ABSTRACT
The most important myth is the myth of progress or in other words, the business of “onward ever onward.” And the first problem that arises from this myth for advertising is that “newer,” “bigger,” “better,” “stronger,” “richer” products are put forward in the market and a “still better tomorrow” is envisaged. Nobody has bothered to ask “better than what?” I am still doubtful whether Mexaform or Entero-vioform is more effective than the indigenous herbal medicines dished out by our grandmothers 40 or 50 years ago. But we take so easily to Mexaform because we live in a “pill” age and wish to have recourse to convenience rather than consult a physician or the village healer which involves loss of time. (D’Penha 1971:3)
The country’s drug policy is in utter chaos. It has been promoting a “drug culture,” the culture of reaching out for a drug on the slightest pretext. This pharmaceuticalisation of health opens up the country for loot by drug companies. (Ghosh 1986:1)
One cannot ignore the long-term effects of encouraging a poorly educated population to develop blind faith in the infallibility of modern medicine and the magical properties of prescribed pills. In India, people who are too poor to buy rice are being led to believe that they need a cough mixture for every cough, an antibiotic for every sore throat, and a tranquilizer to solve the problems of everyday life. (Greenhalgh 1987:316)
INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I discuss the growing trend toward the commodification of health through pharmaceuticals in India today. Considered is the manner in which pharmaceutical policy, production and marketing,polypharmacy prescription patterns and self-help practices, cultural values, and collective anxieties affect consumer demand for particular medicine products. A point emphasized is that what is being sold to the Indian public today is
the notion that health in the short-term can be derived through the consumption of medicines. At a time of increasing environmental deterioration (deforestation, erosion, pollution), rapid unplanned urbanization and industrialization, and related public health problems (Malhotra 1985), the capitalist promise of progress offsets health concerns. The premise that one can buy back health and well being with rising wages and greater access to medicines is popularized. In other words, health has increasingly taken on an “exchange value.” The working class tacitly accepts capitalist ideology through their efforts of private appropriation of commodified health. This ideology is being swallowed along with the pills that embody it. Health practices involving medicine taking and giving constitute an agency of socialization where relations of power, dominance, and dependency take concrete form.
