Is ‘Cargo Cult Science’ the Preamble of NEW INDIA in the making?

It is always over shouted that the traditional healing or faith healing practices in India collectively called as AYUSH has great legacy and tradition of 5000 years.

It means over last 5000 years people have been using these systems of healing and that is how it has to be believed that Indians have survived and surpassed all diseases in the past. Humanity would have been otherwise wiped out from the peninsular India but thanks to faith healing practices such catastrophe has not occurred.

The big question is why such 5000 years old faith healing practices has shrunk more than 5000 times ever since the allopathic system of medicine has taken its birth just 150 years ago?

The stake holders of AYUSH are seems to be manipulating AYUSH ignorantly and or intelligently and that is why the faith healing has lost its credence.

The industries that use the legacy and tradition of AYUSH largely promoting AYUSH products more as cosmetic preparations or herbal products. They highlight the legacy of the faith healing tradition and promote their products more as beauty products with drug like claim. As a result of the above, the large sections of people connects the legacy of faith healing practices mostly to soaps, hair oil and skin creams.

When it comes to the institutionally qualified vaidyas, they often promote the system as drug based medical science because that is how the government is promoting the system and that is how they are programmed.

Interestingly the Industries that promote the products of faith healing practices conveniently use the mixture of tradition and promise to mesmerize the people and to make big claim. In fact most of them sell promises and the market for promise and falsehood are not only stable but also growing in leaps and bounds as it looks like.

One may wonder how long such story can go on. The reason for the ever growing market space for promise and falsehood are many. In recent times, man has started to focus his efforts more upon to accumulate wealth to achieve greater comforts to life and self gratifications. But unfortunately man could not convert his comforts to happiness due to several problems that have strong psychosomatic or pseudo origin.

When people with some psychosomatic problems goes to a duly qualified doctor, naturally the qualified doctors seldom find time to listens to the narrations of the patients because listening to such narrations neither going to help the doctor to diagnose the problem nor it will help in the treatment. Origin of most of such problems is psychosomatic than real.

On the contrary, the vaidys from the healing practices that had originated from tradition and faith used to give audience to the patients even to listen to their personal problems which naturally satisfy the patients. The patients when suffer from psychosomatic problems such counseling and placebo products are likely to act as great drugs.

Interestingly this group of people beyond being consumers of faith healing practices also would act as missionaries of the system. Mostly such patients are elderly people and longs to be heard by someone. Such people repeat the positive aspect of faith healing practices continuously and as result they would convert own beliefs as universal truth.

Another aspect that creates possible believability for some products of faith healing practices is rampant cross pathy by many vaidyas.

When vaidyas give allopathic drugs along with large quantity of their products, patients may find great relief due to allopathic drugs but would continue to consume the products of faith healing system thinking the medical relief that they have obtained is due to products of faith healing. This cleaver play of game creates sufficient believability for all such products and the innocent unconditional faith forbid the poor patients to cross examine and verify the real.

The commitment of the present government to push the culture and tradition based faith healing system and hype the merit of such practices over science certainly appear like cargo cult of science, the face of NEW INDIA in the making.

Promoting the faith healing practices is not bad, it would make real sense if it is promoted as paramedical practice without muddling with scientifically proven medical science and legalizing cross pathy. Cross pthay is neither going to do any good to own system nor to the patients but certainly it can make mockery on our health care delivery system where the poor and innocents are going to be the natural victims.