Leveraging research as India’s new instruments of power
JAIPUR, India: India’s prime minister is planning a medicinal revolution - and it starts with ancient wisdom.
Many here believe that the West has plundered the country’s 3,000-year-old tradition of holistic healing to sell expensive aloe vera face creams or US$6 cups of turmeric-flavoured “golden milk.” Now Narendra Modi, India’s 67-year-old yoga-loving leader, wants to reclaim - and capitalise on - those medical traditions, known as Ayurveda.
Documented in ancient texts, Ayurv ed a emphasis es prevention over cure and prescribes healthy living practices and herbal remedies. Brands like Aveda and Lush borrow from Ayurveda to develop skin-care products while trendy coffee shops and juice bars in American cities repackage India’s village remedies into turmeric lattes and ashwagandha smoothies. Food bloggers are raving about ghee.
“All over the world, a parallel movement is going on for traditional medicine,” said Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, secretary of Modi’s recently launched Ministry of AYUSH, an acronym that stands for ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homeopathy, all traditional medicines. “India should lead. Not just to earn money, but also because it is our responsibility toward the world.”
But Ayurveda’s efficacy is disputed. Modi’s critics associate the Ayurveda push with his Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hindu nationalist ideology. Many of Ayurveda’s most prominent supporters have links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu supremacist organisation. Some proponents of Ayurveda even extol the virtues of drinking cow urine as an antidote to cancer and other illnesses, because of a belief in the cow as a holy animal.
To re launch“Brand Ayurv eda ,” government agencies have filed dozens of international patents, started research programmes at top Indian universities and sent experts to develop Ayurveda courses at colleges around the world. Delegates in 25 countries have set up “information cells” to spread awareness about traditional Indian knowledge.
In rural India, an agricultural effort accompanies the Ayurveda push. Officials are running educational programs and providing seeds, saplings and subsidies to farmers to meet the government’s target of increasing the cultivation of medicinal plants threefold, to cover 300,000 acres of land. Plants that farmers once considered weeds are being revived to cater to new demand for their medicinal properties.
In the desert state of Rajasthan, for instance, where waterguzzling crops often fail in the harsh climate, farmers are planting aloe vera and Indian gooseberries to replace wheat and millet.
“We have to boost Rajasthan’s farmers to survive in this environment. Take the Chinese - every material of theirs is reaching every market,” said Kailash Sharma, medical officer at the state’s AYUSH department, speaking of China’s traditional medicine.