Protests cut short BJP faith healer's promising career

Back to tradition, was the mantra the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Delhi hit upon, when it vowed to heal sufferers from the likes of rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, kidney failure and cervical spondylitis.

And what better cure-all, Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma and his cohorts decreed, than the age-old mantra therapy?

Thinking up the idea is one thing -- selling it to the capital's medical colleges, though, is quite something else again, thanks to opposition from medical experts and rationalists alike.

Thus, the path-breaking Mantra Shakti Healing Centre, opened under the aegis of the government at the prestigious Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, was shut down on Tuesday, following stiff opposition.

At the centre of the controversy is 43-year-old 'healer' Tapasvi Janak Sahi, who claims that a sage gifted him the life-restoring mantras during a visit to Hrishikesh several years ago.

It was Sahi who approached Dr Harsh Vardhan -- who, besides being Delhi's minister for health, is also a qualified ENT surgeon in his own right -- with the idea for mantra therapy. And Vardhan for his part promptly roped in the services of BJP stalwarts Vijayaraje Scindia and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Suraj Bhan as, well, guinea pigs.

Sahi, with Vardhan's encouraging nod, worked his magic -- make that mantra -- on Scindia and Bhan. "We found to our amazement that Sahi's mantra therapy greatly improved the health of not only those leaders, but some members of Parliament as well," Vardhan told Rediff On The NeT.

The health minister figured that what could work for the elected representatives of the people could work as well for the people themselves -- and promptly floated a scheme for mantra healing centres -- only to be sucker-punched by stiff opposition from the Indian Medical Association and the rationalists.

IMA secretary Dr Prem Aggarwal argues that there is no scientific research, or details of clinical trials, to prove the efficiacy of this mode of cure. "By believing in Sahi's 'powers', the BJP government has been trying to take sick people for a ride," says Dr Aggarwal, adding insult to injury by asking for Sahi to be proceeded against under the provisions of the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, 1954.

The Act specifically prohibits magic remedies such as talismans, mantras, kavachas and sundry such props of the faith healing fraternity.

Sahi for his part sticks by his story. The Hrishikesh sage, he says, gave him different sets of mantras to cure different ailments, each set comprising thousands of mantras,at the rate of one per symptom/disease.

His curing session, Sahi says, begins with him listening to the patient recounting his symptoms. A few minutes of meditation follows, after which Sahi places his palm on the patient's body and begins reciting -- inaudibly, of course -- the prescribed mantras. Sahi claims that as he chants, energy is generated within him and through his palm, transmitted to the patient concerned. And lo, the cure is effected, the ailing kidney functions in mid-season form, the cancerous growth vanishes, and such, and so on.

But why did the sage single out Sahi to receive the priceless gift of curing? Says his associate Anuradha Sharma, "He had accomplished great deeds in his previous birth, and that is why he is being blessed in this birth. We do not claim," she adds, "that Sahi cures patients in just one sitting. It is a continuous process, and patients have to undergo the therapy regularly."

Ask her whether Sahi's cure-all has any scientific basis and she agrees that it does not. "But," she adds, "we can show you a number of patients who have been cured of illnesses like cancer and kidney failure through Sahi's mantra healing technique."

The rationalist fraternity aren't having any. Calling the whole thing a hoax perpetrated on the city's ailing by the BJP government, Sanal Edamaraku, secretary general of the Indian Rationalists Association, argues, "Sahi's 'healing methods' through mantras and slokas is a big joke. There is no scientific basis to his claims that chanting a few mantras will cure diseases like cancer."

The IRA has challenged the BJP government to prove the validity of Sahi's healing technique through empirical evidence. "The trouble is," Endamaraku argues, "that there is no competent authority within the government to monitor these kinds of fakes."

Sahib Singh Verma and Harsh Vardhan are, though, by no means ready to give up. Though the government's response to the opposition is yet unclear, indications are that one way or other, mantra healing, Sahi-style, will continue to be the, what else, mantra of the government in the capital city.