INDIA Wellness guru can’t cure what ails us

India is finally cracking down on a famous quack healer, said Kaushik Das Gupta. For years, guru Baba Ramdev has insisted there’s no disease that he can’t cure with an herbal potion from his drug company Patanjali. During the pandemic, Ramdev urged his millions of followers not to get vaccinated, claiming his tablets could cure Covid. Now, “the Baba’s bluff” has been called. In February, the Supreme Court ordered Ramdev to stop issuing misleading advertisements, and when he persisted, it held him in contempt. Now, Uttarakhand state, where Patanjali is based, is considering criminal charges. Yet while Ramdev is the most influential charlatan, he is far from the only one. Indian social media is teeming with “mini Ramdevs,” self-styled healers selling “quick fixes” for real ailments. As Indian diets and lifestyles have grown more modern and Western, the country is “staring at an epidemic of noncommunicable diseases—diabetes, heart ailments, blood pressure, obesity, even cancer.” These can’t be cured through herbs or tinctures, or even by appeals to “Ayurveda, yoga, heritage, and tradition.” What this country really needs is a “meaningful debate on the food Indians eat and the lifestyles they lead,” not wellness gurus who “take people for a ride.”