Neglected gods, weakened bodies
In many instances, therefore, while the patient undergoes different treatments, the
ultimate healing efficacy is attributed to territorial gods. Nevertheless, as the cases
above demonstrate, it is evident that biomedicine today occupies an important
position in people’s health-seeking strategies. In addition to its acclaimed efficacy,
especially in treating certain kinds of diseases, the popularity of biomedicine is linked
to the fact that it is the main form of Indian Government health service. The growing
popularity of biomedical treatments may also be explained by the fact that their
faster efficacy is more suited to the ideologies of productivity and speed, which are
spreading at a time of dramatic economic and social change (Halliburton 2009). It is
also important to stress that biomedicine enjoys, in the hills of Garhwal as in other
local contexts, a certain amount of prestige value owing to its associations with
modernity, the urban lifestyle and cosmopolitanism (see also Lambert 1996; Pigg
1990). However, the variable discourses regarding medical pluralism and biomedicine
also show at times no coherence with people’s actual behaviour.