Sunday Times 2
Running with miracle ‘Vedahs’ for votes while sticking by the profession
Quite recently we witnessed on NDTV (New Delhi Television) in its daily talk show, ‘Big Fight’: journalists, academics, medical professionals, Ayurvedic practitioners and politicians, including Narendra Modi’s BJP spokesman, in a rip-roaring shouting match on Ayurvedic medical practitioners being granted the right to perform surgery.
Showing scant regard for health guidelines, a large crowd gathered outside a Kegalle devale to get a bottle of free 'covid' cure that Bandara Veda Mahattaya has prepared
The Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) had issued a notification in mid-November allowing Ayurveda surgery students who had completed their post-graduate studies to perform certain surgical procedures. A list including 58 types of surgery: general, dental, ENT and opthalmological procedures had been issued.
Extremely logical and illogical arguments were made by both sides of the divide and perhaps were no different to debates on such topics in most South Asian countries, certainly like in Sri Lanka.
Not being able to follow the cross-talk on the debate we later went on Internet to get details of the pro and anti-Ayurveda debate.
Prof. Hemantha Kumar of the National Institute of Jaipur begins his case—like most Sri Lankans–recalling the glorious past: ‘Sushtra, the sage of 500 BC, known as the Father of Surgery, had spoken of one hundred kinds of surgical instruments, stressing the point that surgery is nothing new to Ayurveda. We could not find reports on Internet which referred to benefits that would accrue to patients under the Ayurvedic scalpel with the new regulation.
On the other hand, the President of the Indian Medical Association Dr. Rajan Sharma had lashed out at the move saying that this move was ‘blatantly putting lives of helpless ignorant citizens at risk. It is corrupting modern medicine by mixing it with other systems and poaching the disciplines of modern medicines through the backdoor, he has said.
Going by the emotions, body-language, languages (English and Hindi), seeming political preferences, seen on NDTV, it did appear that this issue exposed a deep fissure that exists in the Indian middle class.
Ayurveda is the Poor Man’s choice of medical systems in India just as it is in neighbouring Lanka. Way back in 1956, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike enlisted the indigenous physicians as one in the ‘Five Great Forces’ (Pancha Maha Balavegaya) to throw out the UNP that ruled the country since Independence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is sweeping through every poll held in the recent past apparently also sees the advantages in giving the stamp of recognition as surgeons to thousands of Indian Ayurvedic practitioners through the new government notification.
The mix of politics and systems of allopathic (Western) medicine and indigenous medicine, even today is a part of Lanka’s political scene. At the highest level is the recent sacking of the entire board of the Sri Lanka Medical Council for the first time in its 96-year history. The council sacked by Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi was appointed by the previous government. The consequences of sacking of all members of the premier medical body and its replacement by a new set of appointees during the global pandemic would obviously have been a matter of consideration. Of greater interest has been the involvement of prominent personalities in resorting traditional indigenous practices — medical/spiritual — in warding off the evil forces that may have had a bearing on the booming pandemic in the country.
Pots of water ceremoniously carried on their heads by politicians including the Minister of Health, with camera crews in pursuit, were dropped off from bridges into the flowing waters below, in the hope that the evil forces besetting the nation would be washed way down the streams and rivers. But that has not worked. Alas!
Nonetheless, our spirit is indomitable and out faith in our natural resources infinite. Complain about symptoms of a cardiac problem, symptoms of paralysis, diabetes or any other disease and any one passing down the road, he/she will recommend a sure cure: There will be plants and herbs in the vacant plot of land over there or the drain by the side which when boiled, crushed or ingested will end your suffering, you will be told. They know of many who benefitted from such cures.
Going by the emotions, body-language, languages (English and Hindi), seeming political preferences, seen on NDTV it did appear that this issue exposed a deep fissure that exists in the Indian middle class.
Voltaire, the French philosopher said a mouthful a long time ago: Nature cures while doctors enjoy themselves.
This writer has no claims to be a medical doctor or even a quack. Not even a doctorate from a remote institution unheard of.
Sri Lanka has doctors of all varieties and quite often they spring up from nowhere to announce stupendous discoveries well backed by prominent politicians. Last week, we had world shattering news: A Sri Lankan, Dhammika Bandara who describes himself as a practitioner of ‘Hela Vedakam’ (Pure Sinhala Medicine) announced to the World that he had a concoction that was a cure for those affected by the Covid 19 virus.
TV channels flashed reports of Health Minister Pavitra Wanniarachchi, Vocational Affairs State Minister Dr. Seetha Arambepola and COVID-19 Prevention State Minister Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle tasting the concoction. Indigenous Medicine State Minister Sisira Jayakody supported the Hela Vedakam practitioner and said that clinical trials had been conducted at the Wathupiwela hospital by a stream of medical practitioners who confirmed that the virus was not present in patients who consumed the syrup for three days.
Given this kind of publicity Kegalle inhabitants can be forgiven for rushing in their hundreds–perhaps thousands–to the native genius distributing his miracle cure free, in small doses.
The paradox of it was that the Kegalle police with their bull-horns blaring were ordering seekers of the miracle cure to keep their social distance, lest they contact the disease.
At the time of writing, Health Services Deputy Director General Dr Hemantha Herath has declared that the Drugs Authority and the Food Authority of the Health Ministry has not recognised the product and the Commissioner of Ayurveda has said that Dhammika Bandara is not a registered Ayurvedic practitioner.
Meanwhile, Co-Cabinet spokesman Ramesh Pathirana, a qualified doctor, has said at a Cabinet briefing last week: We are happy to say that the Government would positively consider various indigenous Ayurveda products. In the current situation, if this medicine response is successful, we hope to identify a short-term treatment method which western medicine practitioners have agreed to.
Is Dr. Pathirana running with the rabbits of the miracle cure which will ensure popular support for his leader or is he with the medical hounds who want to save the people? Perhaps both. He is also a politician.
Sri Lanka and other Third World nations need not be much concerned about politics being mixed up with the pandemic when the President (not for long) of the Greatest Democracy, Donald Trump and his official advisor on Public Health Dr. Anthony Fauci have been locking horns for months on ways to contain the COVID-19 virus.
Third World countries should not worry much if they do not get those miraculous vaccines soon or even at all. They are still surviving as they did survive pandemics of Malaria, Filaria, Gonorrhoea, VD, HIV, all of which were brought to their shores by well-intentioned benefactors.
(The writer is a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and consultant editor of the Sunday Leader)