Dr Ramankutty P
Joint Director Retd
Department of Animal Husbandry. Govt of Kerala
Since the pandemic outbreak of COVID 19.the appeals are appealing again for a single homeopathy association at the national level in India as IMA. I may say a good idea on the outburst.
Let me introduce myself as a veterinarian in Kerala ,(just like many pathers) practising holistic approach, especially homoeopathy in the successful management of many animal problems, whenever the modern medicine are found to be of no help. We have an association “CHARITABLE SOCIETY FOR HOLISTIC VETERINARY MEDICINE” (CSHVM) and have members from all over INDIA. We have managed the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Science University to initiate a certificate course “POST GRADUATE CERTIFICATE COURSE IN VETERINARY HOMEOPATH” as an online course of 6 months duration, Any veterinary graduate can join the course. Many from various states of India have joined and at present 4 batches have completed and the 5th course is ongoing. Why I am mentioning this here is that we veterinarians have realized more than many regular homeopaths on the possibilities of homeopathy.
Had the homeopathy is propagated without personnel advantages, the present situation of homeopathy would have been much better. In spite of being the second largest medical system in the world as per WHO, Homeopaths could not achieve that many other alternative systems has achieved in India. I doubt even the ministry of AYUSH is giving you the desired importance. WHY? It is true as Dr Biju has expressed that “We cannot be naive enough to think this was coincidental” It is the fault of each and every homeopath. But being an individual and Parton of CSHVM, having good faith in homeopathy and its prospects I have to mention certain points. I am not against or favor of any system of medicine and believe that every system has got its own merits and limitations.
The importance of homeopathy is going to be more when the issue of handling antibiotic resistance getting more serious. Here homeopathy can do a lot even to avoid or limit the use of antibiotics in diseases. But you have to act. Just like the saying that the” elephant do not know its size” you do not know the possibilities hidden in the subject you are handling. I again agree with Dr Biju’s remark that it is high time to forgive and forget all personal and organizational differences and stand united for the benefit of homoeopathy. Dr Biju is pointing to the fact that one of the main reason of your down fall is yourself ,that the organizational differences and prejudices. If you cannot find a simple solution like this, I wonder how you can manage a national level organization. You could not even propagate the very idea your scientific body CCRH has advanced for the management of COVID-19. Why? Many reputed doctors are stating many remedies, especially for each symptom that comes when infected. We very conveniently forgot the role of “GENUS EPEDIMICUS” in handling pandemic. Just like Dr Eswara Das has asked Is Symptom Similarity based remedies by Homeopathy missed out from war against COVID-19 ? When epidemics struck Homeopathy therapy early along with the support of conventional therapy could be a huge opportunity to the world in tackling this menace. Homeopathy has already established several successes in controlling Infectious diseases and epidemics. Homeopathy and AYUSH ignored in Covid19 intervention when history points to its documented role and scope in pandemics .Have you not failed miserably till date to convince the Government in this aspect. Here the question is who will bell the cat-here comes the importance of a strong national body say IHMA to bell the cat.
Why One system One organization in Homoeopathy-Dr Anoop Nigwekar : “An organization is a group of people who desire to achieve a common goal. Any organization comes to life when there is a common vision and mission that the organization desires to achieve. Progressively more and more men join the group if they are in sync with the vision and mission of the organization. The issue then boils down to how the organization defines and implements a strategy to realize the vision and mission. The implementation is strongly guided by the values the organization and its leadership demonstrate through action.
The implementation has to be driven based on the defined customer base that the organisation desires to serve. In the case of homoeopathy customers are students, teachers, researchers, patients, well – wishers of homoeopathy in the community, government agencies, international agencies, pharmaceuticals, management of institutes and accreditation organizations. This is not unique to homeopathy only but all those who serve in health care systems necessarily interact with these customer segments.
The organization desires to achieve, to begin with a very wholesome and attractive idea, but as the days pass on to years the men who are operating the organization start either putting heart and soul or become disillusioned or try to carve out a niche for self within the organization.
One must realize that not all have all the talents essential to run the organization. Each one of us has a different temperament and each contributes from his strong position, some are motivators, some are communicators, some are good in financial management, some master the art of legalities of running the organization etc. but the core issue is who will build the team and nurture all so that all move in the same direction using their strength.
The crisis of leadership is evident in most of the organization as time passes. The leadership has to rotate, has to bring up cadre to mature to run the organization. If the leadership fails the organization is sure to fail. In homoeopathy we need to ensure the chain of succession, the political process of election of choosing the leader many useful but not necessarily an appropriate method. We should rise to the occasion to find a leader who will operate as a charioteer who maneuvers various temperamental horses!!! Leaders should have acquired knowledge and skill in management skills in theory and practice. We have to try. In the current situation one observes there are many organizations for homoeopathy obviously it is not achieving a larger goal / s for homeopathy. We are happy with small gains but small gains need not deliver / s larger goals or purpose of existence. There cannot be a common minimum program there has to be a clean slate start. The vision mission may be jointly arrived at by these organizations and strategies are those that have larger good of homoeopathy and not address to only “minimum” purpose of the organization.
As a short – term strategy we need to create a federation comprising of leaders of different organizations coming together on a common platform and evolving a common strategy for the purpose of government contact and influencing policy.
As a long – term strategy the leaders of the various organizations should dissolve their respective organizations and create fresh one with a larger all-encompassing vision and mission and a well-defined strategy to ensure all objectives are attended to in a focused way. End of the day, one organization with a larger base will have a stronger voice that will be heard in the various corridors of power and across the customer base. Or else each will be made to fight with each one and over a period of time homoeopathy is destined to die. We homoeopaths would be responsible for the murder of our own system.” Dr Anoop has stressed some of the basic problems and some suggestions. How to proceed further has to be chalked out. As mentioned by – Dr. Rajat Chattopadhyay we are divided into different organizations whole wide and on our own soil with very many organizations – state wise, district wise, service wise, demographic wise, political wise and idiopathic wise etc., now I ask all the leaders of these factions to unite. Many organizations have been created with different intentions and ideologies, but they are primarily for the benefit of homoeopathic profession and that gives us hope, a hope that Homeopathy still is a passion that burns in our hearts!”
The proposed body should primarily act to enlighten the Government/Planners/Politicians/general public to recognize the importance and possibilities of homeopathy in various aspects, particularly in public health. How to proceed I leave to you.
Ceratin extracts from “How to sail through the darkest hour of the century April 4, Prof (Dr) ES Rajendran MD (Hom),PhD.” “Many leading homeopaths gave a clarion call for unity among homoeopaths and creation of a single national body for the whole profession. Why?
India happens to be the leader of the homeopathic profession in the world with its more than 200,000 registered medical practitioners, around 200 medical colleges, independent government departments with directors in many Indian states and a national regulatory body. Government has given immense support for its growth and propagation compared to any other country in the world.
Lacunae : Now we see some serious lacunae in the decision-making process of governments due to the intense lobbying of pressure groups who work hard to banish homeopathy. Homeopathy is kept away in the current crisis though homeopaths demonstrated the efficiency of homeopathy in virus epidemics many times earlier. It is very clear that the government administrative heads of homeopathy did not show the required leadership. I think we need not expect any change to that in the near future. We need to introspect and identify where our strength lies. I think it is in the unity of the whole profession. It looks like we are fragmented. In order to achieve this, the first and foremost goal is to unify the profession under a single umbrella. As CCH has been temporarily dissolved and hence the political ambitions associated with it, there is no more good reason to remain in opposite poles when the profession needs unity for survival.
Two reason : First, the political diversity due to the presence of a multitude of associations; second, lack of scientific temper of the profession as a whole and the desire to live in cliché rather than science. There are many researchers who toiled their time in laboratories and made available excellent scientific evidence to support homeopathy as the most advanced curative method. But the profession at large is in deep slumber and unwilling to imbibe the new discoveries into its genetics.
What next? This is the reality of the current situation. Political cohesion must be created right now, to begin with Indian context. That should not be the end in itself; it shall be the beginning of the similar effort world-wide, in which every nation should have one national association eventually leading to a single powerful international organization. Homoeopaths have a unique position to offer to save the world with a different model of health which improves the immunity of the population rather than depleting the immune status of the society.” Here you have to act.
Extracts from Call for Unity of Homeopaths-an appeal letter from Dr Rajan Sankaran April 2 2020
While concluding his views on the issue of COVID-19 , Dr Rajan Sankaran has mentioned the following which is worth considering “This very thought should bring us all together and take us to a higher plane of functioning, one that is beyond our egos, one that is beyond blaming each other, one that brings us all together for a common cause.. . The idea is to come together and evolve a consensus so that we could help more people. I think it is time to pool our experiences, to take stock of the situation and see if we can come to a consensus and to speak in one voice. Even if we have differences, we should learn to trust the experiences of each other and to respect others’ thoughts. And may I suggest this continue even after this crisis? Can we allow ourselves to use this point in time to really come together? There is a lot of confusion and different individual voices in the public domain. It is time to come together and discuss and then share our findings with other colleagues. I suggest someone neutral take a lead in this and organise this meeting. Let us dissolve our differences and come together and rise to the occasion at this vital hour with trust, with respect, with unity, with love .”
Govt of India constituted an Interdisciplinary Ayush Research and Development task force April 3, 2020 Chairman: Prof Bhushan Patwardhan – Vice Charman UGC
Ministry of Ayush, Govt of India Constituted an Interdisciplinary Ayush Research and Development task force for initiating and coordinating and monitoring the R&D activities in Ayush sector related to SARS-Cov-2 and Covid-19 diseases. In association with UGC, ICMR,CSIR,AIIMS, DRDO, DBT, DST,Ayush, Pharmaceutical industry, IT industry, State Govt etc.. this task force will coordinate the activities.
The task force will beat a road map for utilisation of national resources from Ayush institutions
I do not know how far our homeopaths can utilize the situation. The absence of a central body is again felt. I repeat the words of Dr Rajat Chattopadhyay April 1, 2020=”what Homoeopaths please Unite Serve & Survive – “Let there be one organization, Homeopathy, let there be one option; Homeopathy, let there be one voice; Homeopathy. “THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON WHAT WE DO IN THE PRESENT” – Gandhi. Since inception up till today, Homoeopathy has had to over and over again appeal for its own practitioners to come together and always, especially in a critical situation, this war cry has been resonated in the lakhs of Homeopathic physicians. Homeopaths this is our time to relive AUDE SAPERE—“Dare to be WISE”. There are lakhs of us who in isolation are brave, but to be WISE needs a momentum, a common platform that will need these lakhs to unite and say the same thing in unison. It is time for us to shed our demographic boundaries, cast our egos aside, throw our political differences behind and forge a community that is not just a selected few but each and everyone who holds Homeopathy dear to his or her heart. With folded hands, I beckon all of you my friends, colleagues, seniors, and all the others from the Homeopathic fraternity to come under one unified platform so that our collective voices are heard over the noises of statistics and despondence.
Though our past experiences have shown us that it was too hard to form a common platform, we can rise above our individual thoughts and address our future is my belief and though till date we are divided into different organizations whole wide and on our own soil with very many organizations – state wise, district wise, service wise, demographic wise, political wise and idiopathic wise etc., now I ask all the leaders of these factions to unite. Many organizations have been created with different intentions and ideologies, but they are primarily for the benefit of homoeopathic profession and that gives us hope, a hope that Homeopathy still is a passion that burns in our hearts!”
With this let me conclude hoping a better organization to fight for the cause of homeopathy. Basically, as I am not a homoeopath and hence I am not pointing any course of action.
With best wishes, I remain, Messers
Dr Ramankutty.P
Joint Director (AH) Retd,
9447062736
ramankuttyp@gmail.com
Sear dr thanks for your compliments. Please invite as much homeopaths in your area whwther employed or practicing irrespective of age for a meeting on some current affair Say COVID-19 and homeopathy . Present some valid professional matter on the subject and conclude with a question why homeopathy is not being considered by Governments and what should be done etc
I am not elaborating as I hope yuou know better. Remember there is a lot of difference in professional work and organisational work
Hope for the best
dr ramankutty.
Thank you very much for your words sir. Myself Dr. Sharan N. Kanthi, a homeopath from Gulbarga, Karnataka, India. Since 7-8 yrs iam, along with my few other friends trying to bring all homeopaths under one roof but all our efforts became fruitless. But after reading your article, i could find few reasons for our failure and got some inputs with which we can try in some other way to bring a large homeopatbs under one roof. Thank you sir for your passion, dedication and love for homeopathy.