Paper Short Abstract:

Reviving ancient Indian medical traditions is a political move increasingly being deployed to also facilitate a national discourse on new regimes of health and wellness. What processes entail such revival in India? How do these processes play out for practitioners of Sowa Rigpa?

Paper Abstract:

In a landmark move in 2010, the Ministry of Ayush (Government of India) recognized Sowa Rigpa as an ancient Indian medical tradition, thereby legitimizing the presence and traditional healing practices of Tibetan populations in India. With the recent establishment of the National Institute for Sowa Rigpa in Ladakh, Sowa Rigpa is now bureaucratically and politically oriented toward scientific research. This paper focuses on the aftermath of Sowa Rigpa’s recognition in India, exploring the motivations of the nation-state and its implicit effect on regional stakeholders of 'revival' as a political strategy. An anthropological exploration of these dynamics foregrounds a new set of frictions among policy, practitioners, and institutes, each (re)claiming intellectual ownership.

Delving into the political implications of revivalism, a salient irony emerges. Asian medical systems are historically entrenched in religio-spiritual dimensions, yet they are now expected to be modern, secular and scientific to cater to cosmopolitan health needs. This raises questions about how practitioners navigate state ideology and changing regimes of health and wellness. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the remote Himalayan areas of Spiti, Lahaul, and Kullu, this paper investigates ongoing processes of revival of the Sowa Rigpa medical tradition in India from the perspective of a marginalized periphery. Investigating further the aftermath of recognition and how practitioners are aligning personal aspirations with that of the state and also birthing new ways of resistance, shedding light on novel discourses that aims to facilitate a forced marriage between traditional medicine, technoscience, and religion.