[Reader-list] Ayurveda in Transnational contexts

[harilal madhavan]

*M S HARILAL/ SARAI INDEPENDENT FELLOW 2007/ SIXTH POSTING/AYURVEDA IN
TRANS-NATIONAL CONTEXTS *

The traditional systems like ayurveda and Traditional Chinese medicine is
undergoing an unprecedented shift in its presentation in global market. Some
elements of shift are very briefly presented below in the case of ayurveda.

 Manufacturing of ayurveda is least affected (compared to health practice
and education) by the disturbances and conflicts within the sector. This has
helped ayurveda to extent its influence in the domestic market. This could
be understood from the establishment of small and big manufacturing
companies and the mechanization efforts. But again standardization has
become a problem, when the concept of "global ayurveda" has come into
forefront. Even to surpass these hurdles different companies had to rely on
various awareness programmes and product differentiation in such an extent
to include in another category where regulations are least affected.
Increasing production in the form of food supplements and health nutrients
are evident for this. Modern development has shown that Ayurvedic companies
have adopted various ways to nurture their industry in different countries.
For example, in the case of United States of America, although ayurveda was
introduced as a form of alternative healing, its link with religion and its
constitutional guarantees of freedom allowed it to circumvent
professionalizing routes of licensing and regulation that were usually
sought by strictly medical practices. So the extension of ayurveda into
other categories was a "circumvention strategy" to cope with the modern
regulations as a system of medicine.


Ayurveda in the South Asian contexts, transformed through a series of
ideological and thematic interactions and negotiations, whether it is
orientalist debate in the 19th and 20th century or biomedical confrontations
in 20th century or the nationalist struggles of the same time the arguments
were mainly hovering around the scientific authenticity, mostly restricted
it as a system of medicine. But what we have mentioned as a "circumvention
strategy" to deal with the same problem of 'less scientific' by introducing
new product and market categories in the transnational contexts doesn't seem
to have a long life. On contrary, what was claimed as cultural and original
have to again attain proof. In a sense, what is realized that, in the
transnational context, ayurveda's encounters with the west are not actually
restricted to biomedicine alone, but mostly by global health care trends
such as the interest in holistic medicine (Leslie and Young 1992; Langford
1995). This new trend works both as a support and hindrance for the
"circumvention strategy". While the increased trust and demand woks as a
positive outcome of this realization, this in turn, puts pressure on the
institutions to develop more standardization and discipline in the practices
and hence qualitative regulations on herbal systems.



State level regulation of herbs and drugs or Food and Drug Association
proscriptions against herbal imports might have influenced a shift in
Ayurvedic therapeutics away from herbal medication and towards physical
manipulation or massage treatments and inclusion of many non-medical
therapeutic techniques like Yoga and meditations and, mass based spa like
therapeutic centres that focus on health maintenance, non-clinical
individualized self-help procedures like dietary regimes (Reddy 2002). This
was mainly because the satisfying the larger audience, unlike other
transplanters like Chinese medicine, of mostly non-Asian profile.  But there
are instances, where distortions are made even in ideological base of
Ayurvedic therapeutics to 'fit' the holistic health care market in America.
Zimmermann (1992) noted that how North American Panchakarma treatment
packages selectively emphasize the gentle, non-violent, evacuative elements.
During the past two decades, alternative medical groups in the United States
have been marked by a distinct ideological shift towards an increased
spiritualization, a shift Robert Fuller (1989) terms from 'physic to
metaphysic' (Reddy 2002). Recently, the policies of many countries have a
strong say in the development and shaping of traditional medicine both in
the health system and in the market, whether it is Ayurveda or Traditional
Chinese Medicine.



This re-modeling the system as such in a trans-national context calls for
some kind of homogeneity in acceptance. This acceptance works in tandem with
scientificity and proof of efficacy. Hence the traditional systems are not
only equipped with the acceptance of modernization not only in its systemic
approach but also in its product market. Traditional medicine, especially
ayurveda, which is considered to be one of the examples for reverse
globalization, i.e. a move from "east to west", how far able to negotiate
with the identity and market seems to be a significant concern in the coming
future.



*(Address for correspondence: harims at cds.ac.in)*