Do we like Baba Ramdev?
Our score: 1 out of 10. A long run of his own harmful remarks about Muslims, gay people and medicine, with no verified good deeds found to set against it.
Ramdev is the yoga guru who built Patanjali Ayurved into a household name in India, and the company has spent much of the last few years in court. I couldn't open a proper profile of his upbringing, so that part of the story stays out rather than guessed. What the record does show is a man whose public voice has repeatedly outrun the facts.
In May 2021, at the height of Covid, he called allopathy “a stupid and bankrupt science” and claimed more people died from its treatment than from Covid itself. The Indian Medical Association served him a defamation notice, and he wrote to the health minister regretting the remarks. Doctors said the apology didn't last, because he criticised allopathy again the next day. In July 2024 the Delhi High Court ordered him to take down statements blaming modern medicine for Covid deaths and calling Coronil a cure.
The Supreme Court got involved after the IMA complained about Patanjali's ads attacking allopathy and claiming cures. In August 2024 it closed contempt proceedings against Ramdev, Acharya Balkrishna and the company, accepting their apology and a promise to stop misleading claims. The bench warned it would reopen the case if they broke that promise. It's a pattern of apologising when cornered.
Now the harm check. In April 2025 he put out a video urging Hindus to skip a rival drink, saying its profits built mosques and madrasas, and used the phrase 'sharbat jihad'. The Delhi High Court called the remarks “indefensible”. He undertook to remove the ads, the court closed Hamdard's suit in May 2025, and reports say he later posted another video against the product despite that undertaking. Back in 2009 he told the Indian Express that homosexuality, which he called a “disease”, could be treated with yoga. In 2022 he apologised after a notice over comments about women at an event in Thane.
The latest stoush is small beer by comparison. Asked about Kangana Ranaut's 'Generation Gutter' comment, he questioned her background and mindset, and she fired back on Instagram, citing the Supreme Court's 2024 action against him. In 2024 a viral video also had critics saying he demeaned OBCs. He said he'd said 'Owaisi' and not 'OBC', and that he was misheard.
The good stuff is thin on the page. His Patanjali business and yoga fame are real, and Patanjali does run camps and programs. But I didn't open a source that verifies any, so I'm not counting them. The most I can say is that when courts leaned on him, the content came down.