You probably are aware of an Indian Yogi who is quite popular these days. This Yogi who runs multi-billion corporate houses, with his finger in almost in every pie, has made his version of Yoga almost a craze among the Indian masses.
I have nothing against his business zeal. But I am worried about the way he projects Yoga. He makes tall claims about what Yoga can do. His simple ‘Yogic breathing techniques’ can cure almost every ailment, at least that is what he claims.
I have talked about this Yogi in my book “Hata yoga Myths Shattered”. In that book I have tried to show how hollow his claims are, and how dangerous the repercussions can be. Though he may not mind my mentioning his name, I have chosen to mask his name by just calling him ‘Baba’ – a respectful word used in India for Yogis.
I am always against unsubstantiated tall claims, whether in Yoga or in any other area. Such claims can be misleading in the best case and dangerous in the extreme cases, not to mention about the erosion of trust such claims cause in the high offices held by these claimants.
He is a very senior scientist, in fact the director of the National Centre for Organic Farming (NCOF), a Government of India research center. He looks so simple and genuine that in spite of the incredible claims he makes, I am inclined to trust his words albeit without any supportive evidence.
I only hope that his claims are true. And if they really are, then we have one of the marvelous things that can totally change the way we do farming and cultivation. That is of interest to us in this series of discussions on gardening.
His name is Dr. Krishan Chandra.
Let us see some of his claims.
1. You don’t need chemical fertilizers anymore. Even if you choose to use them, you need to use very little of them. It is quite likely that you get the same yield even if you totally shun chemical fertilizers and stick to his method.
2. You don’t need to use pesticides either. You can grow completely safe and healthy produce without ever using harmful chemical sprays.
3. Even infertile and ill-suited land can be converted into fertile and productive land in a matter of 1 year.
4. The entire process is self-sustaining with minimal intervention needed on the part of the cultivator.
5. Completely Eco-friendly.
6. To top all these claims, the entire process needs a fraction of the cost that one normally incurs in traditional farming!
Dr. Chandra’s claims go on and on. It seems hard to believe. Just imagine farming without using any chemicals. Most of our present-day health problems would vanish in a jiffy! Many poor countries that depend on agriculture can save lot of money and utilize the same resources for betterment of the society.
But where is the evidence?
Dr. Chandra has hardly any published research results. In one of the interviews he says that he does not believe in publishing papers! His papers are actually thousands and thousands of farmers who vouch for the efficacy of his methodology – he proudly declares.
He has setup a mechanism through which any farmer can upload a video describing his experience using Dr. Chandra’s method. Dr. Chandra systematically puts all those videos in his YouTube channel. In less than a year, Dr. Chandra’s YouTube channel is flooded with videos uploaded by farmers in almost every Indian language!
Does that sound more like our Yoga Guru ‘Baba’ that I talked about earlier?
But this one is a highly qualified researcher from a premier institution. One who has spent almost his entire career developing this technology. At least on the face of it, it does not appear that Dr. Chandra has any commercial interest. He does not even care to patent his ideas as he says ‘the technology belongs to my farmers and I don’t want to put any hurdles on their using it freely’.
Hard to believe isn’t it?
What is this technology Dr. Chandra is talking about? We will discuss that in the next episode.
A series of weekly (every Monday 12 PM PST) talks on new ways of Gardening by Dr. King. © Dr. King 2019
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