartfulness meditation programme

More than 500 police personnel in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada district spent three days in a Heartfulness meditation programme built around pranayama, meditation and yoga, turning a wellness practice into part of the police training environment.

The sessions were held at the Kakinada police parade grounds and the Government Junior College grounds in Samalkot under the directions of Andhra Pradesh DGP Harish Kumar Gupta and In-charge SP Rahul Meena. Additional SP S. Srinivasa Rao supervised one site, while DSP A.B.G. Tilak oversaw the other, with meditation and yoga instructors guiding officers, staff and Armed Reserve personnel through the exercises. One session drew more than 300 officers and staff, and another brought in over 111 personnel from the Peddapuram sub-division, pushing the district total past 500.

The programme was framed around the pressures of police work. Instructors said the practices were meant to reduce stress and improve mental well-being, which places the event squarely in the lane of occupational resilience rather than ceremonial optics. For a force that works long hours, handles public-facing confrontation and operates under constant alertness, the emphasis on pranayama and meditation was aimed at emotional regulation as much as relaxation.

Heartfulness presents itself as a 100-year-old tradition centered on meditation on the heart, with certified trainers guiding practice to develop well-being, calm, compassion, courage and clarity. The movement traces its roots to Fatehgarh in the late 1800s and says the first Heartfulness organization in India was founded in July 1945. It also says its practices now reach people in more than 160 countries, a scale that helps explain why a police department can treat the method as an organized training tool rather than an informal wellness add-on.

The police connection is already visible in the movement’s own public work. At a World Meditation Day programme at Kanha Shanti Vanam, Vice President C.P. Radhakrishnan praised Heartfulness for promoting peace, harmony and spiritual well-being, and noted the growing adoption of meditation among police. Heartfulness has also previously highlighted police officer Ruchi Vardhan Misra and recorded a three-day workshop for Karnataka State Reserve Police trainee officers in Munirabad in 2016.

In Kakinada, the strongest signal was not just the headcount. It was the setting itself, two police-linked venues filled with officers moving through the same practice under senior supervision, with meditation now positioned as part of the district’s regular resilience toolkit.