Nearly two decades of my life were lived in the corridors of homeopathic associations, not as a visitor, but as an active participant. Meetings were not always held in formal auditoriums. Often they happened in clinics after working hours, or in drawing rooms where chairs were pulled closer and tea arrived quietly.
I still remember those evenings and the people who hosted them – Dr. M.L. Agrawal, Dr. J.P.S. Bakshi, Dr. Jugal Kishore, Dr. Diwan Harish Chand, Dr. D.P. Rastogi, Dr. R.K. Manchanda, Dr. S.P.S. Bakshi, Dr. A.K. Seth, Dr. R.N. Wahi, Dr. V.P. Gupta, Dr. Anuradha, Dr. Aditya Kaushik, Dr. Girendra Pal of Jaipur, and many others whose faces are stitched into my memory even when the details of time fade.
What always struck me was not the number of organisations, but the unusual overlap of belonging. Each senior had his own platform, his own banner, his own circle of students and admirers. Yet most of them also remained active in other groups, other stages, other monthly meetings. The same physician could be a guest in one association, a speaker in another, an advisor somewhere else, and a listener in yet another room. The system, at its best, was porous. Knowledge traveled. Ideas moved from one table to another without needing a passport.
In those years I served wherever I could. Sometimes it was visible work – writing an article for a souvenir, preparing a piece for publication, presenting a paper on stage, speaking in monthly meetings. Sometimes it was invisible work – introducing people, building bridges, connecting a young learner to a senior teacher, or simply showing up with sincerity. Organisations, like families, do not run on slogans. They run on the unglamorous labor of people who keep the lamp lit.
My association with multiple organisations began in 1989 and remained intense till around 2010. After that, life quietly shifted its center. Patients demanded more of my presence, and my clinic became my primary field of duty. Teaching assignments and visiting faculty responsibilities also grew. I did not abandon the world of associations, but I moved from constant attendance to selective engagement. I assumed that goodwill remains goodwill even when one is less visible.
Then something happened that made me revisit all of this with a fresh and uncomfortable clarity.
A webinar that I was willing to offer was refused, not because of content, quality, or relevance, but because I was associated with another organisation. In one sentence, years of work were collapsed into a label. The label was not about my ideas. It was about my perceived affiliations. The language of rejection was not academic disagreement. It was moral distancing.
What makes such moments heavy is not the refusal itself. Any organisation can choose its programs. The heaviness comes from what the refusal implies: that your value is not being assessed by your work, but by the company you are presumed to keep. It turns professional space into tribal space. It converts learning into camps.
In moments like these, I did not feel the need to argue. I felt the need to understand – not the individual, but the pattern.
In Delhi NCR, and across India, homeopathic associations have multiplied rapidly. Many are born from genuine zeal. Some are born from sincere dissatisfaction with existing structures. Some arise from the desire to create an educational space. Yet along with this mushrooming, another thing also grows – the urge to announce oneself, to play the trumpet loudly, to protect territory, to define “us” and “them.” When that happens, organisations begin to behave like rivals even though their declared mission is the same.
And this is where the word “rival” begins to feel strange in a healing profession.
Competition belongs to markets and trophies. A mission belongs to service. When the mission is the same, rivalry becomes a misunderstanding of purpose. Another physician cannot be my enemy merely because he is practicing nearby. A nearby clinic is not an invasion – it is another door through which relief might enter someone’s suffering. Patients do not come only for signboards or proximity. They come for trust, for conduct, for listening, for outcomes, for steadiness. If another clinic serves well, the community benefits. If it serves poorly, time corrects it. Either way, bitterness is unnecessary. Dignity and consistency are enough.
The same truth extends to organisations. If the stated aim is education, service, research, and upliftment, then two associations are not supposed to stare at each other like rival shops. They are supposed to function like parallel hands in the same work. When they do not, something inside the culture has shifted. The mission becomes a banner, while the invisible mission becomes control – control over platforms, control over narratives, control over who is “acceptable” and who is “unacceptable.”
I have seen the shadow of rivalry at different stages of life. In school it appears as silent comparison and guarded notebooks. In adulthood it often appears in a more polished dress – labels, camps, whispered judgments, and the strange habit of describing people as “positive” or “negative” based on association rather than action. Yet the deeper one observes, the clearer it becomes that rivalry is rarely about the other person. It is usually about insecurity – a belief that respect, recognition, opportunities, or space is limited.
But meaningful work does not obey scarcity.
Knowledge does not become dirty because of where it is found. A book lying on a footpath does not lose its wisdom. A text kept for years on a shelf under dust does not become inferior because it waited in silence. A teacher speaking from a small room does not become less valuable than one speaking from a decorated stage. Platforms change. Posters change. Names on banners change. Knowledge remains knowledge.
That is why the idea of closing doors in the name of purity troubles me. Not because I need every door to be open, but because such a habit shrinks the community. It trains young minds to think in camps. It teaches them that learning depends on permission rather than sincerity. It suggests that wisdom is owned by groups, not earned by effort.
My message to readers, especially to younger colleagues, is simple.
Do not train your mind to search for rivals. Train it to search for meaning. Do not measure yourself by someone else’s lane. Choose your lane, walk steadily, and stay generous. Respect the other worker even if the method differs. Refuse the temptation to label people as unacceptable by association. Such labels shrink the heart, and a shrinking heart cannot carry a large mission.
A mission is not a battlefield. It is a responsibility. When you keep that perspective, there is nothing to rival. There is only work to be done – and many hands required to do it well.
Mission is above camps.
It is so important to think discuss n decide for the upliftment of Homoeopathy…
Thank you so much, Dr. Pankaj Aggarwal, for your thoughtful words.
I truly agree – it is important to think, discuss, and decide together for the upliftment of Homoeopathy.
I must also share this with gratitude: my early journey of moving between homeopathic associations in 1989 began with you and Late Dr. M.L. Agrawal Sir. Those early platforms, guidance, and values shaped my outlook of collaboration over camps.
Warm regards and sincere thanks.