Express View on Court’s warning to Ramdev: No free pass

The Supreme Court’s strong admonition to Baba Ramdev and Patanjali Ayurved — the company the yoga guru has founded and is the face of — was much needed. Patanjali’s products have, for long, made deceptive claims and the company has faced few consequences for its irresponsible campaigns against the allopathic system. Such campaigning has, on several occasions, even defied the highest court of the land. On November 21, 2023, for instance, the SC asked Patanjali to stop misleading advertisements against the modern system of medicine. The very next day, Ramdev and the company’s managing director Balkrishna held a press conference in which they claimed that Patanjali had permanent cures against glaucoma, blood pressure, arthritis, asthma and diabetes. The company also continued to issue ads claiming its products are “more effective than chemical-based synthetic medicines of allopathy”. Ramdev and Balkrishna have apologised and said the publicity was part of the “routine course” by the company’s media department. On Tuesday, the SC rightly came down on this disclaimer. The bench hearing the Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) two-year-old case against Patanjali described the firm’s response as “lip service”.

The growing incidence of lifestyle diseases has made interventions that emphasise dietary management, “toxin removal”, “herbal therapies” and yoga popular. In the last two decades, successive governments have also taken steps to promote such healing systems. The Narendra Modi government has championed yoga, equipped Jan Aushadi stores with ayurvedic medicines, and merged the regulation of unani, ayurvedic, homoeopathy, yoga and siddha systems into a single ministry, AYUSH. Undoubtedly, these systems have a role in healthcare. But in a country where quackery and anti-science attitudes are rampant, there cannot be any compromise on regulatory protocols and evidence-based policy. During the pandemic, Ramdev sought to exploit mass anxiety by making wildly inaccurate claims about Patanjali. On most occasions, he got away with mildly worded government censure. In August 2022, the IMA went to the apex court in response to a Patanjali advertisement that said, “Save yourself and the country from the misconceptions spread by the pharma and medical industry.” During hearings in this case, the SC has on more than one occasion come down heavily on Patanjali. In February, it also came down hard on the AYUSH ministry. “How can Patanjali claim to completely cure blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, asthma and obesity?… The entire country is being taken for a ride. You shut your eyes,” the bench said.

An AYUSH ministry press release of December 17, 2021, speaks of close to 1,500 misleading advertisements from makers of such therapies between August 2018 and July 2021. However, there is very little about the action taken against such violators in the public domain. The SC’s latest reprimand is a message to the government that its initiatives on Ayurveda must go beyond promoting the healing system. It must ensure that regulatory protocols are implemented stringently.