Baba Ramdev is a brand in himself – a promoter of all things swadeshi, yoga and the impetus behind the dizzying heights scaled by the Patanjali brand. He has mastered the art of being the spiritual guru to millions and also appeared to have the Midas touch with business. Now, however, Baba Ramdev is in the eye of a storm and not for the best of reasons. The Indian Medical Association is up in arms against him. Even the government, which hitherto endorsed the man, his brand and his products has now issued a reprimand. What exactly happened?
In this viral video, Ramdev is seen levelling accusations against allopathy and its practitioners. He refers to mainstream medicine as ‘fraud’ and lists a number of widely used COVID cures as ineffective and/or actually harmful. It is obvious that doctors have taken great offence at someone so influential making such statements without any evidence to back them up.
This is another viral video where Ramdev claims that a thousand doctors have died after taking both doses of the vaccine. In another video, he is seen to be endorsing pranayama to deal with coronavirus infections, where he has inflated that number of ten thousand doctors that have supposedly died after a double dose of the vaccine. Obviously, this is a baseless claim that has enraged the medical community and caused a great deal of alarm amongst the millions of Ramdev’s followers.
There are obvious problems in the sort of irresponsible and frankly false statements he has made. When such an influential voice claims that allopathy is actually causing deaths rather than saving lives, people hesitate to get the medical attention they need. Not only that, the man is seen to promote as yet unproven ‘COVID cures’ while denigrating and trivialising the medical community’s efforts during the pandemic.
There are serious consequences of this alarmism and the statements that can only be classified as slanderous. This is dangerous not only for the people who decide to listen to this ‘advice’ but is dangerous for public health at large. Ramdev’s clams are exacerbating the vaccine hesitancy that we are seeing all around us and will hamper and slow down government as well as private inoculation efforts.
Baba Ramdev and Patanjali have been plugging 'Coronil' products which claimed to be the “first evidence-based medicine for corona” and also claimed to be approved by the WHO. In February, a personage no less than the Union Health Minister was seen to be endorsing the products. Dr Harsh Vardhan shared the stage with Ramdev at a widely publicised product launch. However, Patanjali’s claims about Coronil were rejected by WHO. The product efficacy has not been substantiated or backed by standard testing protocols either.
At the time, the Indian Medical Association had questioned the Union Minister’s backing of the product. An IMA statement said, “being a health minister of the country, how ethical is it to release falsely fabricated unscientific product to the people of the country.” When Ramdev appears on TV discussions, Coronil products are typically prominently displayed in the camera frame as seen in this video.
Even before his many clashes with the medical and scientific community, Ramdev has been seen to lose credibility. Over the years, Patanjali products have frequently been called into question for substandard quality, making false claims, attacking competitors and other questionable marketing strategies. The company was, for a while India’s fastest growing FMCG brand, even foraying into apparel such as jeans which Ramdev had repeatedly mocked in public before.
However, for these and other reasons such as unsustainably fast expansion and distribution issues, the company saw a revenue fall of Rs. 2000 crores in 2019. The Patanjali story had soured rapidly. Patanjali stores that had sprung up everywhere shut shop and products disappeared from the market. Repeated quality issues and claims later found to be false eroded public faith in the products and the brand.
Could the attack against allopathy be a push for untested COVID products; a way to revive flagging brand fortunes? Was this a way to get people to once again repose faith in Patanjali – using the familiar means of plugging one system while deliberately maligning another? Is Baba Ramdev rubbishing Allopathy just to sell his products? It is a tried and tested formula – we saw it when people shifted to Patanjali products in their droves because Ramdev and Patanjali claimed that there were toxic chemicals in all others.
Is this a repeat performance? Ramdev has enjoyed unwavering support from the government of the day so far. Now the government seems to have distanced itself from Ramdev by writing the letter in this tweet – so will that repeat performance work?
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
