Preprint / Version 1

Nature Cure and Non-Communicable Diseases: Ecological Therapy as Health Care in India

Authors

  • Joseph Alter Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, USA
  • R Nair Bapu Nature Cure Hospital and Yogashram, Gandhi Samarak Nidhi, Mayur Vihar Phase-1, New Delhi 110091, India; [email protected] (R.M.N.); [email protected] (R.N.)
  • Rukmani Nair Bapu Nature Cure Hospital and Yogashram, Gandhi Samarak Nidhi, Mayur Vihar Phase-1, New Delhi 110091, India; [email protected] (R.M.N.); [email protected] (R.N.)

Keywords:

India, Nature Cure, noncommunicable diseases, holistic health, alternative medicine, bioecology

Abstract

With rapidly increasing rates of non-communicable diseases, India is experiencing a dramatic public health crisis that is closely linked to changing lifestyles and the growth of the middle-class. In this essay we discuss how the practice of Nature Cure provides a way of understanding the scale and scope of the crisis, as it is embodied, and a way to understand key elements of a solution to problems that the crisis presents for institutionalized health care. As institutionalized in contemporary India, Nature Cure involves treatment and managed care using earth, air, sunlight, and water as well as a strict dietary regimen. In this regard, the essay shows how Nature Cure’s bio-ecological orientation toward public health, which is grounded in the history of its modern incorporation into India, provides an expansionist, ecological model for holistic care that counters the reductionist logic of bio-medical pharmaceuticalization. Keywords: India, Nature Cure, noncommunicable diseases, holistic health, alternative medicine, bioecology

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