by Sheela Rani Chunkath
Some 100 days are being internationally observed by the United Nations to bring attention to an issue, to commemorate an event or perhaps even to just celebrate something. So we have everything from International Day of Happiness to World Intellectual Property Day (from the sublime to the ridiculous).
We required an International Yoga Day before we created the awareness that went with it. We require the approval of the international community before we can appreciate the genius of our yogis and Patanjali. Do we need an International Day of Ayurveda and the stamp of the United Nations before we can feel proud of our healing heritage?
When I was Secretary, Health & Family Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, we started the process of setting up a first of its kind Ayurveda Hospital in Tamil Nadu. When the Government changed, allegation petitions start flying to the new dispensation. One such petition to the Chief Minister stated that the setting up of an Ayurvedic College in Tamil Nadu was initiated because I was a Malayali (I am not). During the same period steps had been initiated to set up many allopathic/Western medicine based hospitals but there were no petitions accusing me of being either a Westerner or of being culturally biased towards the West. Trying to set up a college based on Indian heritage and knowledge is considered a very inappropriate thing for the Health Secretary to have done!
We often accuse the British for having done away with our wonderful cultural heritage but after so many years of independence we still require the approval of the West before we will give our ways of healing the place they deserve. If we think allopathy is scientific and ayurveda is not, we have to recognise the hands of pharma companies and their extremely clever marketing where they bandy around unfounded rumours that ayurvedic drugs contain steroids and metals and that they are not particularly safe. I have been taking ayurvedic drugs for as long as I remember and none of the drugs had any steroids or metals.
If you have serious health conditions, certain treatments containing treated metals may be included. These ayurvedic preparations will cure the disease and not harm the patient unlike what I have seen many allopathic cancer drugs do to patients. Did the intensely toxic chemotherapy guarantee a cure? No. So why do people then go for it? Simple marketing! We are convinced that we look better in thick, nondescript blue jeans than we look in our gorgeous silks. If the jeans are torn, even better. I salute the genius of these marketing men. But do governments also have to fall a prey to them? We have 36 government ayurvedic colleges as against 150 government allopathic colleges (I could not get an exact count from the Ministry but this would give you an idea of the ratio). So many years after independence and we still have only one government ayurveda college to every 4 government allopathic college. Why? Is it to cater to Western pharma and to Western biomedical equipment manufacturers?
I am hoping that Prime Minister, Modi with his ability to convince Indians and the world about the efficacy, need and importance of yoga, will do the same for Ayurveda. For a start we can increase the number of government ayurvedic colleges in India so that we have well trained ayurvedic doctors. Ayurveda should become not an alternate system of medicine but India’s mainstream system of maintaining health and preventing and treating diseases.
--- The writer is retired Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu. She can be reached at Sheelarani.arogyamantra@gmail. com. Earlier articles can be accessed at http://arogyamantra.blogspot.com/