Tradition vs modernity conflict in India is an expression of past pushing back against present to reclaim primacy, dominance

Joining the Dots  is a fortnightly column by author and journalist Samrat in which he connects events to ideas, often through analysis, but occasionally through satire.

***

Faced with an angry response from the Indian Medical Association for his statement alleging that lakhs of people had died from consuming modern medicines, yoga guru Baba Ramdev has recanted, but only to fire a fresh salvo, this time questioning the ability of “allopathy” to offer side-effect free treatments for simple ailments such as headaches, gastric, acidity and so on. Naturally, he and his company Patanjali have products that claim to do exactly that. They also have other more controversial offerings, one of which has been a bestseller through the past year of the pandemic: Coronil, the pill that was sold first as a cure and later as a preventive against COVID-19. Lab tests carried out at the University of Birmingham in the UK for the BBC found that “the pills offer no protection from coronavirus” but that has not got in the way of Ramdev laughing his way to the bank. Patanjali had reported Coronil sales exceeding Rs 250 crore as far back as last November.

It is evident from the brisk sales that lakhs of people in our country believe in the efficacy of these pills, even though they may have doubts about the efficacy of vaccines. More broadly, they also have faith in traditional and alternative systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Unani and homeopathy. This is not unique to India. Pakistan, for instance, has plenty of fans of Unani, and officially backs the traditional medicine system in much the same way that the Modi government has been backing Ayurveda. China, too, has its own traditional medicine system, with exotic remedies that require ingredients such as rhino horn and tiger bones having contributed to the decimation of both of these species. The human species may have now joined this list of Chinese medicine’s victims. The jury is still out on how exactly the coronavirus that has been killing vast numbers of people around the world originated, but one theory , with scientific evidence to back it, is that it may have been transmitted to humans from bats via pangolins. Pangolin scales are an ingredient of Chinese traditional medicine.

Pangolins and bats would normally be safe from humans, and vice versa, if it were not for the unsubstantiated belief of the Chinese in their traditional medicine. Faith in traditional remedies also leads people in India to do strange things they would normally not do, such as cover their bodies in cow dung, or drink cow urine. That kind of faith is ultimately rooted in a belief in magic. While it seems absurd when we consider people ingesting cow urine or pangolin scales, there is a reason for it. Most of us don’t know what exactly is in any medicine, or how and why it works. The chemical names on the backs of medicine packs are just a meaningless jumble of letters even to those of us who can read the print. The ingestion of any kind of medicine therefore demands a certain amount of faith. We have to willy-nilly trust one magic pill or another. The type of pill we choose to swallow is an expression of the type of worldview we have already swallowed.

The traditionalist worldview, upheld by champions of Ayurveda and Unani among others, comes with a rich garnishing of nostalgia. The medicines prescribed by these systems are generally taken by those who have swallowed the myth that everything was better in the good old days — the food was purer, the people were healthier, and even the medicines were better. In contrast to this, the adherents of modern medicine are often those who would prefer the old ways be memorialised in museums or thrown into the dustbin of history. The battle between the old and new starts there. Old ways have their champions, and they refuse to go quietly into either museum or dustbin. They push back. What we are seeing in India now is the past pushing back against the present, trying to reclaim primacy and dominance.

The modern world, with all its accoutrements, came to us here through the experience of colonialism. It was through colonialism that Indians were introduced to modern education, science and medicine. But there were ancient cultures and ways of life, in the plural, all across this land long before the first white man set foot here. All of the numerous castes of India within the Hindu fold had their own traditions, and these traditions frequently varied within the same caste from place to place. A rich diversity also existed among the Muslims of India. The Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains had their own ancient traditions. So did the Jews and Parsis. The varied tribes of Northeast India had their own ways. The tribes of Central India had theirs.

When the British became the rulers of India, the old elites, across communities, were gradually displaced. Old beliefs and ways of life that had given those elites status and prestige in society disappeared. The dhoti and Sanskrit, like the achkan and Farsi, gave way to the suit and English. The vaid, hakim or shaman had to become MBBS doctors if they could, or face the opprobrium associated with quackery. It is this loss of status that the remnants of the old guard who were unable to modernise seem, perhaps unconsciously, to resent. Their flailing against the English language, their deep dislike of Western clothes, and their staunch belief in the superiority of their own cultures and social mores, may be seen as expressions of this resentment. The nostalgia they express for the old days and the old ways is actually a nostalgia for the times when people like them were at the top of the social ladder.

Yet, even as they rant against the modern and Western, the fact that it has invented practically the whole world as we know it now — from electricity to mobile phone to laptop to television to motorcar to aeroplane to, well, vaccine and ventilator — is not lost on anyone. That is why, given the slightest opportunity, the very people who denounce Western culture and society tend to send their own children to study in colleges there. That is also why, despite all his posturing against modern medicine, Baba Ramdev himself went for treatment to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram when he injured himself after toppling off an elephant last year. It is one thing to profit from selling Coronil, or to garner votes by preaching the magical properties of cow urine. It is quite another to actually bet one’s life on them, when other options are possible.

The only people left betting their lives on those remedies are those without the financial means to pursue other options.