JAMSHEDPUR: Traditional healers from 14 states of India and five countries — Cameroon, Mexico, South Africa, Uganda and Sri Lanka — were part of Samvaad 2018, organised by the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) wing of Tata Steel, Jamshedpur.
Samvaad which started in 2014 is now into its fifth year and brings together indigenous peoples to discuss their problems, find solutions to them and build networks of associations for exchanging ideas and best practices.
This year the five-member team of traditional healers from Meghalaya is led by Spasterlin Nongrem of West Khasi Hills who heads the, ‘Seng Nongsumar Dawai Khasi Nylla’ (Association of Khasi Traditional Healers). The other four members of the team include Lendar Langrin, Lesidarius Thyrniang, Airindaris Sohshang and Joge Marak.
On Saturday Nongrem led a group discussion with several other practitioners, trying to explore their strength and weaknesses. While making his presentation, Nongrem pointed to the lack of support from government and the non-recognition of traditional healers.
“The government does not show any interest to validate our work and has so far not helped with the plantation of herbal gardens. We are doing it ourselves. We don’t even have funds to fence our herbal gardens so that animals do not destroy the herbs,” Nongrem said adding that “we are storing all our wealth in the forests and gardens but we need better herbariums”.
Several practitioners who include bone-setters and masseurs spoke of the need to scale up their practice. They also expressed disappointment on their inability to find the funds to document their art and the traditional wisdom of their ancestors.
Nongrem said, “Everything is now in our mental memory but in this age of technology we also need to record this age-old wisdom in metal memory (computers, pen drives etc).”
Samvaad is meant to connect traditional healers so that they learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Samvaad believes that networking of traditional healers is important for their collective growth. A strong contingent of traditional healers from Nagaland and some from Tripura were present at the Conclave.
Most of the healers rued the lack of infrastructure and the assistance needed for quality control which they believe is crucial to their practice.
“Governments in this country and in our state have not extended any help to us, and we have not been able to grow medicinal herbs on a large scale. We are only growing them in our kitchen gardens,”said a healer from Nagaland.
In sharp contrast, the healers from Cameroon said they are recognised by their Government and given equal importance as those in the formal medical practice.
Nongrem told this correspondent that last year only two traditional healers could come but this year five of them attended. He says that traditional medicine comprises three important categories of people – the practitioners, the producers and the promoters and all there have to work in tandem.
This year 101 traditional healers from India and 17 from other countries were part of Samvaad. Stalls have been set up for them at Gopal Maidan where they demonstrate their skills in the evenings and also have their workshops during the day.
