Baba Ramdev's fake cure for COVID-19

Baba Ramdev's claim of finding a cure for COVID-19 is purely fake. Yet such a faking preposterous claim has charged up his devotees, mostly of the BHAKT type who have gone wild, dancing like monkeys as if their Guru has invented the much coveted miracle drug for the deadly virus.

It takes me back to the year 1995 when someone in Chennai (then Madras) who claimed that he can convert petrol into water. He became an overnight sensation. All newspapers and magazines carried this news. Politicians and bureaucrats of all stature, big and small visited him, taking pictures smiling next to him. In due course, his claim was proven to be fake. 

But Baba Ramdev doesn't need to be proven as fake. He is a much  accomplished fake. It's fine if he sells this product as an immunity buster, a la Patanjali honey or Chawanprash. But claiming it as a cure for COVID-19 is just a sales pitch gimmick. Its effectiveness as a medication or vaccine should not be decided by claims and counter claims on social media. Rather it needs to be fully tested in the laboratory and on humans to prove its veracity. Until then, any claim beforehand is nothing but a fraudulent tactic.

For many right wing lunatics, religious believes and fake claims override logic and science. Anything scientific is anathema to them, making them perfect buyers for snake oil which can be easily sold to them (same as Trump has been able to sell Bleach as a COVID-19 cure for his Diehard followers). Ramdev being a smart businessman is aware of the Right wing penchant of buying snake oil who can be easily taken for a ride.

We have a proverb in Odia - AUSHADHA BIKALA RE TATIA KAMUDIBA, meaning desperately biting the container looking for medicine. Because we have a poor track record of invention and innovation, a slight claim by someone about a miracle cure for a global pandemic disease makes us dance on the street.

Jokes apart, it reminds me of another Odia proverb - NAI NA DEKHUNU LANGALA (Becoming naked before seeing the river). It simply means annoucing something before it's due arrival. If Baba's claim about his product being a cure to Coronavirus is proven to be true, he will be a global Superstar, potentially becoming the first Indian to win a Nobel prize in Medicine. I will be the first one to sing paeans of eulogies for him and join the Bhakt dance on street. Till then hold your horses folks.