Agencies
Jammu, May 30:
Doctors Association Jammu (DAJ) will hold a protest on June 1 against Yoga Guru Ramdev’s “irresponsible statements” about COVID warriors and modern medicine.
In a statement, the DAJ also appealed to Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to instruct necessary action against Ramdev and said that he should face the consequences of his “irresponsible and despicable public statements”.
The protest will be held without hampering the care being given to patients amid the COVID pandemic. As part of the protest, doctors will wear black bandages.
Earlier in the day, the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) India also declared that they would hold a nationwide protest against the Yoga guru’s statement.
“The statement of Ramdev at a time when frontline healthcare workers are waging a war against an invisible enemy. To utter such irresponsible and callous statements is highly condemnable,” President of the DAJ, Dr Balvinder Singh was quoted in the statement.
Such “vitriolic and hateful statements” against doctors mocks them and their sacrifice, Singh said, adding that instead of showing gratitude, Ramdev was seen mocking them in the most “shallow perverse manner”.
General secretary of the association, Dr Manjeet Singh, said that by challenging treatment guidelines, Ramdev has raised a question mark on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and it was the government’s job to ‘make him face the full force of the law.”
On Wednesday, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take appropriate action under sedition and other charges against Ramdev for allegedly “spearheading a misinformation campaign on COVID vaccination”.
The IMA had sent a legal notice to the yoga guru over his alleged statements against allopathy and “defaming” scientific medicine. However, the Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust has denied allegations by the IMA that Ramdev has misled people by making “unlearned” statements against allopathy and defamed scientific medicine.
“IMA brings to the notice of our Health Minister, a video circulating in social media portraying, the celebrated Yoga Guruji saying that ‘modern allopathy ek aisi stupid aur diwaliya science hai’ (modern allopathy is a stupid and failed science),” the association had said in its statement.
Ramdev had withdrawn his statements after receiving a strong-worded letter from Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan who called his remarks ‘inappropriate’.
“We do not oppose modern medical science and allopathy. We believe that allopathy has shown immense progress in surgery and the lifesaving system and served humanity. My statement has been quoted as part of a WhatsApp message that I was reading during a meeting of volunteers. I am sorry if it has hurt anyone’s sentiment,” wrote Ramdev in his letter to the Union Health Minister in Hindi.
