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SDA-RF-AT-3.33
COVER
18
CIVIL SOCIETY February 2008
Photographs: LAKSHMAN ANAND
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Darshan Shankar at his desk
Rita and Umesh Anand
Bangalore/New Delhi
IX months ago, Darshan Shankar began a process that took his colleagues at
the iconic Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions
(FRLHT) by surprise. He privately sounded them out on how they would
react to him stepping down from the post of director.
The normally placid and even-paced FRLHT campus outside Bangalore has
since, in its own quiet way. been coping with this intimation of impending
change. Talented scientists, foresters, taxonomists, researchers, computer
professionals and Ayurveda physicians work here on giving traditional
medicine modern meaning. Most of them were drawn to FRLHT because of
Darshan's vision and they stayed for the large reserves of positive energy that
the organisation thrives on.
FRLHT has done more for promoting Ayurveda and other traditional health
systems and bringing them within handshaking distance of western science
than any other voluntary organisation in its bandwidth. It has been
instrumental in influencing national policy and has created awareness about
medicinal plants and folk healers. Perhaps most significantly. FRLHT has tried
to bridge the gap between traditional knowledge and the modern market for it
in integrative approaches to healthcare.
It is rare that heads of Indian voluntary organisations offer to demit office. In
Darshan’s case, the decision to take early retirement was even more surprising
because FRLHT is at the acme of a success built with hard work, innovation and
much sacrifice over 15 years. Darshan has been at the helm all this while. And
to go now would be to walk out of the spotlight just when he should be basking
in many watts of deserving glory.
Civil Society first reported on Darshan and FRLHT in a cover story, "Meet Mr
Roots", in January 2004.
In the grand sweep that Darshan was able to institutionalise. FRLHT moved
S
OVER
THE
YEARS
In situ conservation of
medicinal plants in forest
habitats. Till 2007 there have
been 84 conservation areas
established in nine states
Database on
botanicals
used by Indian
systems of
medicine
1993
________________
from working with communities to creating digital databases of plants.
documenting local knowledge, setting up a modern laboratory for validating
therapies and finally establishing an Ayurveda hospital.
The organisation leapfrogged from a city office in Bangalore in the nineties.
to a five acre campus on the fringes of the city. It now employs over a hundred
people and its departments are headed by skilled and personally secure
professionals who are empowered in their spheres
Darshan. a robust but benign head in this flat hierarchy, could have
continued as director for life in such circumstances But Darshan was adamant
that he has to go. At 56, it was time, he said, to hand over the directorship to the
second line. He could continue to be in the organisation to serve, but he was
insistent that others should have the opportunity to lead.
And so with those first private chats began the process of consultation about
who that person could be. If it was someone from within, would he/she have
everyone’s approval? Would it be possible to shift to a collegiate model of paths
chosen by consensus? Darshan has been a team player, but he brought to the
founder-director's job an entrepreneurial edge. Would a successor be able to
wrest the same space, set the same tone?
Or was it necessary to replace Darshan with an outsider and make a clean
break? Perhaps an outsider would come with new energy and vision and put the
organisation on another trajectory. May be a better, more beneficial one than
Darshan has been able to define.
As it happened the choice fell on someone from within. It was decided that
Additional Director DK Ved would take over. Ved is a mechanical engineer, by
training, a forester by profession and perhaps one of the country’s most
knowledgeable experts on the geographical distribution of the 6,000 species of
medicinal plants of India. He has designed and developed multidisciplinary
medicinal plant databases in FRLHT. Darshan intends to be around in some
kind of emeritus role to make the transition smooth. But a new phase in
leadership would be clear to all. Ved will now assume office in March.
Network
of folk
healers in
seven
states.
1994
170,000
home and
institutional
herbal
gardens
Bio-cultural
herbarium
and raw
drug
repository
1996
_____________
Community
owned
company for
medicinal
plants
|
Laboratory
for pharma
cognosy &
product
development
2001
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COVER
CIVIL SOCIETY February 2008
19
Darshan had not only been a builder of durable systems and a motivator of
people. He had also been a hugely successful fundraiser. He had worked to
create a wider identity for FRLHT. connecting it with government and private
institutions across the globe. The transition plan needed to ensure that all this
was not thrown into jeopardy.
"When there is a change of leadership, be it in a company or an NGO. it is
necessary to examine what is at stake and how achievements can be
consolidated. It is also the time to see whether a shift of gears is possible.”
Murthy told Civil Society in Bangalore.
"Change is inevitable. Even good," says Murthy. "But change needs to be
handled carefully. Darshan’s strengths in bringing good people together.
providing a profile for the organisation, raising funds etc are essential for the
future of FRLHT. So, it is necessary that he continue in an advisory and
supportive capacity even as a new director takes over."
Murthy observes that there are limitations to the roles that founders can play
be it in commercial entities or voluntary organisations. They mostly tire, lose
perspective and fail to make technological leaps. For instance, research shows
that in family owned companies, the business begins to wither by the fourth
generation. Professionals are then needed to take over. The challenge founder
entrepreneurs face is when and how to hand over.
The criticism of Indian NGOs is that their founders tend to hang on for too
long. Organisations are built around individuals and tend to mirror their
personal whims and fancies. The promoter of a good idea grows rapidly in the
public eye, then plateaus and finally hangs on at all costs because of the
insecurities associated with letting go
Indian NGOs tend to pay little attention to structure and systems though
they use public money. They prefer self-regulation to more rigorous forms of
independent scrutiny There is a sense that transparency worries them unless
However, even as consensus emerged several stages remained before the
decision could be formalised If the FRLHT team had talked it through, the
governing body remained to be consulted.
Darshan wrote to the redoubtable Sam Pitroda. chairman of FRLHT’s board.
Pitroda had helped Darshan in critical ways when he had wanted to set up
FRLHT in 1993 and has continued to serve as chairman, nurturing the
organisation with strategic directions and his many connections.
Pitroda. who once fathered the technology missions and was a key advisor to
Rajiv Gandhi, is now chairman of the Knowledge Commission and much, much
more. Pitroda was often thrilled at what FRLHT had managed to achieve with
his moral support and strategic advice. He has helped by his opening a door
here or there. Darshan had gone to him as a young man with a big vision in
search of a benefactor.
Once asked by a leading light of the NGO movement what he as a technocrat
was doing as chairman of an organisation working on traditional knowledge.
Pitroda responded: "Find me 100 other Darshan Shankars who are as serious
and committed to an idea and I will happily help open doors for them and be
chairman of their organisations."
Pitroda was okay with Darshan retiring if he really wanted to, but he insisted
that the process of handing over would have to be structured "It is a world
class institution and not some pan shop that you can transfer to somebody
else." he said A committee should oversee the transition, redefine roles and
responsibilities of the second and third level leadership and endorse a
successor. Darshan, he advised,would have to hand over the mantle ata public
function so that the world could know of the change, Darshan’s contribution
and FRLHT’s many milestones.
More importantly, it was decided that FRLHT needed a formal transition plan
Prof KRS Murthy, former director of IIM Bangalore who is on the FRLHT board.
was given the task of drafting such a plan. The idea was to plot a path for the
future growth of the organisation so that it could keep up its momentum.
Methodology
for sustainable
harvesting of
medicinal
plants
2003
Ethnobotanical
garden
and
nursery
Ayurveda
hospital
is set up
at FRLHT
campus
2004
Herbal
remedies
for
malaria
prevention
Documentation
of ancient
medical
manuscripts
2005
FRLHT's verdant campus
FRLHT has tried to bridge the gap between
traditional knowledge and the modern
market for it in integrative approaches to
healthcare.
they can choose the parameters. NGO organisations are built mostly as
pyramids with a huge gap between the person at the top and the next in
command Transition plans are therefore unheard of. And when they are
implemented, they are invariably accompanied by undisguised backseat
driving. No one is left in any doubt as to who is the real boss.
In Darshan’s case he seems to be blessed with the temperament to let go.
Asked what gave him the idea to quit, he replies with an example from his past:
"When I was in my twenties I set up an NGO in a tribal area of Maharashtra. At
351 felt I should find a younger person who had the natural enthusiasm and
energy to continue doing the kind of work that was required of me there. I then
went out and looked for someone in his twenties who could take over and
found such a person. When this person turned 35 he came to me and said he
was ready to hand over. It so happened he died of a heart attack swimming in
the river the day after he had found a successor for himself."
There is an inevitability about handing over and passing on. The greater our
AWARDS
1998: Norman
Borlaug Award for
contribution to
conservation of
medicinal plants
2002: Equator
Initiative Prize for
linking
conservation to
livelihoods
2003: Cultural
Stewardship
Award from the
Columbia School
of Medicine
20
COVER
CIVIL SOCIETY February 2008
Samitha at FRLHT Then came a bio-cultural herbarium in 1996, efforts for
success the closer we get to obsolescence. The stronger we burn, the weaker we
reviving community based health traditions in 1997, a modern laboratory in
get. Traditional systems of medicine make it easier to understand such
2001, the beginnings of the hospital in 2004 and finally research on medical
permanent impermanence with their emphasis on connections between body
manuscripts and the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda in 2005
and mind, on the inward-outward oneness with Nature.
The achievements of last 14 years prepare the FRLHT institution to effectively
But Darshan is no aloof philosopher. FRLHT would have never been built and
contribute to the emerging era of pluralism in medicine, many had envisaged but
grown into the institution it is today if he were not a man of action impatient.
few had been able to act upon in the early nineties. As Ayurveda and Yoga acquire
practical, driven by the need to act.
increasing importance in integrative healthcare, FRLHT is uniquely positioned to
A poster by his desk quotes from Goethe: "It is not enough to know. It is
be an institutional bridge between traditional Indian systems and western science.
necessary to do"
FRLHT's mission has been to make traditional systems comprehensible to the
Pitroda too is a man of action. Speaking to Civil Society on the seventh floor of
modern world. The survival of traditional systems depends on them being
the Taj Palace in Delhi on one of flying visits to India because he lives in the US. he
understood in contemporary scientific terms without diminishing their original
says-. "We have to learn to move on. When C-Dot was over I never looked back."
knowledge base. The problem is
Pitroda almost changed the
that while traditional
face of Indian telecom in the
knowledge is based on holism.
eighties with a young team of
modern science is rooted in
engineers in C-Dot. They came
reductionism. Making the
up with the small rural
connection requires a complex
automatic exchange or RAX
vision and a deep
which made rural telephony
understanding of comparative
possible in difficult Indian
epistemologies. It is the
conditions. If politicians had
challenge in medicine as
allowed them to continue they
physicians and scientists
would have provided the first
explore uncharted frontiers.
large indigenously made
Some of the concerns belong
telecom switch. As C-Dot lost
in the realm of pop culture.
momentum. India's telecom
Sam Pitroda
revolution was delayed by a decade.
Pitroda likes being a trigger, a sponsor of new and useful ideas.
"When Darshan came to me 20 years ago. I saw someone simple,
honest and willing to do something different. I instinctively trusted
him and have always trusted him since. It was my gut feeling. If we
had more people like him. India would benefit."
At first the support Pitroda gave Darshan was in bits and
pieces. Then came the idea of a foundation. "I didn't do much.
I've been a catalyst but he did it. It took 15 years, but now it is an
institution." says Pitroda.
Pitroda believes that there is little difference between a small
NGO and a small business. Both have high expectations, chase
great ideas and are invariably short of money. Both need help in
finding their way through the system and this is where a
Pitroda, reaching out to industry and government as a well
networked benefactor, can help.
But the challenge is to move from hand-holding to selfsufficiency. Like a business must depend on revenue streams.
NGOs need to be sustainable and capable of institutionalising
their gains. "Very often NGO leaders want money to do what
they like doing, as though it were a hobby. That is not good
enough." says Pitroda.
For Pitroda, the next stage at FRLHT is to commercialise and
Professor KRS Murthy
build market linkages so that the organisation can sustain its
activities without asking for funding. As the wellness business grows along
Books like "The monk who sold his Ferrari" look for body and mind solutions.
with interest in traditional therapies. FRLHT is certainly on the threshold of
Deepak Chopra dominates this space. The debate goes deeper and is difficult to
great opportunities.
enter in the absence of a common scientific idiom. Modern medicine is structurally
The first building blocks of a new identity are already in place. A hospital and
defined and therefore is full of quantitative certitudes. The practitioners of
wellness centre with 20 beds and plans for 80 more, a modern laboratory for
Ayurveda on the other hand rely on knowledge that is based on systemic theories
validating therapies and a company for producing value-added herbal products
and hence the fields in Ayurveda cannot be reduced to structural entities.
whose shareholders are marginal farmers and rural women all serve to draw
The challenge in integrative medicine is to evolve a methodology to define the
FRLHT into the gravitational pull of market forces.
relationship between the whole and the part. It is clearly not a one to one
You could add to this a potentially lucrative finishing school that FRLHT will
relationship. "FRLHT or for that matter any one else does not have the final
shortly initiate for short-term training for doctors and therapists to equip them
answers," says Darshan "But it is a pioneer in exploring the relationships in the
to serve in the Ayurveda and Yoga departments in allopathic hospitals and
context of health sciences. It respects both holism and reductionism as ways of
wellness centres. Such are the huge investments in holistic care across the
knowing Nature. The way we see it is that the whole consists of the parts, but the
world that FRLHT can hope to be much in demand.
parts don't necessarily add up to the whole."
In addition. FRLHT is well advanced in terms of what it has already achieved.
A modern scientific laboratory is necessary for translating the systemic
to transform in the next few years into an Indian Institute of Ayurveda and
parameters of Ayurveda into the scientific structural parameters of modern
Integrative Medicine. This is visualised to be an IIT-level institution that will
science. It can develop quality standards for a plant or an Ayurvedic drug and
provide undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level training.
check it out for toxins, heavy metals and so on. The laboratory tests become a
FRLHT began with the rather basic programme of designing and implementing
means of epistemologically sensitive communication between practitioners of
an innovative strategy for preserving medicinal plants in the wild. That was in
different systems. But the laboratory cannot measure the systemic parameters
1993. It is to Darshan's credit that he foresaw the entire range of activities that
on which Ayurveda is based.lt can only measure representative points in the
could emerge from that beginning and moved as and when resources permitted
systemic field. In the hospital an Ayurveda practitioner can benefit from
to establish them.The evolution of FRLHT is a story of how a large vision can be
reading an MRI or an ultrasound. He needs to however be trans-disciplinary in
realised step by step with steadfast perseverance and unwavering focus.
his perspective in order to be able to interpret the change in structural
Says Darshan; "In 1993. the only support we could get was for the conservation
parameters in Ayurveda's systemic framework. The vaid in Ayurveda will still
of medicinal plants. But even then FRLHT dreamt of becoming a world class
need to read the pulse and assess the body type of the patient in ways that are
institution. The problem was resources. No one was willing to support a
completely alien to the physicians trained in modern medicine.
comprehensive vision of an unknown organisation in an unchartered field."
FRLHT was founded to find everyday solutions to such complexities. Its
But FRLHT kept taking the steps it needed. It developed its strength in
success will finally be in creating new and sustainable relevance for the wealth
informatics in 1994 with the use of computers to store traditional knowledge
of knowledge that is India's legacy but tends to get lost in debris of change and
and make it easily accessible. Now you can get CDs of the seminal Charak
confusion about the content of an Indian programme of modernisation.
Pitroda believes there is
little difference between
a small NGO and a small
business. Both have high
expectations and chase
great ideas.
CIVIL SOCIETY February 2008
COVER
21
Dr GG Gangadharan
A room in the Ayurveda hospital
Ayurveda hospital,
lab, garden
Dr Padma Venkat in her lab
How FRLHT has gonefrom
conservation to research, value
addedproducts and clinical practice
Dr K Haridasan in his ethno-medicinal garden
HE campus of the Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health
Traditions (FRLHT) sits on five acres amidst a green wilderness in the
suburbs of Bangalore. The area is called Jarakbande Kaval and you get there
via Yelahanka, invariably braving traffic jams, pollution and screeching horns.
The campus itself, however, is an island of serenity and unruffled activity.
There are three buildings with tiled roofs and architecture that ensures
interiors are flooded with natural light and air. A fourth building is under
construction, it is a gift from a patient He was so happy with the treatment he
received at Amruth, the FRLHT Ayurveda hospital and wellness centre, he
insisted on paying for another building on the campus as a donation
Set up in 2004. Amruth is in a sense the crowning glory of FRLHT's activities.
It rounds off the work which began in the early
nineties with the identification of medicinal plants,
and their preservation in the wild, creation of a
herbarium, identifying of folk healers, development of
medicines and value added products and the setting
up of a modern laboratory as a testing facility. In this
chain, the hospital puts everything in sharp
perspective because it showcases Ayurveda in practice
as physician deals with patient.
The hospital is headed by the forward-looking Dr GG
Gangadharan, who used to be at the Arya Vaidya
Pharmacy in Coimbatore, In addition to him there is a
clinical team of five doctors led by a postgraduate in Ayurveda with a decade
and a half in clinical experience. FRLHT on the whole has 15 Ayurvedic doctors
and Siddha, Unani and Yoga consultants.
"We started Amruth to mainstream Ayurveda, not as a science from the past.
but as a contemporary system of medicine which can play a fruitful role in
tackling degenerative, lifestyle related and chronic diseases. These are the
problems of this century. Modern medicine is weak here and Ayurveda is
strong." says Dr Gangadharan.
The hospital’s 12 departments include geriatrics, mental health, diabetes and
neuropathy, cardiac disorders, gastro-intestinal and respiratory disorders.
T
ophthalmology, complementary treatment for cancer, skin diseases and so on
Ayurveda has been under assault on many fronts. If on the one hand the
vanishing of medicinal plants has been depriving it of its raw material, on the
other there aren’t the facilities where Ayurveda as a traditional science is kept
alive in a contemporary setting and with a new relevance.
Amruth in its very presence seeks to correct these imbalances. It is a modem,
clean and well-equipped facility. It has 20 well-kept rooms for patients to stay and
treatment facilities. In time to come there will be 100 rooms. All the Panchakarma
treatments under Ayurveda are available here. There is a pharmacy with Ayurvedic
medicines chosen from the most reliable manufacturers across the country.
It already has the odd-landmark success to its name. A bus driver with
paralysis after a bad brain haemorrhage was brought to
Dr Gangadharan. He looked at the MRI and said there
was nothing that he could do. When the family
persisted, he agreed to treat the man. Herbal packs for
the head and other medications were given to him and
in three weeks he began moving. Fresh MRIs after two
months showed that clots had gone. Dr Gangadharan
is however cautious about presenting Ayurveda as
some kind of miracle science. Ayurveda should be
used for those ailments which it is known to treat.
"We believe one such hospital in Bangalore is not
enough. We would like to multiply it in India and
other countries." he says.
So this hospital will become a module which can be integrated into health
centres, women and child health centres, allopathic hospitals etc. People today
seek choices in healthcare. The future, as Dr Gangadharan points out. is in
integrated health systems. Amruth is keen to be part of the trillion dollar
wellness industry.
TEACHING HOSPITAL: Amruth is also meant to serve as a teaching hospital with
its own syllabus and degrees both at a graduate and post-graduate level. The
physicians who come out of here will be new in their orientation. They will
22
COVER
learn how to give treatment guided by the shastras, but use modern diagnostics
to interpret biomedical parameters and assess the out comes of Ayurvedic
treatment. They will also be encouraged to use information technology.
Their training will be to remain within Ayurveda s systemic framework, but
simultaneously connect with the reductionist theories of modern science.
Making the connection is important for communicating the benefits of
Ayurveda in an age when there is a huge demand for its therapies.
Finally, it is physicians who can strike this delicate balance who will keep
Ayurveda alive and relevant in a
classical sense
At yet another level. Am ruth will
be a finishing school for short
term training to doctors and
therapists who can then work in
clinics and alternative medicine
departments of allopathic
hospitals. A huge demand is
envisaged for such professionals.
A plant which produces natural red dye
The teaching of Ayurveda is
either mechanical or doggedly
conservative. Young Ayurveda
physicians get degrees, but their
knowledge tends to be superficial.
It doesn't emanate from the
philosophical and logical
framework of Ayurveda. They
can't explain their line of
treatment and tend to hide behind
the shastras as dogma. The result
is that they suffer from low selfesteem in comparison to
allopathic physicians who have
clear answers for all that they do.
In the absence of a deep
understanding, the new Ayurveda
doctor does not know how to enter
into a dialogue with practitioners
of modern medicine and build a
constructive relationship. There is
also a tendency to ignore presentPlant material from all over India
day public health requirements
and shy away from preventive and
promotive healthcare in which
Ayurveda can be very effective.
The challenge therefore is to be
classical with such rigour that it is
possible to be modern without
being contrived. For the Ayurveda
physician caught in today's needs
and exigencies, creative scholarship
is the way forward. Get the texts
right and all else will follow.
It is precisely to achieve this that FRLHT has on board Prof Lakshmi Thattachar.
former director of the Sanskrit Academy. Malkotte. Karnataka. He is a grammarian
and he is assisted by his son, Dr MA Alwar, who is a Sanskrit logician.
The two pundits are deciphering ancient medical texts, including the Charak
Samhita. They have studied 500 catalogues, taking down technical details. They
plan to make primers for students of Ayurveda. The exercise also serves to
salvage important medical works. It also includes the process of finding out
original manuscripts. There are many versions. The Charaka alone has 40.
Then they plan to bring out a critical edition of selected manuscripts.
Their research associate is Dr Shankar, an MBBS physician, who has
translated from Sanskrit to English a book on dietetics called
Kshemakutubalam from 13th to 14th century written by Kahema Sharma, chief
cook of a Rajput king and an ayurvedic physician. The book is a scientific book
on how to preserve your health with details on the right diet, when how and
where to eat food, the qualitites of a cook, utensils to be used, how to detect
toxins and poisons.
Amrutha Vana has
more than 800 species
of tropical Indian
medicinal plants from
habitats across India.
LABORATORY: FRLHT set up a laboratory in 2001 to use chemistry and
pharmacology for assessing traditional medicine. The laboratory is headed by
Padma Venkat. a PhD Cantab. She worked for 10 years in Cambridge University
before Darshan got her to join FRLHT and set up the lab.
"The main idea is to determine the quality standards of medicinal herbs and
traditional medicine not just from the modern scientific point of view, but also
from the traditional viewpoint." says Dr Padma.
The laboratory has the complex job of providing the methodology by which
concepts of traditional knowledge can be correlated with modern science. But
in a less intricate role it uses standard facilities in chemistry and biology to
evaluate and certify raw materials and processes used in traditional medicine.
CIVIL SOCIETY February 2008
Exotic orchid
It has developed innovative
products such as a herbal soup for
industry on a consultancy basis.
Traditional healers say herbs
should be collected only from a
particular location at a certain
time, stored in a certain way to be
effective. The laboratory tries to
find out scientifically whether
such instructions make a
difference to the quality of herbs.
Pharmacognocy. or the
identification of crude drugs is done
here. All sorts of herbs are traded
under one name. This can result in
adulteration. The labs use DNA
markers to determine species It has
invented a diagnostic kit for small
industries that can authenticate the
quality of their medicine. FRLHT
has applied for a patent
One of many beautiful and useful plants
The lab validates certain
traditional practices in the context
of modern science. For instance.
tests conducted at the lab have
found that copper vessels do kill
bacteria which cause e-coli,
typhoid and cholera. They have
identified kitchen herbs which
purify water. A squeeze of lime for
instance gets rid of pathogens.
Pipali. boiled in milk, increases its
Seeds for the herbarium
bioactivity. The labs have invented
herbal soups in sachets for acidity, digestion and as a refreshing drink.
"I have totally expanded my knowledge base." says Dr Padma.
HERBARIUM: Work on a herbarium or botanical repository of Indian medicinal
plants began in 1995. Till date the herbarium has collected about 70 per cent of
the medicinal plants used by Indian systems of medicine.
Work under the leadership of Dr Goraya and Dr Ravikumar is already
underway to digitise the herbarium. FRLHT's herbarium is recognised by the
government as the national herbarium for medicinal plants of India. It is also an
internationally accredited herbarium. When it is expanded, the herbarium will
include medicinal fauna and the metals and minerals used in traditional
medicine. It could one day be a chemical and cell repository.
The herbarium serves to identify plants and their variants and trace them to
their habitats. Plant stems, leaves and seeds are then stored away. Digitising
them involves scanning them and making them available as images on computer.
"We have information on 7.361 medicinal plant species, with their
vernacular names, distribution data, seeds propagation." says Vijay Barve.
senior systems manager. There is a library of 14.000 images and maps showing
eco-distribution and forests.
A team of four to five botanists make frequent trips to hunt and identify
medicinal plant species. States which have been mapped include Karnataka.
Kerala and Tamil Nadu. State- wise CDs of plants are available
AMRUTHA VANA: An ethno-medicinal garden, the Amrutha Vana, has been
created on the FRLHT campus. It has more than 800 species of tropical Indian
medicinal plants from habitats as far away as Arunachal Pradesh. There are
grasses, herbs and trees.
"We would like to make this a national garden with medicinal plants from
CIVIL SOCIETY February 2008
1
COVER
every region of India." says Dr K. Haridasan. one of India’s leading botanists
and a specialist on the northeast. This garden has been lovingly put together by
him and Ganesh Babu.
The plants are organised in some 20 different themes. There are 30 species
for hair and skin care, 27 species that work as antidotes for poisonous bites, 40
species for primary health care. 56 species that are on the Red List and highly
endangered. There are also a great many aromatic medicinal plants and an
aquatic herbal garden as well.
The Amrutha Vana has been the inspiration for other home, community and
institutional herbal gardens. Thousands of kitchen gardens have been created
in the Bangalore area from here.
"IT companies, Ayurveda resorts and spas are asking for these plants." says
Dr Haridasan. "A garden has been built by us in Hyderabad’s Genome Valley.
There is scope of going commercial. We are backed by a great knowledge base."
Dr Haridasan says FRLHT has a village botanist programme which teaches
villagers to identify plants and educates them on IPR issues. This knowledge
can be used for local health needs, tourism or for forest department surveys.
There is also a plant identification course.
IN SITU CONSERVATION: Conservation of medicinal plants is where FRLHT
began in 1993. This conservation took place in forest habitats. Since then the
programme has covered nine states created 84 conservation areas for medicinal
plants. These areas serve as wild gene pools. India is now a world leader in the
in situ conservation of medicinal plants.
FRLHT has had to work with the forest department and sensitise its staff, who
have gone from being completely apathetic to medicinal plants as a forest
community resource to now actively participating in efforts for their conservation
GA Kinhal of the Madhya Pradesh cadre of the Indian Forest Service is on
deputation with FRLHT and oversees this programme. Kinhal says there has
been a lot of learning among foresters.
"Most of all I have
learnt to be persistent on
certain aspects of
forestry and to engage in
community dialogue.
There is a lack of
interaction between
society and the forest
department." he says.
Kinhal emphasises the
importance of
sustainable harvesting of
Some of the community outreach team
medicinal plants. These
plants should be planted
within appropriate
forests by the forest
department to preserve
the gene pool.
"Cultivating species for
industry does not mean
conservation." he
clarifies. To conserve, the
causes of depletion
should be removed.
Using a mix of
At work in the herbarium
traditional and scientific
knowledge he has helped work out how and when medicinal and aromatic
plants should be harvested. The role of the community is essential in this
process. Plants harvested at the right time and using the correct method are
easier to preserve after processing. Similarly seeds when collected at the right
time yield more oil
IT AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE: Since 1995. engineered by DKVed,
FRLHT has been putting on to computer the botany and material medica of
traditional systems. Dr SN Venugopal is an Ayurveda physician who works on
digitising the texts so that they become easily available. He has built a huge
database of 125,000 plant names used in Ayurveda. From the Charaka Samhita
he has identified 12.875 Sanskrit names of plants. "After grouping these we get
620 plants," he says. There is detailed information on each plant: its
formulations, properties, qualities, critical comments, botanical name, identity.
There are pictures of each plant.
Plants from Siddha have also been computerised. Dr Venugopal designed
software for this documentation. A complete grouping of plant names from the
Charaka Samhita is available on CD from him for Rs 250 for students and
educational institutes.
GRAM MOOLIGAI COMPANY: FRLHT’s work in mobilising communities and
helping them use their local knowledge remains hugely exciting. The challenge
before FRLHT lies in taking communities to the market through various
connections.
23
FRLHT has been instrumental in the setting up of the Gram Mooligai
Company whose shareholders are rural women and small and marginal
farmers. It is registered under the companies act and in the past three years has
done total business worth more than Rs I crore.
The company cultivates and collects herbal plants and produces products
from them such as a natural remedy for cows.
MALARIA DRUG AND A COUGH SYRUP: FRLHT seeks to bring back local health
solutions in rural communities in southern India. To do this it has sponsored
conventions of folk healers at the district and state levels. It has also been
giving awards to outstanding folk healers.
This has led to the evaluation of local remedies. An interesting trial was
conducted in districts of Tamil Nadu with a local cough remedy. Its efficacy was
measured against allopathic prescriptions. The study was done by M Abdul Kareem
of FRLHT in collaboration with the Christian Medical College in Vellore. It showed
that the local remedy was more effective. A study for scabies yielded similar results.
Dr MNB Nair was asked by the Kannada Milk Federation (KMF) to help out
with health ailments faced by their cattle. Nair worked with folk healers to
identify 190 herbs. Five inexpensive medicines which could tackle mastitis,
wounds, repeated breeding were made. KMF has got a licence to make the
mastitis medicine which costs only Rs 60.
Similarly, herbal formulations have been found to inhabit malaria in the liver.
"Traditional healers give different medicines for different types of fever." says
Dr Prakash BN. who heads the malaria research programme. These fevers and
medicines were identified. A number of observational studies were done,
including in Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts of Orissa. The group given the
preventive herbal medicine did not develop malaria. Around 10 formulations
have been identified and FRLHT will be collaborating with the Indian Institute
of Science. Bangalore to commercialise these.
The involvement with folk healers has also involved evaluating the work of
bone-setters. Says Dr Lokesh. "Our studies have shown that they can handle
simple fractures and dislocation, but not the complex ones."
The benefits of folk medicine at an affordable cost has prompted FRLHT to
work with other NGOs and self-help groups of women to promote over 200.000
home herbal gardens across the southern Indian states and in Maharashtra.
Orissa and Chhatisgarh as well. Pushpa HK. a life sciences graduate says for
urban residents, a complete package of 21 plants costs only Rs 300. Advice on
how to look after the plants is readily available from FRLHT. Twenty plants
have been identified for primary healthcare. The home herbal garden is being
promoted with herbal formulations to tackle anaemia in Chittoor district of
Andhra Pradesh said Dr Nagendra. Women are encouraged to grow greens in
their backyard. Around 161 herbal formulations for aneamia have been short
listed.
Dr Nagendra has been organising folk healers. "Each village has one or two
but they have no common platform." he says. A folk healers network of 150
associations has been formed in nine states.. They have been taken for
exposure visits and three state conventions have been held. "These are the last
generation of folk healers." says Dr Nagendra.
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