Did Gandhi Have solution to fight Coronavirus?
‘Anyone who observes the rules of health will not need to knock the doors of doctors from day to day.’
– M.K. Gandhi
Over the past weeks, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has marched relentlessly all over the globe. Does the prevention and amelioration of this pandemic resorted somewhere in Gandhi’s ideas?
Though Gandhiji’s role and contributions to the political arena are prominent, what is less kenned is his contributions towards health. Not many people are vigilant that he was intrigued with studying medicine and wanted to become a medical practitioner. It is also pertinent to note that Gandhiji saw several diseases like malaria, plague and also the medical conditions during Zulu Rebillion and Boer War. Hence Gandhi gave the preventive measures during his nursing which could be adopting today could decrease the graph of this pandemic (COVID-19) all over the world.
Gandhiji wanted such an institute to highlight the paramountcy of preventive treatment, where patients who visited would return to their homes and exhort friends, family and neighbors about the consequentiality of healthcare and obviation of diseases . During the Plague outbreak, Gandhiji and his co-workers minimized the patients’ diet. He was of the notion that during epidemics it was consequential to victual light. Even while consuming medicines, Gandhiji thought of the masses. Commercialization of medicine often bothered him because he believed providing healthcare should ascend above profits[1]. He decided he would not utilize any patented medicine, and would instead confine himself to herbal medicines as far as possible because they were available to the poorest of the poor. In 1944, he wrote to a colleague who was dealing with an epidemic in a village, ‘You will soon get lots of drugs, but they will not be very helpful. Revive people’s knowledge in nature cure remedies. Local medicinal drugs should be made available. Give rice water; if you mix jaggery with it, it will provide more energy. Teach people the rules of hygiene. If food is stopped to people suffering from fever or diarrhea and they are put on boiled water, more than fifty per cent of the cases will recover[2].’ Gandhiji accentuated that coadjutants’ quarters should be as immaculate as the masters’ bungalows . Gandhiji injuctively authorized people to always eschew blowing their nasal discerner or expectorating in public spaces.
Further, he propounded that the modernization should not control the humans. For instance, Railways, indeed, turned the human beings lethargic. Also, it leads to the more contact among people which could increase the probability of communicable diseases. For instance, if a person suffering from a communicable disease travels from one place to another, he may transmit the disease on a large scale. Gandhiji emphasized to travel only when needed.
Hence, concluding, one can easily observe that Gandhiji was not only a great political leader, but his medical legacy could demystify the pandemic like COVID-19. Gandhiji said, “So long as you do not take the broom and the bucket in your hands, you cannot make your towns and cities clean[3].” His charismatic personality won him reverence and accolade throughout the globe.
By-
Sakshee Sahay
Student Reporter
[1] Kant Rajni, “MEDICAL LEGACY OF GANDHI: Demystifying Human Diseases”, NCBI, available at; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6515724/
[2] Kant Rajni, “MEDICAL LEGACY OF GANDHI: Demystifying Human Diseases”, NCBI, available at; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6515724/
[3]Rathi Shubhangi, “Gandhian thought about cleanliness”, MKgandhi.org available on; https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/gandhian-thoughts-about-cleanliness.html