The Business of Godmen: Baba Ramdev A Symptom of The Society Gripped by Faith-Blind Faith Combo
By
Ram Puniyani for New Age Islam
15 April
2024
The Faith-Based Knowledge, And Thereby
Treatment Systems Are Above Criticism. Many Babas Have Their Own System Of
Treatment. The Protocol Of Medical Systems Is Evolved By Adapting To Better
Systems. The Likes Of Ramdev Take The Advantage Of Holiness, To Be Above
Criticism And Make Many Statements As They Like.
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In the last
couple of decades, we have seen the rapid rise of many godmen. They did have a
social presence earlier as well but lately their increasing social influence
and political clout has been quite frightening.
Baba
Ramdev. Photo: Bollywood Hungama/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
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Many of
them had a dark belly also, but by and large that has been overlooked and
shadowed by the large divinity surrounding them. Shakaracharya
Jayendra Sarswathi was accused of murder of an ashram worker,
Shankararaman. In Satya Sai Baba’s Prasanthi Nilayam also there was a murder case. Gurmeet Ram
Rahim carried on with his activities, one journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati
was killed for bringing forward his black deeds. Finally with difficulty law
caught up with him and currently he is in jail, rather most of the time on parole. Asaram Bapuis
another person who succeeded in escaping the clutches of law till a long time
and is finally behind bars. Currently another one Bageshwar Dham
Baba is having a
roaring success with devotees. These are the tip of the iceberg, and around the
country many such individuals are present who are mesmerising people in the
trap of blind faith. The riches of most of these godmen are enviable.
There are
two others who are worth mentioning Sri Sri Ravishankar, who rampaged the
Yamuna for his gala
event. He was also associated with Anna Hazare’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) supported movement. He is in the news generally for subtly supporting
Hindu nationalist politics.
And then
there is Baba Ramdev. He began his career as a Yoga guru with great success and
then transitioned to the business world with the brand Patanjali. This firm,
produces and markets Ayurvedic products and has brought Baba in the line of
front ranking business tycoons, with huge assets. He and his close associate
Acharya Balkrishna have built up a massive empire, un-challenged till lately.
All his ayurveda products were publicised with great fanfare and a large
section of media went gaga over his achievements.
The
academic qualifications of the Acharya and Baba duo are not much known.
Currently there are many Ayurvedic Medical Colleges, but it is doubtful if they
have any degree from these. On the pretext that they are posing an indigenous
challenge to the multinational corporations, many of their methods probably
went unchallenged.
Matters
came to a head during Covid 19. On one hand, the ruling government made hefty
donations for the Pune-based Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. On the other hand,
within a month of the outbreak of the pandemic, Ramdev came up with the claim
that they have developed a medicine for the treatment and prevention of the
disease — ‘Coronil’. The claim was that it has the approval of WHO. When
challenged by the Ayush ministry, they corrected themselves to say that it has
been developed on the guidelines of WHO. Ayush ministry distanced itself from
the claims of Ramdev. The combo pack of Coronil was launched
with great fanfare in the presence of two Cabinet ministers, Dr. Harshvardhan
and Nitin Gadkari. Dr. Harshvardhan himself is a trained medical doctor. There
is currently a blind praise of ancient systems.
Ramdev
claimed that the medicine has been tested on 100 patients of mild to moderate
severity and the Corona test became negative in a few days. He mentioned that
he had tied up with a few doctors for the testing of the medicine. The protocol
of introducing the medicines in modern medicine is preceded by biochemical
analysis, animal testing and clinical double-blind trial of adequate size
samples. This was not followed.
Overawed
with his commercial success, he not only accepted the praise from most of the
godi media, he took a step further to call Allopathic as a stupid science.
Irked by this, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) filed a case against him,
which was heard recently. First, he apologised to IMA for insulting the modern
medicine.
Just to
recall when he sat on a hunger strike against corruption, he claimed that he
has a ‘Yoga body’ and he can withstand the fast for a long time. Within a few
days his condition worsened and he was admitted to an allopathic hospital. Similarly, Acharya
Balakrishna was seriously ill and had to be admitted to the ICU of an
allopathic hospital in 2019.
Even after
the apex court’s warning, Ramdev’s firm continued the misleading advertisements. The court summoned him. He apologised profusely. The court refused to
accept his apology and has asked him to mend his ways and come back again.
The details
of the whole episode apart, how come such faith-based knowledge and use of
medications based on that have been on a rise for so long, what an arrogance to
downgrade the modern system of medicine? One concedes there are lots of
empirical wisdom in some traditional medicines and even in grandma’s medicines.
The point however is that the modern system of medicine is based on evidence
and peer review. The knowledge is ruthlessly subjected to review and criticism.
And this is what leads to improvement leading to something close to what is
useful.
The faith-based
knowledge, and thereby treatment systems are above criticism. Many Babas have
their own system of treatment. The protocol of medical systems is evolved by
adapting to better systems. The likes of Ramdev take the advantage of holiness,
to be above criticism and make many statements as they like. He had proclaimed
that he has treatment for Cancer, Aids and what have you. He even claimed that
homosexuality is a disease and he can cure it.
So far, he
has the protection of the ‘system’ and that gave him the arrogance to downgrade
the allopath and make irrational claims about ‘his’ system. And why are such
Babas having gala time with their faith based claims?
Last few
decades have seen the rise of politics in the name of religion. This also harps
on the ancient Indian knowledge systems. Taking these in a critical way is what
science and rationalists will demand. This is what was demanded by the likes of
Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh. They
were done away for raising rational understanding. This is a period when
rational thinking and methods are being undermined in the glare of ‘faith-based
knowledge’. Even in our educational curriculum in the name of ‘Indian knowledge
systems’ the faith-based things will form part of curriculum.
Baba Ramdev
is a symptom of the society gripped by faith-blind faith combo. The Supreme
Court has done well to put a small stop to this ascending ‘Baba’ trend in the
field of medicine.
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Ram
Puniyani is president of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism.
Source: The
Business of Godmen: How Ramdev Was Protected and Even Promoted by the 'System'
URL: https://newageislam.com/current-affairs/godmen-ramdev-symptom-blind-faith-combo/d/132138
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