I do not hold any fucking brief for Shri Ramdev. I refrain from prefixing his name with Baba for that is precisely what has landed him into deep trouble in the first place with left-liberals and authorities. There can be no gainsaying that Yoga entered twenty-first century’s Indian households only because of his earnest efforts at propagation of simple Yogic technique. By his very existence as a Yogi, as a saffron-clad sadhu, and as someone who has provided modern relevance to a nearly forgotten Sanatana practice helping millions of Indians become healthier in the process, Ramdev rankles in the eyes of wokes, liberals, Commies and India-haters. That Ramdev is a super-successful businessman who has turned Patanjali into a FMCG major has mortally offended many among business, official and political elite. How dare he! A dhoti-clad baba at that!
Ramdev is definitely guilty of overreach. His crime is not that he ventured into drugs and medicaments. No one ever got harmed by the use of Coronoil kit. But he should have refrained from peddling Coronil kit as the cure for Covid, or even as a sort of protective medicine. That was a fundamental mistake, one for which he should have apologized for as soon as the matter escalated, along with facing penal action for running misleading advertisements. That would have ended the matter pronto. But once he decided to brave it out, he should not have caved in. What would have happened had he refused to apologize? How long do you think could he have been incarcerated for? Prashant Bhushan, who had accused most judges of being knee-deep in corruption, had refused to apologize or even pay the token 1 Re fine until he was requested by those seeking apology to apologize to them. He did pay Re.1 eventually but collected it through crowd-funding. Even Kunal Kamra and Ajit Bharati had not crawled when asked to bend. You need to show spine if you do not want to be trampled in the long corridors of law.
IMA was not wrong in complaining against him either. How pathetically is IMA run by its evangelical head who suffers from verbal diarrhea and deep-rooted hatred for Hinduism is not the scope of this article. Directing anger against IMA hardly makes any sense. Yet the same scrutiny that Patanjali and Divya Pharmacy are facing can also be directed against IMA and allopathic medicine, if tall claims are the criteria and yardsticks are uniform.
That Ramdev comes across as a prick to many depends upon how fussy and high-nosed you are. His infectious enthusiasm and knack of keeping himself amused at all times, be it while pontificating or exercising or even giving bytes to media, seem to rile up those who take themselves very seriously. And yet it must be asked as to how did his apology get leaked to the media before the bench had even received it? Equally important is why did he try to avoid court appearance on March 30th by showing air tickets dated March 31st? This kind of petty deviousness surely won’t be tolerated by anyone who is looking this as a lifetime opportunity to turn you into an example.
This casual approach is incredibly stupid. More than him, his lawyer is at fault here. All the service to humanity and laurels attained in your career do not matter if the one judging you at any point is hell bent upon venting his whole fury upon you. No one can condone this amateurish display of insincerity. If you play sly and a quarter, you must be ready for a pole and a half-up yours.
Medicine and medicaments are not appropriate subjects for public humour, neither is nutrition. Some semblance of responsibility from those tendering the apology would have resolved the matter without much fuss. Shri Ramdev should have understood by now that not every apology is the same. Its quality depends upon the one who is proffering the apology, and its edges are defined by the ideology they espouse. A Bhagwadhari has to give agni pariksha at every turn. Mere tendering of apology is not enough, especially when those to whom it is being tendered are in no mood to show generosity. Then they threaten to rip you apart, not because they can actually open up your guts, but because they can blabber all they want yet no one can openly lampoon them. Such graphic language might suit those who wield a blade at an abbatoir, but not someone who holds a hammer in his hand and bangs it to bring proceedings to order. No government servant, howsoever corrupt or dull or guilty of dereliction deserves to be threatened with ripping of his intestines. Has no one told these powers-that-be that even those who push files are better than those who allow repeated adjournments and kept deferring final solutions.
By his own frivolous handling of the case, Ramdev who had once scooted away from the site of an anti-corruption dharna by donning a salwar kurta, has opened himself up to harsh legal action. In any case, Patanjali, owned by a Baba, run by an Acharya and named after a Maharishi has got to be the pet hate of liberals, wokes, commies and non-Sanatanis. They have always wanted to destroy it into smithereens. Now that they have it by the balls, they have openly declared their intentions. In doing so, they have enhanced the quality of public conversation to Tarantinoesque levels. But they forget that Ramdev has always managed to play the Yadav card to divide his detractors and soften the opposition whenever things have become too difficult for him to handle. Which is why I think he might still emerge from this nadir with his trademark unrequited smile flashing his crooked tooth intact while cocking a snook at those who are looking to finish him off.
#ima #apexcourt #supremecourt #ramdev #babaramdev #patanjali #divyapharmacy #acharyabalkrishna #coronil #covax #prashantbhushan #ajitbharati #kunalkamra #covid
Abhinav Pancholi 