Hated In The Nation: Ramdev Baba
Black Mirror, the Netflix series, has this episode named 'Hated In The Nation’, season 3, episode 6. The plot involves a society, a world, where people are hounded, and hated for their views which they express on social media or through other mediums, the ones getting most of the backlash and death threats against their practice of speech die as the episode progresses, because one dude has been tracking these reactions of people who really hate somebody’s opinion on social media, but not knowing that they could be the next target of the mob justice. Something similar is the scene here in India, recently, where a popular Yoga guru, and a traditional medicine practitioner had said something really stupid, cringey thing, which should have been called out, and rightly so, because of its peculiar idiosyncratic substance and fake claims, but what followed was a way bigger carnage than what it should have been. Twitter was flooded with death threats against Ramdev, some were too insensitive, some called out his quacks, which was needed, but some went on to file criminal cases against him, a 137 million dollars defamation case by the Uttrakhand Medical Association, a demand for sedition case against him by the Pseudoscientific Indian Medical Association, which had sponsored/recommended LED bulbs which kill 99% of your home’s germs, there’s nothing like that.
The Bone of Contention
So what was the controversy, actually? What did Ramdev said that people, educated and learned people, went on to ask for his blood? In a viral social media clip, Ramdev said that 10,000 doctors died during the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic even after taking both the doses of the Covid vaccine, well, it is true that some doctors died even after taking the vaccine but the amount is totally exaggerated beyond measure, it’s not even 500 even after taking every approximation, more than 700 doctors had died during the pandemic in India, we don’t know how many of them were vaccinated so we can’t come to a conclusion but even a conservative estimation of 100 is way, way, lower than 10,000 doctors. The statement was preposterous and shouldn’t have been given this much attention, but Ramdev being a practitioner of home grown medicine, and a Yoga teacher didn’t go well with the ones who are pro–allopathy & and who love the IMA: Indian Medical Association, who’s doctors are, allegedly, potential priests who baptize their patients, like Mother Teresa did, yes, the IMA president actually said that (see: what IMA President thinks: Using hospitals to convert to Christianity, contempt for Hinduism, seeing COVID as a ‘silver lining’ because of conversions and more). The incident has become a polarized issue, on the one hand we have traditional medicine practitioners, and on the other hand we have allopathic medicine practitioners, and in between, we have people who are keen to convert people into Christianity through medical baptist associations. Ramdev had, earlier too, said some very idiotic things, but that doesn’t give people a free hand to threaten people, who are associated with traditional medicine & traditional medicine organizations, with consequences, every kind of medicine must be sanctioned to be traded in the free market, consumers are rationale for they know what is best for them, those who don’t know go to other medical centers, and get treated there. As a firm believer of modern scientific medicine, I must say allopathy works, vaccines work, if you don’t believe them you need to see the history of immunization, and how diseases were eradicated, so do the immunity boosters of Ramdev, and Patanjali, there should be a distinction between what a medicine is, and what a immunity booster is. We should respect each other’s right to free speech, however stupidly the person uses it, because if it doesn’t offend you, it’s not worth the amount of time and attention you give it, you have a right to reply, like in any civilized society, you are ought to practice it, so do others. Let’s not be hesitant to call out bullshit from all the sides, and be sceptical about everything, questioning everything is a good human trait, even science.
