Local Health Traditions (LHTs) in India represent far more than folkloric remnants of a pre-modern past. They are dynamic, living knowledge systems that continue to inform healthcare practices across diverse socio-cultural contexts, addressing primary healthcare needs in remote and underserved areas where modern medicine often struggles to reach. The growing recognition of these traditions within policy discussions signals a crucial shift toward epistemic justice and the validation of community-based healing practices.
Local Health Traditions refer to a range of therapies and healing traditions that include bone setting, home remedies, the dai tradition (traditional midwives), practices of herbalists, marma chikitsa (vital spot therapy like acupuncture), and spiritual healing, among others. As is evident, heterogeneity is a significant feature of LHTs in India. However, despite the heterogeneity, most LHTs exhibit certain broad common characteristics. In a large number of cases, knowledge transmission among these traditions is largely oral. It follows that evidence on efficacy draws on experiential knowledge, rather than codified processes of documentation.
The Enduring Relevance of Local Health Traditions
Traditional healing practices embody an integrative worldview in which health is conceived not merely as the absence of disease, but as a state of balance between the individual, the community, and the environment. This holistic approach encompasses mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of well-being, offering a comprehensive framework that contrasts sharply with reductionist biomedical models. Across India, traditional healers serve communities at their doorsteps, often without monetary benefit, preserving systematic knowledge that has been passed down through generations. Approximately seventy-five tribal groups in the country act as custodians of this indigenous healing wisdom, yet challenges such as geographical isolation and administrative gaps continue to impede healthcare access in regions like the North East and the Himalayas.
Challenges to Recognition and Survival
Despite their enduring relevance, Local Health Traditions face profound challenges. Unlike the global trend where majority of the countries practice traditional medicine, India's indigenous healing knowledge is silently drifting away. Traditional healers struggle to articulate their relevance in a rapidly modernizing healthcare landscape, receiving far from adequate recognition even as some individuals receive high-profile awards. The lack of legitimation exposes healers to marginalization. Legal ambiguities surrounding intellectual property rights enable exploitation through biopiracy, exemplified by cases involving turmeric and neem patents.
Protecting the Resources that preserve the LHTs
Protecting indigenous knowledge requires safeguarding the tribes and forests that sustain it. Local health traditions and healers should serve as key nodes for conservation and grassroots application.
Kautilya in the Arthashastra emphasized the importance of forests as vital resources. The text directs establishing dedicated forests for produce and medicinal plants (oshadhavarga), including bulbous roots, roots, and fruits and prescribes capital punishment for burning them:
Emperor Ashoka too promoted planting medicinal trees. A crucial lesson is to conserve the country's medicinal plants and document this knowledge with native communities digitally to prevent its loss.
Pathways to Integration and Legitimisation
The integration of Local Health Traditions (LHTs) into India's formal healthcare system should be viewed as a continuum. Certification and recognition must be approached with caution: while standardisation can build credibility, it should not erase the contextual and experiential dimensions of traditional healing practices, and must be medically proven.
A robust pluralist health framework must recognise that traditional practices cannot be homogenised. The rich diversity of LHTs, especially evident in the North-Eastern region demands nuanced, context-sensitive approaches rather than one-size-fits-all policies.
The Ministry of AYUSH and the Government of India have introduced several measures to validate, document, and certify LHTs and folk healers. These initiatives go beyond codified systems like Ayurveda and Unani to legitimise non-codified oral traditions and community-based practices. A key step is the Voluntary Certification Scheme for Traditional Community Healthcare Providers (VCS-TCHP), launched in 2017. Managed by the Quality Council of India (QCI) in collaboration with FRLHT, the scheme conducts assessments in the healer's native language.
The Road Ahead
Meaningful progress requires establishing clear trajectories for the certification and legitimisation of traditional healers. India needs to standardise local health traditions to preserve valuable community knowledge while ensuring safety, quality, and public trust. Standardisation should include mapping and documenting local health traditions by region and community, including healer types and commonly used remedies. It should also promote evidence-based research, clear hygiene and referral rules, and safe sourcing of medicinal plants. Overall, this will help integrate useful local traditions responsibly into India's health system without replacing essential modern medical care.
In an era marked by the commodification of knowledge, the question of ownership and benefit-sharing assumes central importance. There is a need for legal and institutional mechanisms that safeguard intellectual property rights while enabling responsible innovation.
We must also strengthen both the knowledge systems and the communities that sustain them. Capacity building must be understood as a process of empowerment. Investing in capacity-building via institutions, training healers in hygiene, documentation, and integration protocols, supported by CSR funds would be a positive step. Policy pathways must prioritize multi-sectoral convergence, involving AYUSH, health ministries, NGOs, and communities to foster evidence-based validation without diluting cultural authenticity.
Misconceptions surrounding Indian local health traditions often stem from a lack of clinical standardization. It is essential to debunk myths that traditional medicine has no scientific backing or that LHTs are mere superstitions. While some rely on oral lore, rigorous clinical trials are needed. The vast majority of grassroots practitioners provide culturally relevant remedies in remote communities.
Critically, the voices of communities must remain central. Any attempt to recognise or integrate Local Health Traditions that does not actively involve knowledge holders risks being incomplete. The preservation of these traditions is intrinsically linked to ecological conservation. By moving beyond binaries such as traditional and modern, India can reimagine healthcare in a manner that is equitable, sustainable, and rooted in its diverse knowledge traditions.
Balvinder Kumar, Retd. IAS, Founding Chairman of TESG Centre for Health & Wellness Research. Founder, Mind Therapy. Member, Bharat Responsible AI Forum; Dr. P Sharma, Senior Research Fellow, Bharat Ki Soch; Views presented are personal.