By Sushil Kutty
Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who called ‘allopathy’ “stupid science” and held allopathic practice/medicine responsible for the deaths of thousands of Indians, got a taste of his own medicine the other day! This man, who does belly-squirms every time he’s invited to demonstrate Yoga on TV, got a call from allopath Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan and was forced to eat crow.
The Healthy Minister asked Ramdev to make amends and the Yoga expert with Ayurveda as a second subject did that, but with conditions applied. Ramdev had claimed that medicines such as remdevisir and faviflu were of no value to the Covid patient, and that they had failed to treat Covid-19 patients. A day later, while condemning media and others for taking his statement “out of context”, Baba Ramdev qualified the apology with “allopathy doctors have termed Indian medical science as quackery and pseudoscience several times.”
The counterattack on allopathy sounded like an assault on allopath Dr Harsh Vardhan, and has laid the grounds for further debate on allopathy versus Ayurveda. The Union minister had in a letter to Baba Ramdev said that the Yoga guru’s words had hurt and insulted Covid warriors who are at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19. Earlier, the Indian Medical Association had sent Baba Ramdev a legal notice and had asked the Modi Government to take strict action against him for “misleading people” and making “unlearned” comments.
But it will be a miracle if the Modi government will go another step forward, beyond Dr. Harsh Vardhan’s letter, to reprimand Baba Ramdev. That will be tantamount to pulling up any of the 36 million Hindu gods for belittling the asura hordes. The Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi cannot take that risk though the Hindutva light brigade has started voicing singular doubts on Modi’s loyalty to Hindutva after the party’s failure to take Mayawati to task for events post-West Bengal assembly elections.
Baba Ramdev had on Saturday, while telling allopath doctors to take a hike, said that it was “shocking that Remdesvir failed, steroids failed and now plasma therapy has also been banned.” Ramdev, who peddles the Patanjali line of ayurvedic mishmash, including all sorts of sweet and sour ‘churan’, is a marketer of an un-Colgate like toothpaste and stuff made from extracts of Himalayan and other flora with medicinal properties. They say the Baba is a rupee billionaire with a direct line to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In fact, his frequent diatribes against the science of allopathy has more to do with his businesses than to knowledge he has come upon or gained from credible research done in Haridwar in Uttarakhand, which is where he spends quality time. In fact, Baba Ramdev and R&D are to the best of anybody-living being’s knowledge complete strangers.
So, when Yogaguru Ramdev says “the medicines doctors are giving (to Covid) patients for getting the fever down such as Fabilflu is not doing any good to them”, you know he’s talking through his hat, and that, too, only because he wants to see the sales of Coronil, an anti-Covid-19 medicinal concoction from the House of Patanjali, soar.
Fact is, Baba Ramdev is not “stupid” like allopathy, to which he has taken a dislike to, though there are those who will insist the saffron-clad Ramdev is worse than “stupid”, that “dumb” or “dumber” will fit him better. Patanjali also sells bottled gaumuttr (cow urine), which says on the bottle that it should be taken regularly in the morning on an empty stomach for best results.
Of course, Baba Ramdev is not the sort who gives practical demonstrations of him or others gulping gaumuttr or plastering themselves with cow-dung, but there are lots of people, including BJP politicians, who swear that Patanjali Gaumuttr is panacea for a number of illnesses, and along with cow-dung, a deadly combination to keep Covid-19 at bay.
What should get every allopathic doctor’s goat is Baba Ramdev’s assertion that “we have lost lakhs of people due to allopathic medicines and not due to shortage of oxygen”. That, in effect, means that AIIMS doctors and Apollo doctors and Medanta doctors, even doctors who abandoned Covid-19 patients when the oxygen cylinders ran dry, are all wilful killers. If so, why does Modi never tire of praising the tens of thousands of allopathic doctors who spend their waking hours saving the lives of Covid-19 patients?
If any bunch of people are saving the Covid-19 infected, it’s the tribe of allopathic doctors, and the science of allopathy. The least Modi should do is bundle Baba Ramdev into a hospice and keep him there till the last of Covid-19 is history. The Indian Medical Association has condemned Ram Kishan Yadav alias Baba Ramdev for using “derogatory” language against allopathic science and “medical doctors”.
The question is, is that enough condemnation? A case should be lodged against Baba Ramdev and the Government of India should publicly ask him to stick to his business and not let his business instincts dictate the course of the nation’s battle against the coronavirus. The country’s Covid-situation is in the pits, and there’s a third Covid wave coming, one which will target children, and it would be best for the children if Baba Ramdev is banished from even television. (IPA Service)
