Contestations, Contradictions, and Co-optations of Naturopathy and Biomedicine

Abstract

The introduction of naturopathy in India can be traced back to the colonial period when it was fielded in resistance to the growing prominence of biomedicine. Reporting the findings of an empirical study conducted in two naturopathy centers in Delhi, this article explores its contradictions, contestations, and co-optations with biomedicine. It argues that biomedicine conditions the proliferation of yoga and naturopathy through its shortcomings and excesses. Patient accounts reveal that the pursuit of yoga and naturopathic treatment is propelled by their dissatisfaction with biomedicine and perception of risk involved in the ingestion of drugs. Furthermore, the study explores how patients and practitioners negotiate through pluralistic settings, imposed by the adoption of biomedical diagnostics and nosology that contradict naturopathy’s episteme. The practice of naturopathy and yoga demonstrates therapeutic regimes severed from their ontological bearings, reducing them merely to adjunct therapies adapted to a biomedical episteme.