“Conserving Indigenous Knowledge On Traditional Medicine: Preventive And Therapeutical Nutrition Practiced In India And South Africa”: An Interactive Session
Date: Fri Jan 24, 2014 - Fri Jan 24, 2014
Location: Asian Confluence Centre, Shillong , Hosts: Asian Confluence
Location: Asian Confluence Centre, Shillong , Hosts: Asian Confluence
There is a rich tradition of indigenous medicine which exists in India’s North East and Khasi Hills of Meghalaya. People resort to extracts from many plants for nutritional source to be used as home remedies for small ailments or chronic diseases. Such practices don’t require any special training but good enough for preventive and therapeutic use. To prevent the extinction of age old traditions and record such home remedies for future scientific verification, Asian Confluence organised an interactive session on sidelines of a survey visit to Meghalaya by scientists from University of Kwazalu-Natal, Department of Public Health Medicine, Durban, South Africa and Tata Institute of Social sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
The day long interaction between the visiting group and local stakeholders consisting of practitioners of indigenous medicine, representatives from policy making bodies of health service units and organizations working on public health discussed about efforts needed to save the traditional remedies. The meet was well attended with representatives from North East Slow Food movement, (NESFAS), Bio Diversity Research Centre (BRDC) Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) Institute of Public Health, traditional healers, activists and members of Non-Governmental Organizations.
Dr. Kasturi Ray from TISS informed the audience that India and South Africa has recently signed a joint treaty to have a collaborative work in the area of science and development. As part of this, Indian / South African inter-governmental Science and Technology cooperation program has been undertaken and TISS has initiated a survey work on “Conserving Indigenous Knowledge on Traditional Medicine: Preventive and Therapeutic Nutrition Practiced in India and South Africa”. Dr Myra Taylor informed that South Africa and India are two developing countries where health care system faces an overall shortage and mal-distribution of medical doctors and specialists in remote rural regions. “On the other hand both the country has a rich heritage of indigenous knowledge of local biodiversity for preventive and therapeutic nutrition. A small group of local/indigenous peoples are still the custodians of diversity so far. There are somewhere between 30 and 100 million species of flora on earth. Through an understanding of the natural processes traditionally human being has been able to use and share the natural resources wisely. This knowledge is getting eroded due to industrialization, modernization of agriculture and migration of people to cities. China has successfully recovered this knowledge and traditional Chinese medicine and is popular even in the present era.
India and South Africa with similar heritage need to recover this knowledge mainly from the tribal population and learn from each other’s experience, or we could lose our heritage forever,” she said. Retired IAS officer and social activist Tokiwaio Blah said that the laws being formulated under the aegis of the district council is a very positive step in the direction of giving formal recognition and ensuring intellectual property rights remain with the community. Director Asian Confluence Sabyasachi Dutta said, “The Asian Confluence has the charter to promote cross disciplinary exchange of knowledge and such events go a long way to forming an environment and promote win-win synergies that can balance economic development with socio cultural issues.”
