Bharat, coloured image of image Hindu god added to modified logo of NMC

The move has sparked a controversy with critics saying the country’s top medical regulator had abandoned the Lion Capital

The National Medical Commission (NMC) has modified its official logo, replacing the word “India’ with “Bharat” and adding a colour image of the god of Ayurveda, Dhanwantari.

The National Medical Commission has modified its official logo, replacing the word “India’ with “Bharat” and adding a colour image of the god of Ayurveda, Dhanwantari (HT)

The move has sparked a controversy with critics saying the country’s top medical regulator had abandoned the Lion Capital -- which was sometimes used as a representative image for the commission -- and added a religious figure to the logo. But NMC defended itself, saying that a black-and-white sketch of Dhanwantari was already part of its old logo.

“There is nothing to sensationalise here as nothing has been significantly changed. The image of Dhanwantari was already in the logo but in the form of a black and white line diagram. All members unanimously decided that colour should be added to the image as black and white image was not printable. When NMC was formed, it was decided then to use Dhanwantari’s image in the logo. Apollo is the god of healing in some other country and Dhanwantari is the god of health and healing in India,” said BN Gangadhar, the officiating chairman of NMC.

He acknowledged that India had been changed to Bharat.

“The name Bharat, however, has been added instead of India but that is because the country has done so. There is no other reason behind doing so,” he said.

But the changes continued to spark a row, with a section of medicine practitioners asking for an image driven by ‘science and rationality’.

“The National Medical Commission of India, the apex “scientific” body that regulates medical education and medical professionals has silently dropped the Ashoka State Emblem from its logo, replacing it with an image of the Hindu God Dhanvantri, the embodiment of pseudoscientific Ayurveda,” wrote hepatologist Cyriac Abby Philips, who runs the handle @theliverdr on X.

Earlier this week, the Union health ministry announced that the Ayushman Bharat health and wellness centres had been renamed to Ayushman Arogya Mandir with the tagline ‘Arogyam Parmam Dhanam (translation)’. It also sparked a controversy.