It could have been just another of those millions of daily fights on X that one forgets as the river of the social media timeline brings in new flotsam.

But it got bigger and bigger, perhaps because an entire civilisation’s knowledge and wisdom were attacked and insulted, and a country’s medical system was brought into question.

Indian chess grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi had written an innocuous Doctors’ Day post honouring his family of ayurvedic and homoeopathy doctors. A handle called @theliverdr, a practitioner from Kerala named Cyriac Abby Philips, piped up to say none of them were actual doctors. Cheered on by some others, he called AYUSH (ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha, and homoeopathy) “pseudo-science".

It is fine to criticise Indic medical and wellness systems. But when one repeatedly attacks and summarily dismisses it, one needs to delve into the motives.

After all, the civilisational knowledge and wisdom of thousands of years that have healed generations cannot be simply mocked away.

First, it betrays the deep insecurity of allopathy, which works on the Western paradigm of modern medicine, towards other medical systems. Many allopathic practitioners take the Abrahamic approach of exclusivity, that only it is the last word and the true cure; all other systems are........

© News18