For ayurveda, challenge is to keep off allopathic drugs, says PM Narendra Modi

The Prime Minister was addressing the valedictory function of the 6th World Ayurveda Congress.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the valedictory function of the 6th World Ayurveda Congress in New Delhi on Sunday. (PTI Photo)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the biggest challenge for ayurveda is the inclination of its practitioners towards prescribing allopathic drugs.

Modi was speaking at the valedictory session of the 6th World Ayurveda Congress at Pragati Maidan. This is the first time that the Union government is one of the organisers of the event.

“The biggest challenge for ayurveda are the people who have dedicated themselves to it, but when a patient comes, often say let us start with allopathic medicine for the first three days and then move to ayurveda. Ayurveda doctors need to be 100 per cent committed it ayurveda,” Modi said in his address. Crosspathy is not allowed as a per a Supreme Court order, but that does not stop ayurveda practitioners from prescribing allopathic medicines.

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The PM emphasised the point that the two are not competing streams of science because one has to do with prevention and the other with cure, but there is a need for ayurveda to be spoken about in a language that the world understands. “Medical journals should dedicate 10-20 per cent of their space to Ayurveda,” he added.

He cited the example of the global popularity of Yoga to assert that it is possible for ayurveda too to attain such heights, but the precondition is that people who work on it should first believe it themselves.

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