In one of the very first
introductory sessions one of our lecturer warmly welcomed ‘welcome to the
museum..whatever you read, learn is all history, which has very minimal
relevance to your life and future’ I was shocked. What am I doing here?
And all these years we have been taught the
atmosphere is composed of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen. Human body
consists of 206 bones, there is blood, lymph, muscles, brain, spine, heart,
lungs in it. That’s what science is all
about, that’s how we have been taught. Suddenly you are being told that this
universe or prapancham is composed of 5 mahabhutas. And you have thri doshas, 7
dhatus in your body. I was bewildered, confused.
The difference lies in what we
choose to become, one of the statistics put down by dagmar wujastyk claims that
70% of ayurvedic graduates work in non ayurvedic fields, either as allopathic
doctors in nursing homes, or in medical coding, medical billing, medical
transcription or they remain unemployed. 20% doctors are employed in ayurvedic
field, institutions, pharma, spas etc. and there is a meagre 10% who get into practice. The distribution of ayurvedic practice is
also not even. Todays ayurvedic practice is urban centric.
When you have a conflict betwee science and
ayurveda, the conditioned mind mostly chooses rational science over abstract ayurveda,
and our sub conscious mind dismisses ayurveda, and there is a question of
survival too, they form the bulk of 70 %. there is the othere extreme, who totally shun
anything modern and vouch for suddha ayurveda. And there is another category,
who are in constant dialemma and in confusion, before they take a decision the
5 and a half years would have elapsed in a whisker of time. He comes out
neither as an expert in ayurveda nor as a skilled allopath, who doesn’t have
any huge financial back ups to set up anything big, and who is seeing his
engineering friends climbing up the ladder and settling in europe and us, You
think yourself as a doctor and the society doesn’t think so. You will be
disillusioned with clinical practice, by the time you come out of internship
you will come to know that you can never become a cardiac or a neuro surgeon
you have known. You cant go in a sprawling suv to your clinic, you wont have
sponsored foreign trips from the pharmas, at the maximum you might get a
picturesque calendar and a diary from them or on request some sample medicines.
On the other hand you will find the quacks showing up in tv, blabbering
something and charging heftily right before your nose. You will come to know or
atleast meet one foreigner who has great interest in ayurveda. Somedays you will be sitting lonely in your
clinic, and on that day you will have 20 different ayurvedic pharma company
representatives, explaining the same formulation for liver, acidity, joint
pain, piles etc under different patent names. You hear and feel pity for
students who stand in que with 10 lakhs outside ayurvedic colleges to get admission.
And you have friends who pay 10-15 lakhs for a postgraduate seat, though you
very well know that in pg also we are being exposed to the same u.g material. So
the entire ayurvedic spectrum is flourishing, but not me!
There is an issue, the identity is whether vaidya or doctor?
Dagmar Wujastyk and Frederick Smith have compiled an important work on the issues faced by the modern ayurveda. Modern and Global Ayurveda - pluralism and paradigms. The work approaches ayurveda in a social perspective and provides us an interesting read with lot of insights.
Evolution of modern and global ayurveda is attributed to three important social factors as pointed by wujastyk in her introduction.
1. British colonialism and the dominance of allopathic medicine,
2. the pressures of modernization,
3. Ayurveda’s diaspora into the world beyond the boundaries of South Asia.
It is important to note the course ayurveda has taken in facing these challenges. In one of the chapters the author discusses about the evolution of health care policy in colonial and independent India. It was Bohr's Committee constituted in the year 1946 which had a decisive role in deciding the health care policy. Bohr's committee expressed a familiar attitude, the attitude of colonial ignorance and arrogance on the native thought process. McCaulay claimed that he didnt know either sanskrit or any indian languages but was sure that the entire corpse of traditional literature wont even equal to a single book in his library. Bohr rejected the inclusion of indian sysytem of medicine in the policy making. Later other committees were formed and some remedy was done.
The debate on suddha ayurveda vs integrated ayurveda continues till date and doesnot seem to end soon. The Global Ayurveda which has gone out of India doesnot have any state back up in the west. it has to be integrated into the array of other complimentary and alternate medicine practices. It includes a wide range from colour therapy, accupuncture, chinese medicine, reflexology, magneto therapy, reiki, chiropractice etc. Ayurveda is accomodaed as a fragmented structure, as a filler, under the mask of massage therapy.
-to be continued-
Dr.R.Suneel Krishnan