Invoking ‘Hindu’ Ayurveda: Communalisation of the late colonial Ayurvedic discourse

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century in India witnessed a tremendous growth of vernacular Ayurvedic tracts, journals, pamphlets and public polemics. Incidentally, the consequent Ayurvedic discourse was not merely about the medical aspects of the Ayurvedic healing system. Rather, a careful reading of these published materials on Ayurveda throws immense light on the ongoing debates about sociocultural and religious processes. Interestingly, the social culture manifested by the early twentieth century Ayurvedic discourse was highly communalist, casteist, and gender-and class-biased in its content. In this regard, the present article explores how, in the era of communal polarisation, healing systems acquired religious identities. For example, from the 1920s onwards the cause of Ayurveda was promulgated by many vaids (Ayurvedic practitioners) and publicists by linking it with the broader agenda of ‘Hindu’ revivalism and the consolidation of a ‘Hindu’ religious, cultural and national identity. That is why issues like ‘Hindi prachar’, ‘cow protection’ and the cause of ‘Hindu education’ often formed the subject of vaid campaigns throughout North India. Related to this was the demonisation of ‘Muslim rule’ in India from the apparent perspective of health in the Ayurvedic discourse of the time. Simultaneously, this article argues that this communalisation of the Ayurvedic discourse, besides creating external religious boundaries, also unleashed hegemonic upper-caste and -class ideas that served to homogenise the community internally as well.