PodCast on impact of Corona Virus on Livelihoods in Tamilnadu

Day #1: Privilege, Injustice, Centralization...

20th March 2020: I AM RESTRICTING MY ONLINE POSTS ON CORONA TO 1 A DAY — BECAUSE IT IS GETTING TO BE TOO CROWDED JUST NOW, ADDING WHATEVER I WANT TO SAY IN THAT SINGLE POST — 3 POSTS TODAY
  1. PRIVILEGE STUPIDITY
  2. INJUSTICE TO TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE and
  3. CENTRALIZATION (IT COMMERCE) STUPIDITY

POST 1/3: celebrity status, capacity to spend money, access to power or born in upper caste — all regular privileged class cannot avoid COVID2019 india testing, social distancing, isolation in case of suspicion and building immunity is the way to go. BUSINESS AS USUAL won’t work.
**i saw today on television, a minister making a mockery of hand sanitizing
**read a celebrity is supposed to have ‘escaped’ being tested
**heard that people are hiding their travel history and bringing doctors for home visits paying large amounts to give medication without practicing isolation the arrogance of the privileged class to ridicule or use rhetoric against precaution partly stems from the fact that they can afford isolation and treatment.


POST 2/3: GoI has issued an AYUSH recommendation, there is a preventive guideline from Homeapathy and Unani streams of medicine mentioned in this document. Please read and take precautions. Don’t spread the ridicule of mindless promotion of unhygiene and ill informed quackery, to systems of medicine that have evolved over a long period of time. These are two different things. It is one thing to go around distributing go-mutra it is completely another to provide an ayurvedic, siddha, homeo or unani prescription. while modern allopathic medical system has evolved from the industrial western paradigm, traditional medicines evolve from a paradigm of preventive care. comparing them both on same scale is foolish and both don’t deserve the same. There is a big drug lobby that always tries to ridicule all traditional medicine, one needs to be careful with these.

In India, we also have the idea of food being medicine, and many of the ingredients of our daily food (without contamination, pesticide residue or processing chemicals) are good in building better immunity and these need to be encouraged. 



POST 3/3: There is a renewed effort on the part of ‘centralized-control-based-technology-will-fix-all’ lobby to present themselves as a ‘solution’ to this crisis as well. To combine AI, Facial Recognition and Tapping into everyone’s phone and tracking people, effectively infringing on privacy like never before and integrating all the privacy intrusions into a central agency’s hands IS NOT A SOLUTION, BUT, A NEW PROBLEM. In India knowing the way regulatory mechanism has bungled up every single system, this will be nothing short of suggesting a State organized voyeurism. A govt. that cannot control a new strain of illegal seed being clandestinely released in the open, that cannot prevent industrial and financial fraudsters from escaping the country, that cannot prevent violence against the vulnerable being perpetrated by politically well connected, definitely cannot guarantee better healthcare through such voyeurism. Such attempts in the name of healthcare need to be opposed, the money to be spent for IT service providers companies can be better invested in better testing facilities and more treatment infrastructure development.

Comments

Feedback...


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i think it would be a serious mistake to equate 'colonial masters' to 'feudals before them'. at least as a student of dharampalji you should not do it. otherwise, interesting as always.

cheers
mukundan
Public Intellect
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Hi Ram,

Wish you and all others in the group a happy, healthy and successful new year.

Your Day 25 reflections are very well put together, raise several vital points which can act as a background document that can inform and guide the reshaping of national policy on ayurveda and other Indian medical systems. AYUSH, in its present form, seems to be nothing but lame tokenism, hastily put together to pay lip service to traditional healthcare systems.
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Parimala Rao
Senior Journalist

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very good reflection I am sharing with my ayurvedic team

K. SHIVAKUMAR
Secretary, Gandhigram, Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu.

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I read the articles for the language. Some of the subjects go above my head and I don't completely understand, but, the language and precise description of facts and comments I find are extremely good. So, I read the articles every day because of that. Do please don't stop and continue to write.

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I read it slowly because they make us think really hard. Your writing has given people in this time of reflection several issues to reflect on. The one article on being a Muslim in India today raised lot of questions that we collectively need to address.

a regular reader
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Ram dear,

Heartily agree with your final para. Here in our village of Parra, life goes on with minimal disruption because village folk know how to survive distress conditions since they have been doing this for decades. Its our urban cousins that are cussing, yelling, demanding and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves. During this most recent diya attack on Miss Carona, one of the things done was to reduce power to the rural areas. But hey, we are always at the receiving end of power supply and power cuts, so what's new. We are still expert at surviving (including sleeping) without fans and ACs, and we know how to light a fire without gas. Thanks be to god!

Continue writing, because we continue to read, even if we do not respond to every missive.

-- Dr. Claude Alvares, Eminent Intellectual, Environmental Activist & Author
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Dear Ram,

Again a very right posting. Millions of insidious deaths suffered all over the world due to basic exploitation go unregistered. Covid is too quick and too big to be ignored, hence the response. We can only hope that there will be a real, different "after", there will be surely significant changes but will it be real progress towards different societies?

Warm regards,

-- Alain Bernard, Senior Aurovillian and a Founding Member of the International Community

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Thank you very much dear Ram, for this and other brilliant, to the point articles!

I wish to copy some of them on my FB page - unless you have them on a web- or blog site?

Light and Love and health to you and family, from both of us!

-- Jasmin, Auroville International Community Member
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so true, Ram.unity of heart!
Mrs. Subha Bharadwaj, Social Activist, Chennnai

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Absolutely .... thx. Passing to a friend in Noida.
What can MeDiClowns do?
With love

Ms. Fif Fernandes, Founder - Director, MediClown Academy
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